By Mike Barber, Daily News-Record
For the first time since 1998, the Old Dominion Athletic Conference preseason men�s basketball poll lists Eastern Mennonite University ahead of Bridgewater College. So are they celebrating in Park View?
Not exactly.
EMU coach Kirby Dean posted the poll in the team�s locker room along with a message: "Last time I checked, fifth was still the fourth loser."
The fifth-place finish is the Royals� highest projection since the poll began in 1992.
Kirby Dean "I don�t think it means anything at this point," Dean said Thursday after practice. "If come the end of the year we�re ahead of them, then it means something. � Is the potential there for us to do some things that we haven�t maybe done in a long time? Sure it is. But we need a few things to happen for us."
A lot of what needs to happen for the Royals has to happen off the basketball court � in the classroom and in the training room.
Dean said two key players are in questionable academic standing and he hasn�t decided if he�ll let them play this year.
"I have two kids that are still toeing the line, kind of in a gray area academically," Dean said. "I have two kids in that boat that I�ll make a decision on next week."
EMU also has two players � E.J. Arrington and Corey Bailey � coming off knee surgery. Dean said neither is close to 100 percent yet in their recovery.
"That�s four pretty important parts," Dean said.
Eastern Mennonite finished 12-13 overall and 8-10 in the 10-team ODAC last season, tying for seventh.
BC, 17-9 overall and 12-6 in the ODAC last year, was picked to finish seventh this winter.
The Eagles have perennially been the stronger of the teams in this backyard rivalry. They�ve won 18 straight from the Royals, and while EMU was thrilled with its first appearance in the ODAC tournament in five seasons last year, BC hasn�t missed the event since 1998.
This season, both EMU and Bridgewater will be chasing defending league champion Virginia Wesleyan. Wesleyan was picked first in Thursday�s poll, followed by Randolph-Macon and Hampden-Sydney.
Roanoke, by a margin of one point, was one spot ahead of EMU in fourth.
"It�s good to be picked fifth, but we still haven�t proved anything to anybody," EMU forward Jason Sager said.
Sager had Player of the Year-type numbers last season, ranking second in the ODAC with 19.5 points and 10.1 rebounds per game. But this season, with the continued emergence of Brad Parkes and Korey Whiting, Sager might not get as gaudy statistics, something he said he�s fine with.
"If they need me to get 15 rebounds, then I�ll get 15 rebounds," Sager said. "If they need me to get 25 points, I�ll get 25 points. I�m going to do whatever I have to to help the team win."
The Royals didn�t lose any key contributors from last year�s team. Down the road in Bridgewater, the Eagles only wish that were the case.
BC lost six seniors including the ODAC�s leading scorer last season, Ricky Easterling. That�s why league coaches picked the Eagles ahead of only Lynchburg, Emory & Henry and Washington & Lee.
"I really thought we�d be lower than that," BC coach Bill Leatherman said. "I thought we could�ve been eighth or ninth. You just can�t lose that many people. Realistically, you only have three guys who played any appreciable minutes back. How quickly will they pick up on things? We�ll have to. We�ll have to pick up on things very quickly or we�ll be left in the dust."
Leatherman, beginning his 21st season as BC�s tenured coach, has a team loaded with front-court players and potentially influential transfers.
Senior forward Clay Michael will be the focal point of BC�s low-post attack, along with fellow senior Zach Butler and Division I transfer Josh Fox. Fox, an all-state performer for Riverheads High School, made the all-freshmen team as a rookie in the Big South for Radford.
Where BC could be shaky is at guard, where sharpshooting Josh Maupin may be asked to play the point until freshman Chris Cecil is ready.
The Eagles also added Andrew Cathlin, a transfer from Walla Walla, and Ryan Glover, who averaged just over five minutes while playing in 11 games for Virginia Wesleyan last year.
But Leatherman, a cagey veteran coach whose teams routinely rank highly in field-goal percentage, doesn�t mind being the underdog.
"Some of my better years have been years like this," Leatherman said.