I'll Be a Son of a Shark

[Wayne23]

Man! That old if it weren't for bad luck thing is riding you hard!

[CoachC]

Not exactly a recipe for stopping a 3 game losing streak. Our first game with the Blue Hose was a classic where we lost 91-90. They couldn't stop Woodsie, we couldn't stop Crider. This time around with Sheals out we have one less body to throw against Crider, and it'll be an even bigger challenge.

The good news is Myers is finally healthy, and has looked good in practice.

The last time out we tried to go 1-3-1 against the Hose and their perimeter guys went nuts, especially Lyle who torched us for 18 points, mostly 3s against the zone. We'll try it again tonight, in order to try to protect our big men and hope their outside shooters are cold. Even in the zone it'll be really hard to slow down Crider, but hopefully we'll do a better job of keeping him off the stripe and protecting our big men.

We'll start Tyler Bonney tonight in place of O'Conner. Josh is going to HAVE to give us SOMETHING in this game though. I can only hope Crider comes down with foulitis.

At the 2nd media timout, our zone hasn't slowed down Crider much, but it's kept us out of major foul trouble and they've only hit 2 3s against it, so we'll stick to it for now as we are only down 1.

When Crider sits down at 8:59 we go man and breath a sigh of relief. He's already scored 11 against the zone but only Bonney has picked up a 2nd personal.

At 2:41, O'Conner who has been working hard at the offensive end tonight, finally draws a 2nd personal on Crider who stays in...how about number 3 before the half? We are still hanging in 27-29 despite some offensive struggles.

We struggle offensively in the first half, and Woods has been frustrated with just 4 points on 2/10 shooting. Crider is getting his points 13 but we've made him work for them and he's been part of Woods' frustrations at the other end, twice blocking his shot driving into the lane. Nobody else is really hurting us yet and we somehow manage to stay within 3 at the half, partly because O'Connor and Brown have combined to match Crider's 13 with 14 of their own. We've also turned them over 9 times with 6 steals. At halftime, I emphasize to them and to Woods to keep taking the ball to Crider. With some luck maybe he'll get his 3rd near the start of the half.

At 15:48 Crider is still piling on the points, but O'Conner has been as well with Crider having to let him get to the goal to avoid his 3rd personal. We are still hanging in down 45-47

at 11:27 despite shooting just 39.6% from the field and allowing them (and by them, I mean mostly Crider) to shoot 55.3% we have 4 point lead, thanks to some great offensive rebounding, and having turned them over 14 times.

I don't know what kind of voodoo the other teams in this conference use against Crider.. he's only averaging a little over 15ppg, but against us he scores at will every time we've played them in the last 2 years.

at 6:55 we are still hanging in up 2 60-58. When Crider is in we go zone, and when he's out we go man to try to shut up their talented freshman Lyle. Crider is now free to get up in O'Conner's face again on defense so we've had to look for other options.

at 3:49 we are up 3.

A Myer 3 at 1:25 makes it a 7 point game! Jackson misses a 3 and O'Conner grabs the rebound... I yell at them to slllllllllllllllooooooooooow it down

Myer's misses the front end of a 1 and bonus at :58, but it's still a 3 possession game. They call time and I yell at them over the crowd to get out on Lyle and don't worry about Crider, let him get the two if necessary but don't put him on the line. We'll use some token full court pressure as well to make them use some clock. They throw it out of bounds at :50. Hammer time! They foul Gilchrist at :45. He makes both freethrows for a pure 3 possession game. They miss another 3 at :25, and Moore rebounds...all over but the shouting now, and there's a lot of that. Myers gets an unmolested layup for the final score!

My God we needed this in the worst way. They outshoot us 52% to 43% and 32-30. But we turn them over 20 times and outscore them in transition 18-6. Amazingly they only outscore us in the paint 30-28 as O'Connor and Brown nearly match Crider's 23 with 22 of their own.

I asked O'Conner (16 pts, 8 rebs) what got into him. He said sheepishly, "Rob told me at our player's meeting that if I let Crider kick me around like last time, that he was gonna kick my ass. I believed him.. he was pissed." Damn, I'm gonna miss Woodsie after this season.

Woods himself had what was for him a hohum night with 15 pts, 2 asts, 6 rebs, and a steal but he was a vocal leader in the game and on the bench the whole contest. I believe he would have kicked Godzilla's ass too!

Myers had 14 points and 4 asts in 29 minutes. (SOOOO nice to finally have him back. You don't miss what you have until you don't have it.)

Kerr was hot in the first half then got into foul trouble but added 8 pts in 19 minutes.

Henry added 12 points in 21 minutes spelling Woods and Kerr.

Brown had 6 pts and 5 rebs. On any other night that would have been not worth mentioning maybe, but tonight it was big!

I'll give Moore credit for his 4 rebs and 2 steals as well, we needed the defense, and Gilchrist gets a pat on the back for his 4 points, 3asts, 1 st, and just one turn over in the 12 minutes he spelled Myers.

A happy locker room finally. I asked Rob later if he really planned to kick Godzilla's ass and he nodded solemnly. *Somebody had to. You couldn't do it without getting fired. Couldn't have done it alone though," he added cracking a smile. "Myers suggested that with Brown's help we might be able to dress him up in a giant size Camel suit and trip him on the quad for everyone to see."

Final happy score:
G-W 75 Presbyterian 64

[CoachC]

Jan 28: With Presybterian's loss and VMI's win over the Soup Spoons, the Keydets move into sole possession of first. We are in a 4 way tie for 6th.

My assistant in charge of scouting, David King, came up to me this morning and asked me if I knew why there was a Giant-size Camel suit in our weight room. I told him it was probably a prank by one of those idiots from Campbell.

[CoachC]

1/29

Bad news, although we knew it might happen. Although, Michael Moore was able to meet minimum NCAA standards with his test results, they weren't high enough for acceptance at G-W and we have to revoke his scholarship offer. If he elects to go to JUCO maybe we'll be able to bring him in a couple of years from now. I told him he was willing to accept an offer from a school with lower academic standards that I wished him well. If there's a school out there fortunate enough to sign him, he's going to be an outstanding point guard if they can keep him eligible.

That means we now must turn our attention to a couple of other point guards we've been pursuing. With Myers graduating, getting a decent point guard in is a must.

I note that we are now in the top ten nationally in both a/pg (8th) at 16.7, and s/pg (8th) at 8.4

Despite their loss to us, Presbyterian moved up a few notches in the RPI rankings to 58th. VMI is now at 62nd. We are a distant 3rd still in the conference with an RPI of 148.

[CoachC]

We took dispatched the Flames rather easily the first time around at our place. Time to go for the season sweep against one of the teams we are tied with in the log-jammed middle of the conference. Sheals still unable to practice. He'll probably be out for at least another week. Moore will start tonight.

10:23 Neither team can by a basket in the first 9 1/2 minutes of the game. We're 2/15, they are 1/11. We trail in this high scoring affair 7-8.

By halftime both teams "heat up". We're shooting a red-hot 37% they are shooting a red-warm 29%. At the half we lead 29-25. Meyers hit 3 3 pointers to lead us with 9. Woods has just 4 points on 2/10 shooting. O'Conner picked up 2 fouls in 4 minutes and sat the remainder of the half.

Somewhere just before the 12 minute media time out, we had several runouts off of steals by Tyler Bonney. That ignited our offense and we stayed hot. They stayed cold. We pulled away. And that's the name of that tune.

In the closing couple of minutes we cooled off a bit to a still very respectable 47.5 % for the game. They shot 33.9% for the game. And there's not much more to tell.

Myers had 16 pts 5 asts
Woods had 15 on an off night where he struggled.
O'Conner had 8 pts, 8 rebs in just 17 minutes because of early foul trouble.
Bonney didn't score a point, in fact didn't take a shot in 20 minutes, but his 5 asts 4 reb 5stl line was what ignited our offense

and a couple of guys from the cheap seats came in at just the right time in the 2nd half and with Bonney's help jumpstarted our offense: Tony Evans with 10 points in 17 minutes, and Porter with 9 pts, 3asts,3 rebs, and a steal in 16 minutes

Final:
G-W 70 Liberty 53

[CoachC]

Feb 1: With our win last night we move into sole possession of 5th place 1/2 game behind our next opponent Coastal Carolina

[CoachC]

A chance to pick up our 3rd straight, and more importantly the opportunity to leapfrog over another team in the standings and try to put some distance between ourselves and the bottom dwellers.

This is our only regular season meeting with the Big Blue Chickens this year. They were picked 2nd in the preseason polls and do have the talent to have done so, but thus far have been underachieving. Their only conference road win was in their last outing at NC Asheville in overtime. They have an extremely balance offense though which can sometimes be a nightmare to try to defend against. They are also an excellent rebounding team. Center Joe Richardson is currently 11th in the nation with 8.5/game.

Sheals has begun light workouts, but that's it. He's still not available and will not dress.

Moore and O'Connor get the starts tonight at the bigs.

Richardson picks up his 2nd personal at 16:50. That can only help.

Woods picks up his 2nd at 13:45. Rut Roh!

Richardson picks up his 3rd at 2:24. Since Woods picked up his second though they went to zone against us because O'Connor was walking all over them. Since then we've not only not been able to score, we've not been able to hang on to the ball. We need to finish strong and get some momentum going into the intermission.

We don't however and go into the locker room traling 27-38.

Frustrating final 12 or 13 minutes in the half as we could not solve the zone. Woods played just 7 minutes because of the foul situation and was scoreless which is never ever a good sign for us. We have to find a way to force them out of the zone in the 2nd half.

11:14: turnover turnover turnover. we can't get any momentum going because we turn the ball over as often as we shoot it. Down 17 now I tell them to give me another High Point. Woods is still scoreless and is frustrated. Everytime he's tried to drive the ball he's either had it rejected or been called for a charge and he's not been able to find his range on his jumper at all.

We were able to cut the lead to 11 but no further. 17 turnovers. i'll be seeing balls whizzing by my head in my sleep. They also shot 13 more freethrows than we did.

Woods finally found net with a couple of 3 balls, but had a horrendous night with 6 points and 5 turnovers

Myers had 10 points and 5 assists, but turned it over 4 times.

In an ironic twist the one guy that had a good night this time was Godzilla with 14 pts 6 rebs in 24 minutes. Maybe HE needs to be stuffing some people into a camel suit. I don't know what it is with this team. As soon as we get some momentum going and seem to be turning a corner, we have a clunker like this which makes you wonder how we EVER won a game.

Final nasty score:

CC 68 G-W 52

[PointGuard]

Keep battling, coach! Peak toward the end and win the conf tourny.

Too bad about the SAT scores on that one recruit. What's the minimum SAT score for G-W?

[CoachC]

880 PG, not all that high, but he only scored 840. Yep it would be nice to see us play our best ball at the end just like last season. Especially since our goal this year was to win the conference tournament... kinda dumb considering our other goal was still to just win 10 games lol

[CoachC]

Our only game against the Highlanders this season. Picked preseason to finish 9th they've been the most surprising team in the league and are in a tie for 3rd. They've been doing it primarily by going 10-1 at home their only home loss being to Mizzou. On paper their guard oriented team doesn't look like much and they are offensively challenged, but they've been getting the job done with tenacious defense, leading the conference in both defensive FG% and defensive 3pt%.

Sheals was cleared for full practice the last couple of days and is finally ready to go. That moves Brown back into the starting lineup at the 4.

We shoot very well in the first half as their stingy defense wasn't evident. Woods got his offensive groove back but picked up his 2nd personal near the end of the half, and Evans gave us a strong performance off the bench at both ends of the floor. We turned the ball over too much, however (mainly Bobby Henry who threw passes out of bounds 4 times). At halftime we lead 33-25

19:26 O'Connor picks up his 3rd, which is unfortunate because he's been horsing the boards in this one. At 17:13 Woods picks up his 3rd. Here we go again. We'll have to try to maintain our 13 pt lead for awhile with Rob and Godzilla both on the bench.

11:58 with the lead cut back to four time to bring back Woods and O'Conner. We'll try playing zone to give them some protection.

at 7:16 the lead is 5 but Woods is having trouble getting back into a rhythm after sitting so long.

O'Conner picks up his 4th at 5:50, and Kevin is restraining me from getting a T. The refs have helped them get back in this game, and officiating in the 2nd half has been ridiculous.

At the final media timeout the lead is 4 and Brown is at the line for 2. After a couple more turnovers allow the to tie the game, Evans scores on the baseline at 1:08 to break the tie. After their last time out Brown blocks a shot at :45 and grabs the rebound. Myers is fould at :35. In the double bonus he misses the first but hits the 2nd for a 3 point lead. They go inside for a 2 at :21. Myers fouled again at :14. He makes both this time and it's back to a 3 point lead. They miss a 3 at :05 and Brown rebounds. He outlets the ball and it's game over. We survive our foul problems for the win.

Being forced to play zone allows them to shoot too well down the stretch, as their point McArdle riddled it. Fortunately he had fouled out in the last 30 seconds.

We shoot 47.1 for the game, which is pretty good against this team, but they heat up against the zone and shoot 47.5. We outrebounded them soundly but our A/TO was lousy and we forced only 7 turnovers (a/to 9/15 for us, 14/7 for them..numbers like that usually get us beat)

Myers had a good game 14 pts, 5 asts.

Woods had 20, but only 2 pts in the last 17 minutes after picking up his 3rd foul. He only had 1 reb in the game, 0 asts and no steals, all of which are very unusual for him.

O'Connor was solid when not on the bench with foul trouble (9 pts, 8 rebs in 21 minutes.)

Brown and Sheals also made positive contributions. O'Connor, Brown, and SHeals combine for 19 pts, 20 rebounds which are numbers we can live with.

Tony Evans gave us a big lift off the bench with 11 pts,1 ast,5 rebs, and 2 steals. With Kerr also in foul trouble the entire game, Evans played 29 minutes in this one, which may have been his most important stat because he and Sheals were the only ones that really gave us anything off the bench in this one.

In any event it was nice to get out of here with a road win at a place no one else has been able to get one.

Final: G-W 76 Radford 73