by Magic Bird » Sun Jan 13, 2019 10:21 pm
One of my assistants left a magazine from a major sports publication on my desk. It was flipped open to a section about the Patriot League. Apparently we've been picked to win the conference. Oh my! Talk about high expectations and putting a target on our backs. Colgate is expected to be our primary competition. The starting lineup the article's writers have projected for us is out of date, however. It's based on the lineup Lafayette had last year. Obviously the journalists who wrote the piece didn't do their homework. They should have interviewed me or one of my staff. I don't think we are the best team in the conference, and their erroneous knowledge of our team shows why I have little stock in their projections. The magazine also contained the preseason AP top 25 poll. Florida begins the season at #1; they are led by PF Reginald Hahn, who is the best freshman in the nation and is projected to be the top pick in next year's NBA draft.
11/13: Holy crap, we landed the long shot! Top 100 recruit Michael Kimbrough committed to Lafayette this week. What a recruiting coup for our small program! He's rated #65 right now.
Now I'm pumped for our first game of the season!
11/16: Lafayette (0-0) vs Bryant (0-0)
A few quick turnovers by us allowed the Bulldogs to get out to a 7-0 lead. I subbed out Shaun Lavin for Dennis Riley since Shaun was our main turnover culprit. The Bulldogs are shooting lights out! Our defense started getting their act together and turned Bryant over several times. Still Bryant continued to build their lead. We can't hit any shots tonight. I called a timeout to encourage the team to keep taking shots. We're good shooters, and eventually our shots will fall. The beatdown continued. We were down at the half 30-49. We turned the ball over 12 times, and shot only 3/13 from 3. Ugh. One bright spot is that Tyler Stanfield had 7 points in 9 minutes and hasn't missed a shot or turned the ball over. I tell the team to slow the pace down and look for good shot opportunities in the next half. We'll also try to double team their center, who led the Bulldogs in scoring.
Marcus Woods picked up his 3rd foul 1 minute into the 2nd half. Great. Bryant's center picked up his 3rd a minute later. I guess we're even. We whittled their lead to 9 (58-67) with 9 minutes left but the Bulldogs nailed a pair of threes to push the deficit back to 15. Their center has been sitting with 4 fouls now and their next best post player is exhausted, which bodes well for our frontcourt defense. I've been playing Dennis Riley at center for most of the half. Tyler Stanfield has been stellar, and with 3:38 to go the score was 72-76. With 34 seconds left we were down 83-84. Our interior defense has continued to keep Bryant from scoring at the basket but their guards have been drawing fouls and making free throws. Vegas Johnson hit two free throws with 24 seconds remaining to give us our first lead of the game, 85-84! Bryant called a timeout. Tim Stowers blocked Bulldogs forward Matt Everett on the ensuing possession and Bryant intentionally fouled us with 10 seconds left. Vegas made the first free throw, but missed the second! The Bulldogs attempted a three. They missed! They nabbed the offensive rebound! No! But they can't get a shot up in time. Leopards win! What a spectacular comeback! What an exhilarating season opener! Final score: 86-84 Lafayette!
Player of the Game: Tyler Stanfield (23 pts, 5 ast, 1 reb, 1 stl, 1 tov, 5/6 3pm/a, 9/11 fgm/a, 24 min)
Honorable Mentions: Starzee Reed (13 pts, 1 ast, 5 reb, 1 stl, 1 blk, 0 tov, 1 pfl, 6/7 fgm/a, 13 min), Vegas Johnson (12 pts, closed the game out at the free throw line), Dennis Riley (8 pts, 2 stl, 3 blk, 2pfl, played good defense against Bryant's big men)
Other Game Notes: We only made 10/31 threes, yet shot 51.6% overall and made 10/13 free throws. One significant factor in our comeback was that we only committed 3 turnovers in the second half.
11/19: Lafayette (1-0) @ North Alabama (0-1)
This is our first road game. Let's see what else we're made of.
We committed 4 fouls in the first 2 minutes. Tyler Stanfield picked up two, so he'll sit for the rest of the half. A minute later and Tim Stowers picked up his second. This is maddening. I tell our guys to be less intense on defense. Of course Shaun Lavin picks up 2 fouls over the next 15 seconds. GAAAAAHHHH! Timeout! I rant to the team, and tell them to be careful. If it happens again, I may rant at the refs for being too nitpicky. Our guys still need to play smart and avoid the ticky-tack fouls. And what's with no calls against the Lions at this point? With 16:08 remaining in the 1st, Marcus Woods notched his 2nd foul and I have four starters languishing on the bench in foul trouble. I needle the nearest official about it all. The good news is we're turning North Alabama over like a spitroast. At the 10:46 mark my backup PF Jerome Campbell earned his 2nd foul. I'm thin at PF and C so my only two choices are either to play someone with 2 fouls or to play nonfactor walk-on Tory Holbrook. Let's give Tory a chance to do something. At least we lead 19-11 thanks to easy scores from the Lions' 7 turnovers. From there North Alabama went on a 17-0 run to put us down 19-28 with 6:09 remaining. And you know what? Tory's done nothing but--you guessed it--pick up 2 fouls in that stretch. I'm subbing Tyler, Marcus, and Tim back in despite the foul trouble. Tyler will run the point since Vegas committed 3 turnovers during that awful stretch. A few minutes later Starzee Reed injured himself and won't be available for the rest of the game. I'm anxious about what the team's doctors will say; the injury looks bad but I don't know any details. At halftime we were down 34-46. The Lions took advantage of our foul trouble and found plenty of good shots.
We start the second half with the referees calling a pair of fouls on us. I argue with an official briefly but the negotiation is not tense. I'm going let my players play and go with the flow of the fouls. Four minutes into the half the officials call a pair of quickies on Dennis Riley. I yell at them. Over the next few minutes, the Lions go on another run, the refs call a few more fouls against my men, I let them know how I feel about it, and I give up. The officiating took us out of the game. If we had a rematch versus North Alabama with a different officiating crew I think Lafayette would win. North Alabama coasted to a 67-85 victory thanks to some 8 on 5. The refs tried to cover their tracks by calling a torrent of fouls against the Lions at the end of the game for a final foul count of 24 fouls against us to 21 fouls against them. The Lions attempted 25 free throws while we attempted 24 free throws. They also shot 63.8% to our 38.3% but the refs wouldn't let us play D, so North Alabama found many clean looks at the basket. We only had 12 turnovers while we forced 23 turnovers from the Lions. Usually a disparity like that would indicate a victory for us but again, the poor refereeing negated that advantage.
Normally I'm pretty lax even when the officiating is bad but I was quite excitable in this game. I was probably still giddy after our comeback victory over Bryant. On the other hand, the reffing was deplorable.
Player of the Game: North Alabama SG Dionne Smith (20 pts, 2 ast, 5 reb)
Leopards Honorable Mentions: Marcus Woods (13 pts, 3 ast, 2 reb, 5 stl, 0 tov)
It turns out Starzee Reed only twisted his ankle; he'll sit out of our next few games.
Earlier in the day, Michael Kimbrough signed his LOI to play for us. I hope he meets our minimum SAT score.
11/20: Hardly any centers are available to recruit, let alone decent ones. I'm expanding my search outside of the Atlantic East region.
11/23: Lafayette (1-1) vs Iona (1-0)
Let's avoid the unmitigated disaster from the last crock of rubbish (it wasn't a game, it was a load of...)
Our guards picked up a few early fouls. Iona's guards are fast and talented. The Gaels are hitting all of their shots. We're turning the ball over too much. With 5:48 remaining we trail 25-39 and put Iona in the double bonus. We've got to stop fouling, but Iona is more athletic than we are. It's not like last game where the refs were picking on us. Shortly after came a media timeout and I issued some minor adjustments to our style of play. We started hitting some threes and pulled within single digits by the end of the period. Halftime score: 41-48. Iona will probably hit their shots, but they are not taking care of the ball much better than we are. Even better news: due to foul trouble we were relying on our bench for most of the half. If Tyler and Francis start playing well in the 2nd, we could upset the better team.
Two down, 50-52, at 13:31. We're playing smart basketball, the Gaels are not. Tied at 57 with 10 minutes left. My players aren't shooting well, but Iona simply is not playing well. Good for us! A steal from Johnnie Long and the ensuing fastbreak led to Shaun Lavin making a thunderous dunk off Long's lob to give us the lead at the 7:53 mark. Go Leopards! From there we fumbled about so I called a timeout with 4:50 left to try to clear our heads. The game went back and forth, and we found ourselves down 73-76 with 7 seconds left and the ball. The Gaels blocked our previous three shot attempts. I call a timeout and draw up a play to get the ball to Tyler for a 3. My players go out and thoroughly botch up the play. We lose 73-76. I'm upset because this was a winnable game versus a better team and we collapsed down the stretch.
Player of the Game: Iona SF Voshon Lofton (14 pts, 2 ast, 13 reb, 1 blk, 3 stl)
Leopards Honorable Mentions: Marcus Woods (17 pts, 1 ast, 5 reb, 2 stl), Tim Stowers (15 pts, 1 ast, 5 reb, 1 blk, 1 stl), Vegas Johnson (7 pts, 6 ast, 3 reb, 2 stl, but 4 tov)
11/26: Lafayette (1-2) @ New Jersey Tech (0-4)
The NJIT Highlanders like to bang around inside. I'll try some of the tactics I used to stop Bryant from dominating in the paint. I'm also hoping we can lead at halftime for the first time this season.
The Highlanders came out hot (why do our opponents always seem to start hot from the field and 3?) and bombed a few threes. We were also careless with the ball at first. We started hitting our shots and gradually narrowed the double digit lead NJIT built near the beginning of the half. We entered halftime down 43-44 (Still down at halftime like always! Grrr...). I like our 9/13 3 point shooting and only 6 turnovers. NJIT has a massive rebounding edge, however. I don't like that we have 12 fouls right now. The Highlanders won the first half at the charity stripe.
Again we started the next half turning the ball over. NJIT PF Greg Stinson scored all of their points for the first 5 minutes. We've been double teaming him but it's not working well. We picked off a few of NJIT's passes for easy layups. NJIT called a timeout at 11:32 while we led 62-56. Their coach's words must have hit home because the Highlanders stormed back and we found ourselves fighting from behind every possession for the rest of the game. With 9 seconds left NJIT fouled. Johnnie Long hit both free throws to tie it up at 76. I called a pair of timeouts to sort out our defense. Greg Stinson hit a jumpshot and Vegas Johnson missed a last second heave. We lost another winnable game 76-78. I think I made a mistake as I should have had Tyler Stanfield bring the ball up instead of Vegas. Tyler is a much better 3 point shooter, therefore a heave by him would have had a higher chance of falling in than Vegas's heave.
Player of the Game: NJIT PF Greg Stinson (24 pts, 2 reb, 2 blk, 1 stl)
Leopards Honorable Mentions: Marcus Woods (25 pts, 5 reb, 1 blk, 1 stl), Johnnie Long (14 pts, 3 reb, 2 blk, 14 min)
11/27: Shaun Lavin's grades have improved significantly; he now boasts a 3.9 GPA! Congratulations to him for his academic dedication.
I'm going to change some of my strategies to optimize this year's team. We're going slow our pace of play down slightly (from 8 to 7), press less frequently (from 6 to 4), and soften up a little bit on defense (from 8 to 7). I've already experimented with these changes in our past couple of games and thought we played better with them. We're also starting to run our offensive sets more often. I want the team to use our offensive sets about 70%-80% of the time by the beginning of conference play. In addition to these adjustments, I'm going to substitute Tyler Stanfield with either Clint English or Sean Faye as soon as Tyler earns his first foul. I want Tyler available to play during the latter portion of first halves. One of my goals with these changes is to mitigate our foul troubles. Another goal is to ensure good shot selection from my team. I prefer for my teams to play at as fast a pace as possible without sacrificing much in quality of play, and the pace that I'm settling down to is the fastest pace that this team can consistently play well at.
While perusing team statistics across the nation, I observed that Lafayette ranks in the top ten in the nation in steals per game (11.0 spg, 5th best mark nationally) and opponent turnovers per game (18.8 topg, 8th best mark in the nation). I'm impressed! This is want I want to see from our defense! I doubt we will sustain these rates with the changes I'm instilling, but hopefully we will remain at least a top 25 team in these areas. On the opposite side we are the second worst rebounding team nationally, averaging only 24.5 rpg. We are actually in top half nationally in offensive rebounds per game, which means we are by far the worst defensive rebounding team in Division I. Oof, though this is somewhat expected.
11/30: Lafayette (1-3) vs Rider (0-4)
NJIT was also 0-4 when we faced them and we lost. Starzee Reed is back in the lineup tonight.
Broncs C Alan Smith is dominant tonight. Rider prefers to get him the ball. We start double teaming him. We hit a few shots and go on a run. At 14:55 Rider calls a timeout with the score at 14-7 favoring us. We start missing shots, but Rider isn't playing well and we are maintaining our lead. Rider takes the lead 24-26 at 6:11 and I call a timeout. My guys can't shoot tonight, though we are rebounding much better than usual. Alan Smith of Rider earned his 3rd foul with 4:32 remaining. The Broncs will have to rely on their perimeter scorers now. If we can start making shots, we should win this game. We finally take the lead again at 3:32 after Johnnie Long hit a 3. We end the half down 33-36 because we only shot 31.4% in the half. Otherwise my Leopards are outperforming the Broncs and playing decent ball.
Lafayette finally made some shots, and we pulled up 44-37 by 16:50. Tyler Stanfield was stellar to start the period, getting a few steals and scoring from all over the court. I bumped our defensive intensity and press frequency back up because I think the team is performing well in those areas tonight. We started turning it over late in the game, so I called a timeout and told the team not to be so careless. We may have a big lead, but don't get cocky. Despite lackluster shooting and the late game turnovers, our players outplayed the Broncs and we rolled to a 72-56 defeat of Rider.
Player of the Game: Tyler Stanfield (19 pts, 4 ast, 1 reb, 2 blk, 4 stl, 0 tov, 1 pfl, 3/4 3pm/a, 8/11 fgm/a)
Honorable Mentions: Marcus Woods (13 pts, 3 ast, 7 reb, 1 blk), Francis Cambridge (7 pts, 3 ast, 5 reb, 1 blk, 1 stl),
Tim Stowers (7 pts, 1 ast, 8 reb), Vegas Johnson (8 pts, 2 ast, 2 reb, 3 stl)