FEDORA

[PointGuard]

We have our first game of the season tomorrow. Practice in October and the first half of November proceeded smoothly. Although we all needed to get to know Coach Fed, Coach Snoddy, the practice coach, has been with us a couple years so that made things easier. While our new coach is sticking with the sets we used last season since most of us have gained familiarity with those, he’s added a 2nd halfcourt zone (2-3 zone) and a second full count (1-2-1-1) press zone. But I think it will be a while before we’re ready to spring those on our competition. He also put more emphasis during practice on being aggressive defensively, avoiding turnovers, and crashing the boards. As a senior I’m used to the lengthy fall practice in October and November, it’s a relief to be finally apply what we practiced into game situations and real opponents. Our first game will be at home against San Jose State.

Oh, yeah, I guess you might like to know who you’re talking with. I’m Craig Smith. I expected to be the starting PF but Coach Fed has switched me to C. While not starting there before I had played the position during games a little in previous seasons. Jason Vickers, a freshman, will start in my old PF position. Jason is coming along pretty well, but the rest of our freshman players probably won’t see that much action.

Speaking of freshman, we made then endure our frosh experience…wearing a costume throughout the day last Friday on campus and then to a party the team had that night. Jason was “Captain Hook”, Bart Rose, a SF, was a space cowboy, SG Ryan Taylor was cartoon character Robin from Teen Titans, and redshirt SF Ross Davis was Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury character from the Avengers. They were a hit around the campus and at our party.

[PointGuard]

Matt Heard, walkon SF:

The San Jose State Spartans visited us at SECU Arena for tonight’s game which is the first of the season for both teams. The Spartans are led by senior PF Kenneth Lucas. In the locker room Coach Aura told us a story about how nervous he was before his first college game that he puked in the locker room before he was able to get to the toilet and how the coach made him clean that whole section of the locker room so that he missed most of the warmups. His coach then told him to sit on the far end of the bench because he might not play, but then surprised him by quickly inserting him just 3 minutes into the game so that he never had a chance to let his nerves get the best of him. We were all yucking it up and went out onto the floor loose.

As one of the team’s 2 walkons, I am relegated to the far end of the bench. But I’m the team’s chief cheer leader from the bench. This is my 2nd year with the team as a walkon so I continually hope that we blow out the other team so I can get a few minutes of playing time at the end of the game.

We got off to a horrible start falling behind 14-2 as their 2-3 zone was giving us fits. So being loose didn’t help us. We also were whistled for 6 fouls in the first 4 minutes sending 2 of our starters on the bench with 2 fouls apiece. When a 3rd player joined them on the bench due to foul problems, it forced Coach Fed to wave players in and out of the lineup like a one-arm paperhanger. But we still slowly trimmed the Spartans lead, tying them at 25-25 when SF Bart Rose hit a 3 from the corner with a little under 9 minutes left in the half. It was a battle from there to the end of the half at which point the score was still knotted at 40-40.

We had a tough time scoring in the early going of the 2nd half. San Jose State held a small lead until SG Ryan Taylor drilled a 3 with 10-1/2 minutes to go to finally give us our first lead of the game at 49-47. Five minutes later we were ahead 61-50 and I was nearly hoarse from all the yelling I had been doing. The Spartans called a time out, and we then hit a dry spell, going scoreless for over 4 minutes. Meanwhile San Jose State scored the next 10 points and our lead was down to a single point with 58 seconds on the clock. Still we were unable to score and the Spartans had control of the ball with 28 seconds remaining. San Jose State called a time out, after which they hit a baseline jumper to pull ahead 62-61. We had 20 seconds to regain the lead. Coach Fed called a TO and set up a pick and roll. The Spartans broke that up but Ryan Holmes put up an 18 footer that fell cleanly through to put us up by a point. But there was still enough time for the Spartans final possession. Our defense kept them from getting the ball inside and forced a final 3 point attempt that was just off the mark. We escaped with a 63-62 victory. Coach Fed congratulated us in the locker room but told us we need to get a killer instinct when we have the lead and that we’re going to work hard in practice on going up against a 2-3 zone.

Led by the two Ryan’s (Holmes with 14 points and Taylor with 11 points), our bench scored 44 of our 63 points. Our bench outscored their bench 44 to 8. Our entire team was +8 in rebounds with Craig Smith hauling down 9 boards. Both teams hit 34% of their shots. Our starters knocked down just 5 of 24 shots. Ryan Holmes, who also had 4 rebounds and 4 assists to go along with his 14 points, was our Player of the Game.

Yeah, you guessed it. No minutes on the floor for me.

[PointGuard]

Mitchell Evans here. It’s rather embarrassing to tell you that Coach Fed pulled the starters aside before our next practice after our win and read us the riot act. He reminded us that the five of us only scored 19 points, that we hit just 21% of our shots and 13% of our 3’s, that our reserves had one more rebound than the 5 of us had. He said we needed to get our act together and play as a cohesive unit. He ended by telling us that he was going to start all 5 of us in the next game, but another subpar outing would mean some wholesale changes in the starting lineup. As SG my game stunk. I hit just 1 of 5 shots and scored just 3 points. So I’m definitely worried.

[PointGuard]

C Craig Smith:

A 2nd straight game against the Spartans, but this time instead of San Jose State it’s North Carolina-Greensboro on our court. They lost their opener 67-60 to Alabama State. PF Peter Brown and SG Aubrey Johnson both scored 17 points in that game.

After the chewing out we got from Coach Fed, we starters got off to a good start and opened a nice lead. We let the Spartans come back though and only led 36-35 at the break. But the starting 5 had scored 25 of our 36 points and Mitchell Evans accounted for 11 of those points plus grabbed 4 rebounds from his SG position. Since we hit less than 40% of our shots as a team, Coach was on us to set more screens to get some open shots in the 2nd half.

We stumbled out of the gate in the 2nd half and let NC-Greensboro score the first 7 points and 14 of the first 18. It took us 6-1/2 minutes to hit our first FG. Coach was steaming and brought on the bench. They did a good job of closing the gap and recapturing the lead with 10 minutes to go. When the starters came back on the court, our confidence had returned and we were able to begin pulling away. We finished with a 78-66 win.

Stats: both teams hit 43% of their shots; we were -3 in rebounds but +7 in turnovers. Our bench came on strong in the 2nd half and finished by combining to score 36 points in this game. We scored 30 points in the paint. SG Mitchell Evans 14 pts, 7 boards, 8 ast; PG Billy Thomas 11 pts, 4 ast; SF/SG Ryan Holmes 13 pts, PF/C Melvin Steele 9 pts. Offensively I didn’t do much, just 5 points, but had a solid defensive game holding Peter Brown to just 5 points and had 2 steals and a block. Mitchell Evans was our Player of the Game.

[PointGuard]

Michael Snoddy, 2nd assistant coach:

Damn! We just got the bad news confirming that starting PG Billy Thomas, who had a really good game, tore his MCL in the 2nd half. So he’ll miss the entire rest of this season and possibly some of next season. That’s a big blow. We can cover the position with Ryan Holmes and Matt Settles, but it means we will have a much shorter bench. With 4 straight road games coming up, we’ll definitely be stressed.

Billy was so excited to have become a starter and was really working hard to develop his skills at a position he hadn’t really played in the past. I feel bad for him and know he’s devastated.

Looks like Matt Settles will be starting at PG for now. We’re also going to have Melvin Steele start at C and move Craig Smith to his more normal PF position. That means Jason Vickers will drop out of the starting lineup for now, but he’ll still be getting a lot of playing time.

[Wayne23]

Ouch! Tough break, Coach.

[SouthernRebel]

ouch, that hurt

[PointGuard]

Matt Settles, PG:

Love going to NYC. Fun place. Wish Coach would give us more free time though.

Although I was sorry to see Billy the Kid (Thomas) get hurt, I am happy to be in the starting lineup. Gonna be tough though since I have to go up against Columbia’s top scorer, PG Josh Smith, who’s scored 15-24 points in each of the Lions 3 wins this season. Two of the Lions’ wins have been on the road so they sure ain’t no pushover and they’ve been averaging 68 ppg while only giving up 53 ppg.

Matt’s game thoughts:

1st half: Smith’s tough…put 7 points in against me in the first 5 minutes…Coach sat me and provided some advice. Refs were all over us but let the Lions get away with things. We hung with Columbia until the last 5 minutes of the half. Refs called 12 fouls on us and 4 on them giving them 11 more points from the line than us. We trailed 40-28. Smith had 10 for the Lions but Ryan Holmes and I had 5 points each going up against him. Coach told us to work the boards harder and then gave us all a pep talk and said he knew we would come back.

2nd half: We quickly cut their lead to 5, but refs continued to whistle us. Coach was all over ‘em and finally got T’d. We lost by 18, 75-57. We scored as many points from the field as the Lions but the freakin’ refs gave them 18 more points from the free throw line. Smith finished with 18 against us. I had 14 points, SG Ryan Taylor got 10. Coach gave me a pat on the back…said I played a great game. But losing ain’t fun.

[PointGuard]

Janeka Aura:

I was hired as an RN at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center (which is located in Towson) and am working in the ER. It’s huge medical complex. I’m loving it…it’s great to be back at work. There’s always something different and challenging when working in the ER. My schedule allows me to get home when Omari and Malik are getting out of school, and I then pick up Devany at pre-school. Since I head to work early in the morning, Frederick makes them breakfast and gets them off to school. My friend Rexa Cartwright is helping take care of the kids when Frederick travels with the team.

[PointGuard]

Michael Snoddy, 2nd assistant coach:

The Eastern Illinois Panthers have a 1-2 record but both losses were on the road and to good teams (Southern Illinois and Georgia Tech), so we’re going to have to play well to compete.

We were plagued by turnovers in the first half. But we shot well and forced the Panthers to make even more turnovers. We hounded them on defense and kept them from getting any open shots. Midway through the half we had opened an 18-4 lead. We continued to hit our shots and play solid defense and finished the half with a 40-18 lead. We outshot Eastern Illinois 63% to 22% and while we had 12 turnovers we caused the Panthers to turn the ball over 17 times. We also had a 16-10 rebounding advantage. Our only problem was that we had 4 players with 2 fouls apiece.

We held onto our large lead throughout the 2nd half as we continued to shoot and rebound well. The final score was 74-54 in our favor. Eric Shannon topped our scoring with 15 points. Craig Smith, Ryan Taylor, and Michael Steele each scored 10 points with Smith also picking of 10 rebounds. Matt Settles had 9 points and 5 assists. Other than making 20 turnovers, our guys played great to score a nice road win. We hit 55% of our shots, 50% of our 3’s, and were +13 in rebounds, and +3 in turnovers. This was the first game in which we shot well. Our record is now 3-1.