"We're going to full court press, run, and shoot a lot of 3s"

[TheShow23]

[color="Blue"][SIZE="5"]Recruiting[/SIZE][/color]

In a massive surprise the state of Delaware had four prospects ranked in the top 60 nationally, coming into my role as coach I was skeptical about the basketball talent the state produced. My staff and myself did recruited the local four harder than anyone, we did everything legally possible to get the kids to sing with us. They all visited our school but the top three immediately crossed us off their list, this left us to focus solely on Steve Lee and once he called me in September to let me know he was coming to UD our coaching staff popped a bottle of champaign as he secured our first major recruit. With the scholarships left we were able to sign a shooting guard from Maryland and a power forward from New York.




Delaware incoming recruits for the 2013-2014 Season



PF Steve Lee Georgetown, DE JC So 58 (A)


Overview: Will give us an inside force, very good rebounder. As a Juco he is ready to play immediately. 6-10 238 will be able to play power forward and center. Not going to be the savior of the program but will be an important player in our rebuilding efforts.



PF James Arden Port Jefferson, NY Fr 113 (B)


Overview: Another player which will help out our frontcourt, at 6-6 197 he is a bit undersized but makes out for a lack of size with good athletic ability and tenacity.



SG Donnie Watkins Bel Air, MD Fr 78 (C)


Overview: Like the guards I signed the previous season Watkins can shoot from three, can score in bunches. I like his offensive game but defensively he has potential to be a stopper, solid rebounding guard.

[TheShow23]

[SIZE="5"][color="Blue"]2012-2013 Delaware Roster[/color][/SIZE]

[color="Yellow"][SIZE="3"]Starters[/SIZE][/color]

#2 Chris Nelson 1.5/4 Fr. 6-3 193
#13 Donald Stuart 2.5/4 So. 6-3 216
#34 Raheem Archie 2/4 Jr. 6-8 238
#33 Walter Mann 2.5/2.5 Sr. 6-6 193
#43 Joe Cockle 3.5/3.5 Sr. 6-9 253


Overview: Starting a Freshman point guard will provide its ups and downs, Nelson will be a good player but the transition from high school to college will be a tough one. Stuart will be counted on to replace the scoring of Dampier, the frontline is more solid than spectacular with Cockle being the anchor in the middle.


[color="Yellow"][SIZE="3"]Starters[/SIZE][/color]

#14 Jeff Coursey 2.5/3.5 Sr. 6-0 170
#44 Donnell Gooden 3.5/4.0 Fr. RS 6-10 232
#22 Gerald Easley 1.5/2.5 Sr. 6-8 203
#45 Raymond Leonard 1.5/1.5 So. 6-8 217
#31 Mark Shell 1.5/3 So. 6-6 227
#10 Erik Nathaniel 0.5/1.5 So. 6-4 191
#25 Aaron Robinson 1.5/2 Sr. 6-6 192
#42 Jamison Wells 1.5/1.5 Jr. 6-8 233
#20 Mike Stallings 1/1.5 Fr. 6-3 216
#24 Luis McMillian 1/3.5 Fr. 6-6 206


Overview: The bench is not a strength so the rotation will be shortened, Coursey will be the main scoring option off the bench. Gooden put a lot of work in during the offseason and will be rewarded with good minutes. Leonard regressed, honestly he was a bit lazy and has lost his starting spot as a result. Stallings and McMillian will get redshirted.


[SIZE="3"]AD Expectations[/SIZE]

Win 10 Games
Don’t finish late in CAA

[TheShow23]

From the blog of Paul Marshall

"Coach Porter's inability to get in state recruits is the result of not paying attention to the state of Delaware, a lack of vision to sell to players, and not using his resources. The state of Delaware produced the greatest talent it has ever had, four prospects in the top 60 including three in the top 25. Coach Porter's decision to focus on other states instead of Delaware cost him a shot at getting program changing players. Steve Lee was his consolation, Lee is a good player but not the program changer that Coach Porter let slip through his grasp. My other major grip with Coach Porter and his recruiting efforts is he has not involved me and other prominent boosters in his efforts. We know the state of Delaware and its basketball landscape, for Coach Porter not to even use that valuable resource shows his naivety and inexperience as a coach."

Paul Marshall

[TheShow23]

November 2012


South Dakota 78-61
@Utah St. 74-82
Morgan St. 77-63
@Radford 57-68
Brown 68-55


Recap: We won our home games, lost our road games but with a young team that is to be expected. As the players mature hopefully we can improve on the road. I’ am not one for moral victories but in our road losses we stayed in the game until the final minutes. I liked our defensive efforts, 4 out of the 5 opponents were held under 70 points.


UD Record: 3-2



December 2012


@Nebraska 67-72
Elon 87-72
@Del St. *
@Evansville 71-68 OT
William & Mary 70-65
@Towson 74-57



[color="Blue"]Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens @ Delaware State Hornets


When I took the job one of the things I was told was “you must beat Del. State.” In recent years Delaware State has dominated the rivalry. The state of Delaware doesn’t have any pro teams so the colleges get a lot of coverage. Taking the trip down to Dover, Delaware I told the players the importance of beating your rival and they seemed focused. Fans of both teams were treating to good basketball, both team were playing a free flowing game which led to a lot of points. At halftime the game was tied at 41. The 2nd half continued in a similar manner, both teams went back and forth with the score tied at 82 with less than 15 seconds left. I told Nelson to hold the ball for the last shot, the play saw Stuart come off a screen for a mid-range jumper, his shot came off the rim but Gooden got a tip-in with 2 seconds left. A desperation three point went off the backboard as we escaped with an 84-82 win. Stuart led the way with 17 points, Nelson had 14 points and 5 assists, and Gooden scored 8 points and grabbed 11 rebounds.
[/color]



[color="Black"]Recap: December was a good month for us on the road; a 3-1 record was highlighted by close victories over Delaware State and Evansville in overtime. A 2-0 conference start has the staff and players feeling good, hopefully we will continue our good play in the New Year.



UD Record: 8-3 Overall 2-0 CAA
[/color]

[TheShow23]

January 2013

George Mason 78-71
@Northeastern 76-70
Drexel 53-73
@Hofstra 51-71
Old Dominion 75-84
Virginia Commonwealth 59-61
@William & Mary 64-76
@Georgia St. 62-66
James Madison 75-73


[color="Black"]Recap: Two wins to start the month had us at 4-0 in the CAA, a win over reigning league champion George Mason showed we could play with the big boys in our league. Then a cruel dose of CAA reality hit us as we went on a six game losing streak, VCU hit a last second three to win and we missed 12 free throws at Georgia State. The losing streak finally ended with a hard fought win over James Madison. With 11 wins we met one of the goals set by our AD and we exceeded our win total from the previous season.



UD Record 11-9 Overall 5-6 CAA
[/color]



February 2013


@UNC-Wilmington 69-83
Towson 95-94 OT
@George Mason 51-66
Northeastern 75-67
@Drexel 55-77
Hofstra* (20)
@ODU 78-64


[color="blue"]Hofstra Pride (20) at Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens


A game against a ranked opponent and being shown on ESPN U brought us a rare packed house, the student section known as the “**** Pit” had their blue and shirts on. Hofstra came into the game 1st place in the league with a 20-5 record, they beat us by 20 up in New York so payback was on our mind. Plus this is a rivalry from when both schools were a part of the America East Conference. Two made three pointers and two dunks put us out to a 10-0 lead which we never gave up. At the end of the game the **** Pit could be heard chanting overrated towards Hofstra, a 70-63 win had the student’s storm onto the court to celebrate with the players. Chris Nelson ran the show beautifully, 19 points, 8 assists and 5 rebounds. Nelson’s backcourt mate Donald Stuart had 13 points and Joe Cockle had 11 points.
[/color]


[color="Black"]Recap: The Hofstra win stands out, beating a ranked team and the top team in the CAA is a massive confidence boost. We were up and down but in winning our last two games we guarantee ourselves a winning season for the first time in a while.



UD Record 15-12 Overall 9-9 CAA
[/color]

[TheShow23]

[color="Black"]CAA Tournament[/color]



[color="Blue"]Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens (7) vs. Virginia Commonwealth University Rams (10)



The memory of the egg we laid in last season’s CAA Tournament was fresh in everyone’s mind, we were hungry to erase that memory with a quality performance. In our only meeting with VCU they beat us by two so the teams were evenly match. Before the game I told the players we were going against the grain and play a slower tempo, the strategy was to maximize possessions and get the best shots possible. Chris Nelson was masterful at controlling the tempo, we got every shot we wanted and when the game was over we shot 57% from the field in route to a 66-56 win. We were 7-16 from three point range and we had 23 assists as a team. Donald Stuart scored 22 points on 9-11 shooting while Nelson scored 9 points and dished out 5 assists.
[/color]

[TheShow23]

[color="Black"]CAA Tournament[/color]



[color="Blue"]Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens (7) vs. William & Mary Tribe (2)



Having split with William & Mary during the seasons gives players the sense we can pull an upset, in playing them and watching film I’ve realized they are not a great perimeter shooting team. Channeling my inner John Beilein we came out in a 1-3-1 zone which completely threw them off guard. They couldn’t make a shot and they couldn’t figure out the zone, we converted their misses into 14 first half fast break points. We took a 45-27 lead into the half, and didn’t let up as we coasted to an 80-61 victory. Defensively we forced 21 turnovers and held them for 38% shooting. Nelson was brilliant leading the way with 23 points on 10-13 shooting and dished out 6 assists, Stuart scored 15 points on 7-11 shooting, and Archie chipped in with 13 points.
[/color]

[TheShow23]

[color="Black"]CAA Tournament[/color]



[color="Blue"]Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens (7) vs. James Madison Dukes (11)



We lucked out in the sense that JMU knocked out the 3 seed in their previous game, despite them being an 11 seed we would not underestimate them. Against VCU I had the players slow the tempo down, against JMU we were going to run, run, and run some more. At halftime we were up 48-43 but I felt we were going to wear them out as JMU was not used to playing at this pace. As the second half went along the jumpers of JMU were getting short, they were tiring out and we were beating them up down low with the combination of Joe Cockle and Donnell Gooden. JMU were brave but in the end our tempo wore them out as we won 90-83. Gooden had a double-double scoring 19 and grabbing 11 boards, Cockle had 16 and 7. Off the bench Erik Nathaniel scored 12 points and handed out 8 assists, Gerald Easley scored 10 points, and Jeff Coursey scored 9 points.
[/color]

[TheShow23]

[color="Black"]CAA Tournament[/color]



[color="blue"]Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens (7) vs. Hofstra Pride (1) (20th Ranked Team)



Plain and simple, if we win we go to the NCAA Tournament. I knew the players were going to give everything they had but I also knew this would be our fourth game in four days so energy could be a problem. Early those fears proved to be false as we shot out to a 14-7 lead. Two 3’s from Archie pushed our lead to 25-12 with 6 minutes left in the half. Hofstra closed the half on a 14-7 run but we still went into the half with a 32-26 lead. Hofstra has two star guards in Craig Richardson and Norman Stokes, our guards did a defense job on them holding the pair scoreless in the 1st half. Hofstra began to chip away at the lead off of the foul line, I personally got frustrated as the refs were calling some “soft fouls” on our players. With 10 minutes left we held a 53-51 lead when Joe Cockle cleanly blocked a shot only to be called for a phantom foul which was his fourth. I blew up on the ref getting my first career technical foul in the process. The sequence did a few things, Gooden would be the normal sub for Cockle but he too was in foul trouble so I shifted to a 2-3 zone to overcome our lack of height. Richardson made the two technical foul shots, they made the two foul shots, and Stokes hit a 3 to put Hofstra up 58-53. A minute later Nelson got his 4th foul, so with 9 minutes left I had Nelson, Gooden, and Cockle on the bench with four fouls each. We clawed back and were down 72-69 with 54 seconds left, still in the zone to protect our players with four fouls we forced a bad shot . . . however the zone left us in bad rebounding position as Hofstra got the rebound. They would close on a 7 to 2 run to win 79-71. We held Richardson and Stokes to 3-16 shooting but we also turned the ball over 21 times and Hofstra went to the foul line 33 times compared to 18 for us. Stuart had 16 points and 6 rebounds while Archie scored 17 points hitting 5 3’s in the process.
[/color]

[TheShow23]

[color="Black"]NIT 1st Round[/color]



[color="Blue"]Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens at Eastern Illinois Panthers



Having played in the postseason NIT as a player I know a team will come out one of two ways, either the team will be extremely motivated to make a deep run or come out lackadaisical going through the motions. The players came out playing well, even took a 38-36 lead into halftime. In the 2nd half anything that could go wrong did, missed shots, turnovers, fouls. We were blitzed en route to an 83-62 loss. Stuart and Archie both had 11 points to lead the team. Despite the loss to end of the season as a team we exceeded expectations, almost got to the NCAA Tournament and made postseason play.
[/color]