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

[CoachC]

PG, if you are getting a lot of fouls with your point guard in the 2-3, have you tried moving him to the other side of the zone? A lot of times i'll move my shooting guard to the point of the 1-3-1 for the same reason.

[Wayne23]

Now how would I move the PG to the other side of the zone? Never even considered the possibility.

[CoachC]

switch him defensively with the shooting guard.

[PointGuard]

Good idea, Coach!

[PointGuard]

Game #18: Jan. 16, 2013; Houston Baptist Huskies (8-9, 2-2) at CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (8-9, 2-2)

We’re tied for 4th place with the Huskies. Houston Baptist’s offense is fueled by their guards, both averaging in double figures. We’ll start out playing them straight up and see what happens.

Neither team scores in the first 3 minutes, but Jerell Brown opens the scoring with a beautiful 3 pointer. We shot horribly throughout the half, hitting just 31% of our shots. We’re lucky that the Huskies didn’t fare much better, hitting only 35% of theirs, so we were able to escape to the locker room with a 26-25 lead. The Huskies controlled the boards 25-17, but we forced them to make 11 turnovers while we only made 3. Our leading scorer was Jerell Brown with 12 points but he lofted up a boatload of shots to get those points.

Our defense held steady allowing us to jump out to a 10 point lead early in the 2nd half even though our shooting didn’t improve. We expanded our lead to 17 at the midpoint of the 2nd half. Our lead grew to as much as 22 before they hit a couple of 3’s at the end of the game.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-66, Houston Baptist-51. CSU Bakersfield season record: 9-9; Great West record: 3-2 (3rd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Brown-21, Kamara-10, Williams-10, Powers-9, Chase-9.

Rebound leaders: Chase-8, Settles-7.

Assist leaders: Powers-5, Kamara-3.

Player of the Game: SG Jerell Brown-21 pts, 3 reb, 1 steal.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: SF Justin Williams-10 pts, 6 reb, 2 assists, 2 steals, 1 block.

Other notes: Both teams only shot 37% from the field, but a 22-8 advantage on turnovers allowed up to take a lot more shots than the Huskies. We rebounded better in the 2nd half to cut the Huskies’ rebounding advantage to 36-35. While we won this home game easily, we need to play better, particularly improving our shot selection, if we are to win on the road.

[PointGuard]

Game #19: , 2013; CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (9-9, 3-2) at Seattle Redhawks (7-11, 1-4)

None of Seattle’s players are scoring in double figures but 4 of their starters are averaging between 8 and 9.5 ppg. The Redhawks primarily use a 3-2 zone which we’ve had problems with earlier this year.

We turned several Seattle turnovers into driving layups and dunks to spearhead our offense early and then we began hitting from outside to pull away to a 42-32 halftime lead. We outshot Seattle 50% to 40%. Jerell Brown was on fire, scoring 19 points.

We shredded Seattle’s defense to jump out to a 21 point lead in the first 3-1/2 minutes of the 2nd half. As the refs continued to call fouls on us but not against the Redhawks, I picked up a stupid technical, but allowing Seattle to close to within 16, but we pulled back to a 20 point lead. With 12-1/2 minutes left in the game, Jerell Brown was called for his 4th foul, thereby taking his 29 points to the bench. Johnny Chase joined him on the bench with 4 fouls a minute later. We continued to scorch the net and even after the Redhawks hit several 3’s in the last few minutes we cruised to an easy win.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-94, Seattle-79. CSU Bakersfield season record: 10-9; Great West record: 4-2 (2nd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Brown-33, Williams-12, Hill-8, Powers-8, Kamara-8.

Rebound leaders: Johnson-8, Settles-8.

Assist leaders: Kamara-8, Johnson-5.

Player of the Game: SG Jerell Brown-33 pts, 3 reb, 3 steals.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: PG Rashun Kamara-8 pts, 8 assists, 2 reb, 1 steal.

Other notes: In our most prolific offensive showing of the year, we hit 56% of our shots (including 53% of our 3’s), 100% of our free throws (we only got to the line 6 times), edged the Redhawks 34-33 in rebounds, and held a 16-12 turnover advantage. Jerell Brown had his high point game of the year.

[CoachC]

Looks like your season is starting to turn around!

[PointGuard]

Oh how I wish, coach!

[PointGuard]

Game #20: Jan. 23, 2013; New Jersey Tech Highlanders (12-7, 4-2) at CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (10-9, 4-2)

New Jersey Tech is the team we’re tied with for 2nd place.

The refs call 5 fouls against us in the first 2:50 of play sending 2 players to the bench with 2 fouls apiece. But Jerell Brown counteracted that by hitting his first 4 shots (including 2 three’s) to dump in 10 points allowing us to carve out a 16-5 lead in the first 5 minutes. We held a double digit lead through much of the half and seemed to have this one handled, but life (and basketball) doesn’t always work that well as our shooting went ice cold in the final 7 minutes. This along with the Highlanders getting 10 shots at the foul line (hitting 9 of them) while we got absolutely no foul shots allowed New Jersey Tech to pull into a 29-29 halftime tie. WFT! Jerell Brown's 15 points led our scoring.

We continued to toss up clunkers, and the Highlanders pulled away to a 9 point lead in the first 6 minutes of the 2nd half. We got within 2 with 3:19 left, but also picked up our 7th team foul (to just 3 for New Jersey Tech). We just couldn’t get over the hump and ended up losing a game we should have won at home.

Final Score: New Jersey Tech-64, CSU Bakersfield-57. CSU Bakersfield season record: 10-10; Great West record: 4-3 (3rd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Brown-27.

Rebound leaders: Williams-6, Brown-6, Chase-5, Settles-5.

Assist leaders: Holmes-5, Brown-4.

Player of the Game: New Jersey Tech’s PG Adam McLean-9 pts, 6 reb, 4 assists, 1 steal, 1 block.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: SG Jerell Brown-27 pts, 6 reb, 4 assists, 2 steals.

Other notes: The game was won by New Jersey Tech at the line. They scored 12 more points than us at the charity line. The refs called twice as many fouls against us as against the Highlanders. But also none of our players other than Jerell Brown stepped up to score many points, so I can’t blame everything on the officials.

[PointGuard]

I guess it's fortunate we still haven't created a big fan base because I think we would have had a revolt on our hands...losing at home to a team we ran away from early in the game. For the final 7 minutes of the first half and the first 6 minutes of the 2nd half, we just folded like a deck of cards.