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

[Wayne23]

Ambitious schedule!

[CoachC]

That's no lie!

[PointGuard]

I figure we should finish pre-conference play with a fairly decent RPI (unless we blow badly against some of these teams) and it also will prepare us to do well in the conference and also play better than we previously have in post-season tournaments (if we're lucky enough to get there). Playing Gonzaga (at Gonzaga) should be a real test, though.

[PointGuard]

Game #3; Nov. 22, 2015: Nebraska Cornhuskers (2-0) at CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (2-0)

Two fouls were assessed against Jerell Brown in the first 2-1/2 minutes of play. After watchin him go to the bench, our team then pulled together to score the next 11 points. We out-played Nebraska in every phase of the game in the 1st half, leaving the court with a 51-28 lead. We hit 66% of our shots to Nebraska’s 38%. We grabbed 15 boards to Nebraska’s 9. We forced Nebraska to make 12 turnovers while we made only 7. Marcus Evans led our scoring with 12 points.

We played sloppily in the 2nd half allowing Nebraska to cut our lead, but never closer than 12 points. We pulled away again towards the end of the half.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-82, Nebraska-56. CSU Bakersfield season record: 3-0.

Scoring leaders: Jrl Brown-20, Evans-15, Calton-8.

Rebound leaders: Jrl Brown-10, Calton-5.

Assist leaders: Durham-8, Bryson-3.

Player of the Game: SG Jerell Brown-20 pts, 10 reb,2 assists, 2 steals.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: PF Awvee Calton-8 pts, 5 reb, 2 steals, 1 block.

Other notes: Even though our shooting cooled in the 2nd half, we still hit 51% for the entire game. We held Nebraska’s shooting to 41%. We dominated the boards 36-25. We had trouble holding onto the ball in the 2nd half finishing with 15 turnovers, but forced the Cornhuskers to make 23 turnovers. Jerell Brown had a double-double (20 points and 10 rebounds).

During the latter stages of the game C.J. Galloway sprained his finger and will be out of action for 12 days.

[PointGuard]

Game #4; Nov. 25, 2015: CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (3-0) at Cincinnati Bearcats (1-1)

Cincinnati’s SF Ryab Willias is scoring 21.5 ppg. We’ll try to neutralize him.

We trailed 20-8 with 12 minutes to play in the first half as Cincinnati simply out-played us. At that point Jerell Brown took it in his own hands to try to get us back into the game. He scored 19 points, but Cincinnati continued to shoot well and finished the half ahead 43-34. The Bearcats hit 52% of their shots (to our 44% shooting) but were also aided by getting to the line 9 times (drilling 8 of those shots) while we did not get one free throw shot.

We played aggressively in the 2nd half and repeatedly cut their lead to 4, but were unable to close it further. Jerell Brown then hit a three with 8:20 to play to pull us within one at 60-59. With 6:15 to play, Awvee Calton intercepted a pass down low, tossed a quick outlet pass to Isaac Bryson for a driving layup to tie the game at 62-62. Then Bryson hit a 12 foot baseline jumper with 5:42 remaining to give us the lead 64-62. Cincinnati brought it up court and hit a three to recapture the lead. Marcelle Pastner’s 15 footer from the key put us ahead 66-65 with 5:10 left. Cincinnati stole a pass and pushed it quickly upcourt for a jam with 4-1/2 minutes to play. Awvee Pastner stepped in front of another pass from Cincinnati and tossed the resulting steal to Marcelle Pastner for a layup on the break to put us ahead 68-67 with just under 4 minutes on the clock. Pastner was fouled while in the act of shooting at the 3:25 mark and dropped in both shots putting us up 70-67. Isaac Bryson drove the lane and sank a 6 footer to give us a 5 point lead at the 2:45 mark. Cincinnati hit a jumper with 1:20 on the clock to make it 72-69. As we tried to run down the shot clock, the Bearcats stole a pass and slammed it home on a break to cut our lead to one with a minute to play. Randy Durham was fouled with 48 seconds to play, hitting both shots to make it 74-71. Cincinnati’s 3 point shot was off the rim, but they rebounded and put it back to make it 74-73 with 29 seconds to play. Cincinnati fouled Marcus Evans with 23 seconds remaining. He sank both free throws to extend our lead to 76-73. On the succeeding possess we would not allow a 3, but the Bearcats hit a 14 footer from the left of the key to make the score 76-75 with 11 seconds to go. We got it up court but they fouled with 6 ticks remaining. Michael Curry dropped in both shots. With only 3 fouls against us in the half, we fouled twice as Cincinnati tried to bring it out of the back court thus ending the game without letting them attempt a shot.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-78, Cincinnati-75. CSU Bakersfield season record: 4-0.

Scoring leaders: Jrl Brown-29, Calton-10, Durham-8, Pastner-8, Bryson-8.

Rebound leaders: Pastner-6, Durham-6, Evans-5, Saunders-5, Calton-5.

Assist leaders: Durham-6, Curry-5, Calton-3.

Player of the Game: SG Jerell Brown-29 pts, 3 reb, 2 assists,1 steal.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: C Marcelle Pastner-8 pts, 6 reb.

Other notes: Cincinnati hit 50% of their shots but we improved our shooting in the 2nd half to finish with 46% shooting. Turnovers were even at 15, but we won the game by controlling the boards 36-25. We also outscored them in the paint 32-20, on 2nd chance scoring (11-4), and on fast break points (14-12). We held Ryab Willias of Cincinnati to 8 points.

The team (along with me) was jazzed up about this come-back road victory and exciting ending.

Our RPI is now 13th best in the country.

[Wayne23]

Looking good, coach!

[PointGuard]

Game #5; Nov. 29, 2015: CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (4-0) at #25 Ohio State Buckeyes (4-1)

We play a ranked team in their home gym tonight. Ohio State has a nice inside-outside tandem in C Gareth Griffin (14.0 ppg) and SG Marlon King (18.5 ppg). I’m starting Awvee Calton at PF tonight for the first time. He’s been more productive thus far than Mitchell Jarmond.

The first portion of the 1st half went back and forth, but then we took control and moved out to an 18 point lead before Ohio State reeled us back a bit at the end of the half. We went to the locker room with a 43-29 lead. We hit 50% of our shots, but Ohio State knocked down 52% of theirs. We controlled the board though (23-13). Both teams played sloppily. We had 9 turnovers, the Buckeyes had 11. Our leading scorer was Marcus Evans with 9 points.

We took Ohio State apart in the 2nd half, building a 35 point lead. We playyed our deep reserves extensively.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-80, Ohio State-58. CSU Bakersfield season record: 5-0.

Scoring leaders: Jrl Brown-18, Evans-18, Calton-11, Durham-8.

Rebound leaders: Saunders-7, Calton-6, Jsh Brown-5.

Assist leaders: Jrl Brown-6, Durham-5, Evans-3.

Player of the Game: SG Jerell Brown-18 pts, 2 reb, 6 assists, 3 steals.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: SF/SG Marcus Evans-18 pts, 4 reb, 3 assists.

Other notes: We hit 50% of our FG attempts. Our defense in the 2nd half lowered the Buckeyes’ shooting for the game to 41%. We turned the ball over 14 times, but forced Ohio State to make 19 turnovers. But our main advantage was on the board where we held a 43-27 advantage. We had 36 points in the paint to Ohio State’s 20. We had 15 second chance points while the Buckeyes had only 9. And we had a 26-8 advantage in fast break points. Just a good overall beat-down of the #25 ranked Buckeyes.

[PointGuard]

Game #6; Dec. 2, 2015: CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (5-0) at Temple Owls (0-5)

We jumped out to an 11-2 lead and kept ahead throughout the first half by out-shooting Temple 51% to 41%, out-rebounding them 23-12, and maintaining a 7-4 turnover advantage. We left the court with a 44-32 lead. Jerell Brown scored 12 points to lead our scoring.

We came out cold and Temple was hot. They quickly pulled even with us at 49-49 with 13 minutes to play. Neither team could score for over 3 minutes, but we then began hitting our shots and pulled away again.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-67, Temple-58. CSU Bakersfield season record: 6-0.

Scoring leaders: Jrl Brown-18, Durham-17, Bryson-8.

Rebound leaders: Saunders-15, Jrl Brown-7, Jsh Brown-5.

Assist leaders: Durham-8, Evans-3, Jrl Brown-3.

Player of the Game: SG Jerell Brown-18 pts, 7 reb, 3 assists, 1 steal, 1 block.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: [/I]PG Randy Durham-17 pts, 4 reb,8 assists, 1 steal.

Other notes: We put 43% of our shots through the silk while Temple hit 39% of their shots. We out-rebounded the Owls 40-31. We held a 17-10 advantage in the turnover department. Dan Keams scored 23 points for Temple.

Our RPI rose to 9th best in the country.

We’ve held the opposition to less than 60 points in 5 of our first 6 games. Opponents are averaging 56.5 ppg which is 16th best in the nation.

[PointGuard]

Game #7; Dec. 6, 2015: Auburn Tigers (4-4) at CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (6-0)

Auburn has played two Miami’s (Miami of Ohio and Univ. of Miami) and two Washington’s (Univ. of Washington and George Washington) thus far this year. They also will play two Saints (they’ve already played St. John’s and have St. Joseph’s coming up). Their SG Jason Underwood is scoring 17.1 ppg but hasn’t hit a high percentage of his shots.

Jason Underwood blitzed us scoring 21 of Auburn’s first 24 points to give them a 10 point lead. Towards the end of the half we finally reduced their shooting from about 65% to 54% and we raised our shooting from 32% to 39%. We also forced the Tigers to make 11 turnovers while making just 4 ourselves (most of those in the early portion of the half). We narrowed Auburn’s lead to 40-37 at the break. Jerell Brown scored 12 and Randy Durham added 10 for us. But Jason Underwood’s 24 points nearly killed us.

Jerell Brown hit a 3 with 18:35 in the 2nd half to go to give us a 42-40 lead. We scored the first 9 points of the half to increase the difference to 46-40. Our lead was cut to one point with 6 minutes to play. We respond with tight defense the rest of the way and win going away.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-76, Auburn-64. CSU Bakersfield season record: 7-0.

Scoring leaders: Durham-23, Jrl Brown-19, Bryson-11, Evans-9.

Rebound leaders: Calton-8, Jrl Brown-7, Bryson-6.

Assist leaders: Durham-6, Jrl Brown-3.

Player of the Game: PG Randy Durham-23 pts, 4 reb, 6 assists, 1 steal, 1 block.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: SF Isaac Bryson-11 pts, 6 reb, 1 assist, 2 steals.

[I]Other notes: Auburn gave us all we could handle, but we won this game by forcing Auburn to turn the ball over 22 times whereas we made just 7. We also had a 36-33 rebounding advantage. But we needed all that to offset Auburn’s 44% to our 37% shooting. At the forefront of Auburns offense was Jason Underwood’s 32 points (including 8 for 15 from 3 point land) that constituted exactly ½ of the Tiger’s scoring.

[PointGuard]

Game #8; Dec. 9, 2015: CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (7-0) at Gonzaga Bulldogs (2-4)

The Zags haven’t been their usual selves thus far, but since they have only played one game at home before ours tonight, their record may be illusory of their actual talent and abilities.

The entire Gonzaga team was on fire, hitting shots from all over. Their fans really intimidated us early in the game. They held a double digit lead most of the half. They hit 54% of their shots plus the refs called us for 12 fouls giving Gonzaga 16 trips to the line. Of course, it didn’t help that we hit only 37% of our shots and were 0 for 7 from beyond the arc. We left the court trailing 40-30. Jerell Brown was our top scorer with 10 points. We need to dig in defensively in the 2nd half.

Gonzaga simply took us to school in the 2nd half. Their offense continued to put points on the board while their defense continued to shut us down. They pulled away and won easily.

Final Score: Gonzaga-74, CSU Bakersfield-56. CSU Bakersfield season record: 7-1.

Scoring leaders: Jrl Brown-15, Durham-10, Bryson-10.

Rebound leaders: Durham-8, Saunders-5.

Assist leaders: Durham-7.

Player of the Game: Gonzaga’s PG Shannon Bradley-23 pts, 1 reb, 4 assists, 3 steals.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: PG Randy Durham-10 pts, 8 reb, 7 assists, 2 blocks.

[I]Other notes: Gonzaga’s shooting cooled a little in the 2nd half, but they still finished the game hitting 48% of their shots (and 53% of their 3’s). They held us to 38% shooting (and 0 for 12 from 3 point distance).

The loss dropped our RPI to 29th in the nation.