I'll Be a Son of a Shark

[Wayne23]

Frustrating loss for sure.

[CoachC]

Back home for our final two conference games of the season. Jeffers can still barely bend his knee and his doubtful to see minutes tonight. Where are offense will come from is anybody's guess. Felts and O'Conner need to be on, and some help from Sanders and Battle would be greatly appreciated. Another crowd of 4000+ is on hand tonight.

Our offense was able to put up enough points in the first half without Jeffers. Godzilla was a juggernaut on the half court and we were able to generate enough transition offense off of 8 steals to supplement his efforts. Our half court defense was pretty shoddy though as we allowed them to shoot 56 percent from the field and at the half we have a slim 39-38 lead.

Unable to get consistent stops for most of the game, we had to rely on simply outscoring them. A tall order without Ike, but we rose to the challenge. Our 48.5% shooting was one of our best performances of the season, and we managed to get just enough stops down the stretch to hold on. We outscored them 36-24 in the paint, 15-9 on second chance points, and 20-13 on the break. We needed all those advantages to win.

O'Conner led us with 21 points but they bottled him up in the 2nd half.

Battle was having another poor performance in the first half, but after intermission when he started the half on the bench, he came alive with 16 points all in the 2nd half, along with 5 asts and 4 rebs. Finally he looked like the Chris Battle we got used to last season.

Felts also had a hot 2nd half and finished with 17 pts, 3 asts, 4 rebs and 2 stls.

Sanders rose to the occasion as well and added 14.

Moore had a rare off night and didn't supply much at either end.

Brown (9 rebs), Madison (5 asts), and Giesen (7 pts, 4 rebs, 2 stls) all gave us quality minutes off the bench.

Final:
G-W 80 Iowa 75

[CoachC]

Our final non-conference match-up and it's another tough one. The Utes rebound hard, and on offense like to run a lot of motion and work the ball into their big man Reis who is averaging over 15 pts a game. Godzilla needs to continue his recent excellent play in this one against one of the better big men we've seen all season. The Utes have been playing well lately and have won their last 3 including a win over 18th ranked Maryland. The good news for us is that Jeffers returned to practice the last couple of days and is good to go.

The Utes surprise us by coming out in a 1-3-1 zone and although we shot very very well against it (60%) for the half we turned the ball over 10 times mostly unforced. I picked up a T about midway through the half as the refs were being ridiculous. Still we lead at the half 32-27.

They stubbornly refused to leave the zone in the 2nd half and we continued to riddle it shooting 60.8 for the game. We have to work on our skip passes against the zone though because we had an alarmingly high 18 turnovers for the game mostly on passes sailing over someone's head and were a -6 on turnovers. a 31-18 margin on the boards while holding them to 39.7 shooting more than made up for it, however and we win easily.

Jeffers had 23 pts, 3 stls
Battle had 13 pts, 4 asts
Felts took just 5 shots in the game for 4 pts, but had 5 asts, 4 rebs.
Moore once again gave us a little of everything at both ends and filled up the stat sheet.
O'Conner showed maturity in this one with 7 pts, 9 rebs while helping hold Reis to just 4 pts, 2 rebs.

Brown (7 rebs), Sanders (7 pts, 3 rebs), White (6pts and a thunderous dunk),Crenshaw(4pts, 4asts in 8 minutes) all gave valuable minutes off the bench. Madison also played well in his 8 minutes (3 pts, 1 asts, 0 to).

Finishing up the non-conference schedule at 8-3 is very satisfactory given the quality of schedule we had this season. Still, we could have easily been 10-1, maybe even 11-0 as the Alabama game didn't get away from us til late.

Final:

G-W 73 Utah 52

[CoachC]

Dec 22: Godzilla accidentally stomped on Ike's left foot near the end of the game last night, and he's back to limping again. Fortunately, he'll have a nice holiday break to recover since we don't play our conference opener until New Year's Eve. We'll practice today and tomorrow before sending the guys home to their families until the 27th. Only Farrel from Utah is unable to get home, but team captain Josh Brown is taking him home with him to Burlington.

[CoachC]

Dec 30:

Non-conference records for the Big South:

Gardner-Webb 8-3 RPI 16
Liberty 8-3 RPI 34
VMI 8-3 RPI 71
High Point 8-3 RPI 93
Longwood 7-4 RPI 154
Campbell 6-5 RPI 229
Presbyterian 6-5 RPI 196
Coastal Car. 5-6 RPI 205
Winthrop 5-6 RPI 216
Charleston So. 4-7 RPI 269
NC Ashe 2-9 RPI 296
Radford 2-9 RPI 339

There obviously appears to be some separation between the top 4 and the rest of the pack, with the big surprises being VMI (picked 10th in the conference) and Liberty (picked 12 in the conference). You never know what might happen in conference play, but with our first opponent being Liberty, they have a chance to make a statement early.

[Wayne23]

Lookin' good, Coach.

[CoachC]

Thx, Wayne. The offense is starting to offend. I hope the trend continues.

[CoachC]

What a way to start the conference season, on the road against the red hot Flames who have won 6 in a row and 8 of 9. At least the students are on break, but they'll still have a nice crowd on hand. We'll have to play well to win.

Our offense was so-so in the first half but our defense was pitiful allowing them to shoot over 59% from the field and turning them over just 5 times. At the half we trail 44-36. Ever since we started shooting the ball better we've stopped playing defense.

Our defense is better in the 2nd half, but not good enough to prevent over time. At the end of regulation it's 72-72.

We fail to get enough stops in overtime. For the second straight game we have a negative TO differential 14-13 and we only managed 3 steals. Our defense in the first half dug us too big a hole. I have to give some credit to the Flames, because they are legitimately good, and did an outstanding job handling our traps. Our defense must be better than this however, period.

Moore had another sub-par game and their 4 McGadney hurt us as a result and scored 20. Moore is our defensive leader and in those rare games where he's not playing well, we usually don't play good team defense.

Battle had 7 pts, 8 asts, but turned the ball over 5 times.
Felts had a terrific game with 23 pts, 6 rebs and helped us get back in the game in the 2nd half.
Ike had 16 pts, 2 asts, 8 rebs, and 2 stls
Godzilla was terrific again with 17 pts, 11 rebs.

Brown (4pts, 4rebs), Sanders (7 pts, 5 rebs), and Madison (2 pts, 4 asts, 1 stl) gave us good minutes off the bench.

Not the start to the conference season we would have liked

Final:

G-W 78 Liberty 83 OT

[CoachC]

It's time for the offense and defense to start working together, right here, right now. With the students on break this will be our smallest crowd of the season, about 2900 expected. Still that's better than we've had at most of our games in the past.

To an extent we did play well at both ends of the court in the first half shooting 48.1 ourselves while holding them to 33.3 despite some might "mysterious" officiating that saw me get a T midway through the half, and required Kevin to use everything he had to restrain me from getting ejected a couple of minutes later. We still only turned them over 3 times on 1 steal, however. Why the Amoeba has suddenly been so unproductive puzzles me, although with the phantom whistles flying the way they did, we had to be less aggressive with the traps than usual.

We lead at the half, regardless, 39-29.

Even playing 7 on 5 the Bucs lacked the talent to avoid being blown out, as they were unable to take advantage of the frequent gifts the pretend refs were giving them.

The Amoeba was much more effective in the 2nd half as they turned the ball over 13 times on 6 steals in the 2nd frame.

Battle had 10 pts, but played just 9 minutes because of serious foul trouble.
O'Conner had his first game in quite a while where he he wasn't much of a factor scoring just 4 points in 14 minutes because of foul trouble as well.
Felts had 19 pts, 6 asts and 4 rebs, however
and
Jeffers 25 pts, 6 rebs.
Moore returned to form with 6 pts, 6 rebs and exceptional defense.

Brown (7 rebs), and Sanders (10 pts, 2 asts, 3 rebs, 3 stls) were the key contributors off the bench, but White, Giesen, Crenshaw, and James Farrell also played well in their minutes.

Final:

G-W 87 Charleston Southern 59

[CoachC]

On the road again against a team that figures to be a contender. Roy Jones may be gone but Ruben Hudson who is now their go to guy and is the 5th leading scorer in the nation at 24.6 pg. They've lost their first two contests vs VMI and on the road vs Coastal Carolina both of whom must also be considered contenders at this point. We've got to keep Hudson and check and do everything else well to come out of here with a victory.

Poor shooting first half (33%), but our defense and rebounding are good enough to give us a 33-29 lead at halftime.

We don't shoot any better in the 2nd half, and have to make a 5 point comeback in the closing minutes to take it to overtime. At the end of regulation it's 61-61.

In the 2nd OT we can't hold a 4 point lead with 38 secs left and it's double OT 68-68.

In the 2nd OT Battle misses a game winner at the buzzer after they hit a 3 to tie it at :08 and it's on to the 3rd OT 79-79

In the 3rd OT our defense comes up a crapper and unlike us they are able to hold their lead.

Poor shooting throughout is the biggest reason for us losing a game we could had and shoud have won. Very disappointing. Defensively we were pretty good until the 3rd OT. Hudson didn't make it to his average until the 3rd OT and wound up with 26. But our own inability to create any consistent offense did us in.

Jeffers had 23 points but shot just 9 for 29 from the field.

Godzilla was magnificent with 21 pts, 15 rebounds and it was his efforts in the last 5 minutes of regulation that let us get to the game to OT in the first place.

Battle had 16 pts, 3 asts, 5 rebs before fouling out at the end of the 3rd OT.

Felts had 8 pts, 6 asts, 3 rebs, 3 stls but also had a horrible shooting night (3-17)

Lack of production from the bench in a 3OT game hurt us as well. Only Brown (7 pts, 10 rebs) and Crenshaw(4 pts, 2 asts, 2 rebs) gave us anything.

Bottom line is we can't have Felts and Jeffers go a combined 12 for 46 from the field and expect to win.

Final:
G-W 81 HP 93 3OT