Philly Gym Rat (The Perry “QM” McMullin Story)

[PointGuard]

While not getting falling down drunk, Sean has been drinking every day. My talking to and at him isn’t helping. He fights going to church so no help there. AA attendance is hit and miss. He sometimes comes to our home games, but now it’s obvious he’s been drinking since his rooting has turned into loud and sometimes obnoxious yelling that is very noticeable over the cheers (and jeers) of our sparse crowds.

Sean does like animals, so we got a dog and he’s taking care of it (and doing a good job at that).

Meanwhile Bree wants to be her outgoing self and to socialize with friends. She has a big group of friends from work, church and the local neighborhood with whom she goes out frequently. Since she’s so young, this is only natural, but it means that she’s far less help with Sean than when she first arrived in California.

Sean is taking far too much of my time. Fortunately my assistant coaches are filling in ably since I have to spend a lot more time at home. Mom and Pop don’t know anything about the latest developments since there is nothing they can do and no need worrying them more.

[PointGuard]

Game #23: Feb. 2, 2013; CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (12-10, 6-3) at TX Pan American Broncos (5-17, 3-6)

Comparing the records, this would like an easy game for us, but this is an away game, and the Broncos beat us 78-69 earlier this year in OUR gym when they outplayed us in most every aspect of the game.

We broke out to a 11-2 lead, then increased the lead later in the half to as much as 16 points. The half ended with us leading 34-21. We forced the Broncos to make 15 turnovers while making just 6 ourselves. Jerell Brown dropped in 14 points to lead our offense.

We increased our lead to as much as 18 points in the 2nd half and were never seriously threatened even though the Broncos closed the gap toward the end of the game.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-65, TX Pan American-55. CSU Bakersfield season record: 13-10; Great West record: 7-3 (2nd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Brown-23, Settles-11, Kamara-9.

Rebound leaders: Brown-5.

Assist leaders: Kamara-6, Hill-3, Williams-3.

Player of the Game: SG Jerell Brown-23 pts, 5 reb, 2 assists, 1 steal.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: PG Rashun Kamara-9 pts, 3 reb, 6 assists, 2 steals.

Other notes: We were out-rebounded 39-23, but held a 27-13 turnover advantage. The Broncos outshot us 45% to 41%.

[CoachC]

wow, turned them over 27 times! Impressive! Your team seems to be moving in the right direction.

[PointGuard]

Buzz Thompson of KHTY, Fox Sports Radio 970 in Bakersfield, interviewing Coach Perry “QM” McMullin:

Buzz: Congratulations on the win tonight. The Roadrunners have won their last three games, including a thrilling win over conference-leading North Dakota. Are they now playing up to your expectations?

QM: I’m pleased with our play of late, but you have to remember North Dakota was playing here in Bakersfield when we beat them. And just before this recent 3 game win streak, we lost at home to New Jersey Tech. We need to be more dominant at home than we’ve been. Instead of worrying about getting into the NCAA Tournament, we need to focus on each and every opponent as they come along.

Buzz: Coach, you made it to the NCAA Tournament last year. Do you think the Roadrunners will repeat that accomplishment?

QM: I’d sure like to be able to say we definitely will, but this year’s team has far from dominated the opposition. In fact we’ve been extremely inconsistent. It’s often hard to know what team is going to show up on any given night. And with North Dakota and New Jersey Tech playing so well and some of the other teams in the Great West very able to play spoilers, I think we face a very tough uphill battle to get back to the Big Dance. We’d have to win the Big West Conference Tournament. No one is going to roll over for us.

Buzz: What do you think of freshman guard Jerell Brown’s play?

QM: Jerell is a fantastic player with great innate skills who works hard and learns quickly. He’s a joy to coach and to watch. But he’s so good that the rest of the team relies too heavily upon him. That is quite apparent just by looking at the stats. Jerell is scoring over 20 ppg but no other player is even close to having a double figures scoring average. This makes us extremely vulnerable. The team continues to look to Jerell to take the shot. That means he is forced to take some shots that are low percentage attempts. Even when we try to work the ball inside, too often the ball is kicked back out and goes back into Jerell’s hands. The other players need to step up a bit more offensively.

Buzz: With four games remaining, do you think you can overtake North Dakota to win the conference title this year?

QM: I think that’s going to be very difficult. North Dakota is playing so well without any let down. And don’t forget that New Jersey Tech is winning regularly as well. We have to play the Highlanders in their gym in the final game of the regular season, so that is a huge hurdle for us.

Buzz: Thanks Coach.

QM: Thank you, Buzz, it’s been a pleasure talking with you.

[PointGuard]

Game #24: Feb. 6, 2013; Utah Valley Wolverines (7-16, 2-8) at CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (13-10, 7-3)

Utah Valley is led by SF Bryan Boyce (13.3 ppg) and SG Matt Rosen (12.6 ppg). In our earlier meeting with them, we won 76-71 in overtime.

Both teams hit 52% in the first half, but we forced the Wolverines to make 14 turnovers while only committing 4 ourselves. We maintained a small lead early in the half but went on a run midway through the half that opened a 15 point lead. The half ended with us leading 45-31. Jerell Brown tossed in 23 points to lead our scoring.

Jerell Brown continued to pump in points leading our team to establish a 22 point lead. We held that type of lead until the final minute when the Wolverines hit two 3’s, but the result was never in doubt.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-79, Utah Valley-64. CSU Bakersfield season record: 14-10; Great West record: 8-3 (2nd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Brown-43, Powers-13.

Rebound leaders: Brown-7.

Assist leaders: Kamara-6, Chase-3.

Player of the Game: SG Jerell Brown-43 pts, 7 reb, 2 assists, 1 steal.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: SG/SF Andrew Powers-13 pts, 2 steals.

Other notes: This game was won by Jerell Brown’s best game of the year plus our defense forcing the Wolverines to make 25 turnovers.

We continue to remain one game behind conference leading North Dakota and tied with New Jersey Tech for 2nd place since they both won their games.

[PointGuard]

Game #25: Feb. 9, 2013; CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (14-10, 8-3) at Houston Baptist Huskies (12-12, 6-5)

We simply stunk the first 11 minutes of the first half. By then we were down 24-12 due to poor shooting, turnovers, and fouls. We applied a stingy defense that allowed us to get back into the game. When the buzzer sounded were trailed 33-27. We hit 36% of our shots while the Huskies knocked down 62% of theirs. We did make just 4 turnovers (none after the first 11 minutes) while causing the Huskies to turn the ball over 11 times. Kevin Hill had 6 points to lead our scoring. I tore into the guys at the half hoping to wake them up for the 2nd half.

We slowly clawed our way back into the game and finally tied it up at 47-47 with 9:34 remaining. That was the high point for us as it was all downhill from there...and a steep decline indeed. Everyone on our team sucked during those final 9-1/2 minutes.

Final Score: Houston Baptist-68, CSU Bakersfield-55. CSU Bakersfield season record: 14-11; Great West record: 8-4 (3rd place).

Scoring leaders: Brown-12, Hill-10, Chase-9.

Rebound leaders: Settles-5.

Assist leaders: Four players with 2 each.

Player of the Game: Houston Baptist’s PG Chris Myers-14 pts, 3 reb, 1 block.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: PG Kevin Hill-10 pts, 1 assist, 1 block.

Other notes: We hit 39%, the Huskies hit 50%. We hit only 19% of our 3’s while they hit 71%. We were out-rebounded 34-24. Turnovers were the only team stat for which we had an advantage, 20-12. A very disappointing performance by our entire team.

[PointGuard]

After enduring the blues resulting from the last time, we got the good news that Jerell Brown was named a semi-finalist for the Norton Award on February 11th.

[PointGuard]

Game #26: Feb. 13, 2013; Seattle Redhawks (9-16, 3-9) at CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (14-11, 8-4)

We jumped out to a 10-1 lead, but then let Seattle back in the game. While Seattle won the rebounding battle 20-12, they made 11 turnovers while we made just 4. We ended up finishing the half with a 32-26 lead. Jerell Brown poured in 14 points for us.

We fizzled in the 2nd half, letting them back into the game early in the half and then letting them run away with the game in the last part of the half. We lost to a bad team on our home court.

Final Score: Seattle-63, CSU Bakersfield-54. CSU Bakersfield season record: 14-12; Great West record: 8-5 (3rd place).

Scoring leaders: Brown-18, Hill-13, Settles-8.

Rebound leaders: Johnson-6, Chase-6, Settles-5.

Assist leaders: Hill-3, Williams-3.

Player of the Game: Seattle’s SG Ben Kellogg-16 pts, 7 reb, 2 assists, 2 steals.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: C Mike Settles-8 pts, 5 reb, 2 assists.

Other notes: Seattle outshot us 46% to 35% and out-rebounded us 37-29. We’ve now played back-to-back BAD games.

[PointGuard]

I’m desperate to get Sean doing SOMETHING. He needs a job. And I need to regain my focus on the team. I talk with a couple members of the Roadrunners Booster Club.

One is in the oil industry and has jobs, but many of the workers are hard drinkers, so THAT is NOT a good idea.

Another, Roy Olson, is a major dairy farmer in the area. After learning that Sean likes animals, he says that maybe he will like working on a farm. It’s a hard sale to Sean, but he finally agrees to give it a go. I have my doubts about a born-and-bred city boy fitting in on a farm. But hell, anything is better than having him sit around the house all day.

[PointGuard]

Game #27: Feb. 16, 2013; CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (14-12, 8-5) at New Jersey Tech Highlanders (17-9, 9-4)

With the way the team has been playing, I get the jitters about what will happen with each game we play. And this is a key game for us. New Jersey Tech has played well this year and holds a one game lead over us for 2nd place. They’ll be playing on their home court (where they’ve won 9 of 10 this year), and since this is their final home game of the season, I expect them to come out guns a-blazin’.

For us, a win will move us into a tie for 2nd place with New Jersey Tech, but a loss will leave us in 3rd (or worse still, if Houston Baptist wins their final regular season game, would drop us into a tie for 3rd place (and most likely a 4th place seed in the conference tournament). We lost to New Jersey Tech on our own court earlier this year, 64-57. While none of their starters stand out offensively, any one of them can lead their team on a given night.

The two teams played a nip and tuck game during the first portion of the 1st half. We led 17-15 then went ICE COLD and the Highlanders scored the next 21 points to take a 36-17 lead. Had I not been watching closely I would have guessed they welded a cover on our basket. We FINALLY hit a 3 with 20 seconds to go to finish the half in a 36-20 hole. We hit 24% of our shots and New Jersey Tech hit 37% of theirs. The Highlanders hit 13 of 14 free throws, we hit 1 of 1. New Jersey Tech out-rebounded us 25-13. Jerell Brown scored 9 of our 20 points.

We cut their lead to 7 points in the first 5 minutes of the 2nd half as we got our shooting eyes back. That was as close as we were to get since we couldn't sustain the run. The Highlanders re-opened a 15 point lead before we closed the gap slightly at the end of the game.

Final Score: New Jersey Tech-69, CSU Bakersfield-59. CSU Bakersfield season record: 14-13; Great West record: 8-6 (3rd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Brown-16, Jones-14, Hill-9.

Rebound leaders: Johnson-6, Settles-6.

Assist leaders: Hill-3.

Player of the Game: New Jersey Tech’s C J. R. Allen-14 pts, 8 reb, 2 assists.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: SF Jeremy Jones -14 pts, 3 reb.

Other notes: New Jersey Tech hit 42% of their shots. We made just 32% of ours. We were out-rebounded 42-29. The Highlanders had 13 more free throws and scored 12 more points from the line than we did.

We slide into the tie for 3rd place. We have exactly the same record as Houston Baptist and we split our two games with them, so I’m not sure if we with be the 3rd or 4th seed in the conference tourney.

On the flight back to the West Coast, I’m in a funk. Partly because of Sean, but also because we didn’t accomplish as much this year as I’d hoped. I’m disappointed that our conference record is the same as last year and that we only won 2 more games overall. But I then remembered that we only were able to recruit one player last year. Even though we got a great one in Jerell Brown, the rest of the overall talent level didn’t improve much.