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

[PointGuard]

Bree picked up a job at a mortgage company, so she’s been working the past 3 weeks. Sean hasn’t made any effort to find a job. We got him set up to attend AA. It’s been over a month since he arrived and Bree and I (and Mom and Pop via the phone) have been very happy that he’s been sober since arriving.

I get home very late after the loss to find Bree at wit’s end. She says that Sean left early in the evening and hasn’t come home. He doesn’t really have friends here in Bakersfield yet, so I begin visiting bars. After seeing far too many bars, I finally find him at one called “The Office”, sitting in the corner…or more accurately leaning over a table in the corner nursing I’m not sure which number beer of the night. I get into it with the bartender since it’s obvious Sean is way past drunk. After he threatens to call the cops, I decide I had better just be “my brother’s keeper” tonight, so drag him to the car and head home. When I get there, I find out Bree has been aware that he’s been missing his AA meetings the past couple weeks, but felt that he was making such good progress that maybe it wasn’t a problem…and I think she also had been afraid to tell me.

Knowing I have to travel to Chicago for our next game in a couple days, I spend the next day and finally get a friend from church to help Bree babysit Sean while I’m gone. This isn’t helping my game preparation, though.

[PointGuard]

Game #21: Jan. 26, 2013; CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (10-10, 4-3) at Chicago St. Cougars (9-11, 4-3)

Again we play a team with whom we’re tied in the standings.

In the first half we hit 61% of our shots, but again we were not awarded a single free throw while Chicago State got to the line 10 times. We held a 21-9 rebounding advantage, but turned the ball over 11 times (to the Cougars 5 turnovers). The half ended with us holding a 45-39 lead. Rashun Kamara hit 7 of 8 FG’s (and 4 of 4 three-point shots) to lead our scoring with 18 points.

We continued to play solid ball throughout the 2nd half and cruised to an easy road win.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-84, Chicago St.-64. CSU Bakersfield season record: 11-10; Great West record: 5-3 (2nd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Kamara-27, Brown-18, Willliams-11.

Rebound leaders: Settles-10, Johnson-8, Chase-5.

Assist leaders: Hill-3, Kamara-3, Brown-3.

Player of the Game: PG Rashun Kamara-27 pts, 1 reb, 3 assists.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: SG Jerell Brown-18 pts, 1 reb, 3 assists, 4 steals.

Other notes: We dropped in 52% of our field goals attempts and 63% of our threes. We out-rebounded the Cougars 41-20. The only team statistic we didn’t control was turnovers since we made 20 to Chicago State’s 14. Rashun Kamara scored 27 points in 22 minutes of play off the bench.

[PointGuard]

On January 28, 2013 Jerell Brown was named a quarter-finalist for the Norton Award. He’s been named Great West Player of the Week 7 of the first 12 weeks and Great West Freshman of the Week 11 of the first 12 weeks.

[PointGuard]

PPG: Brown-20.8, Powers-6.2, Williams-5.9, Chase-5.4, Kamara-5.1, Johnson-4.8, Settles-4.7, Hill-4.6, Holmes-4.1, Rivera-2.2, Jones-2.2, Self-0.8, Galloway-0.4

RPG: Settles-5.6, Chase-4.3, Johnson-4.0, Brown-3.8, Williams-3.5, Rivera-2.6, Powers-2.1, Hill-1.9

APG: Hill-2.6, Holmes-2.6, Kamara-2.4, Brown-1.5, Johnson-1.4, Powers-0.8, Chase-0.8, Williams-0.7, Jones-0.7

SPG: Brown-2.3, Williams-0.9, Johnson-0.8, Chase-0.7, Hill-0.6, Powers-0.5, Rivera-0.5, Holmes-0.4, Settles-0.4

BPG: Hill-0.6, Chase-0.6, Johnson-0.4, Powers-0.2, Williams-0.2, Jones-0.1, Rivera-0.1, Settles-0.1

A/TO: Johnson-1.8, Holmes-1.5, Kamara-1.5, Jones-1.3, Rivera-1.1, Chase-0.9, Powers-0.9, Self-0.7

GS: Brown-21, Williams-21, Chase-21, Settles-15, Hill-13, Kamara-6, Johnson-6, Holmes-1, Powers-1

Min: Brown-30.1, Chase-22.9, Settles-21.8, Williams-21.6, Johnson-18.0, Hill-16.7, Powers-15.2, Rivera-13.2, Kamara-12.7, Holmes-12.5

[PointGuard]

Record: 11-10; Home Record: 4-4; Away Record: 7-6

Ranking: NR; RPI: 185

PPG: 66.3 (217th in nation); Opponents’ PPG: 65.5 (111th in nation)

APG: 14.9 (119th in nation); RPG: 31.5 (141st in nation); BPG: 2.5 (147th in nation); SPG: 7.7 (24th in nation); TOPG: 15.5 (288th in nation)

Our record at home is worse than on the road.

[PointGuard]

1. Georgia Tech (20-1)
2. Florida (19-4)
3. North Carolina (15-6)
4. Duke (17-6)
5. Georgetown (16-5)
6. Kentucky (16-4)
7. Kansas (15-4)
8. Michigan (19-4)
9. Wisconsin (19-5)
10. Iowa (18-3)

[Bryan Swartz]

Is the glass half empty or half full?

You have a winning road record, even better than your home mark!

[PointGuard]

LOL...yeah, but I think this is the first time I've had a team whose home record is not better than it's away record. Maybe my guys just prefer to be AWAY from Bakersfield...not all that unreasonable, I guess.

[PointGuard]

Funny thing is that this team is not zipping to the top, so it's just like I really want DDSCB2 play to go for me (not too easy, not overly successful). But then I get so competitive as "the coach" that I want my team to WIN, WIN, WIN.

Gotta step back every now and then and remember what it is I want and am trying to do with this association (which is NOT to create a team that never loses and wins the NCAA every year and for whom I can recruit whoever I want).

[PointGuard]

Game #22: Jan. 30, 2013; North Dakota Fighting Sioux (14-7, 7-1) at CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (11-10, 5-3)

We play the conference-leading North Dakota Fighting Sioux tonight. We got our butts kicked earlier this year by them, losing by 20 on their court. We need to get revenge, particularly if we want a chance at the conference championship. North Dakota’s SG Herb Dahl is averaging 20.3 ppg.

We fell behind 12-4 in the first 5 minutes as Herb Dahl scored 10 even though he was double teamed. Midway through the half we trailed 25-9 with North Dakota hitting 69% of their shots and we hitting 14% of ours. Our shooting improved a little at the end of the half, but we trailed 36-26 when the buzzer sounded. Andrew Powers led our scoring with 9 points. Herb Dahl simply decimated us with 19 points.

We scored 8 unanswered points in the first 1-1/2 minutes of the 2nd half to claw our way to within 2 points of the Fighting Sioux. With 16:30 remaining we tied the game at 38-38. We took our first lead with 15 minutes. While the lead fluxuated back and forth a few times, our defense continued to limit their scoring and we generally held a 2-6 point lead the next 11 minutes.

Jerell Brown hit a 12 foot jumper with 57 seconds left to put us ahead 68-65. Herb Dahl dropped in a 24-footer to tie the score with 44 seconds remaining. We called a time out to isolate Andrew Powers, who had hit 6 of 8 shots thus far. We couldn’t free him up and Brown’s shot was blocked, giving North Dakota the ball with 35 seconds to play. North Dakota missed a shot with 12 seconds to play and we called a time out. Carlos Holmes scored on a pick and roll with 6 seconds to go to give us a 70-68 lead. We harassed the Fighting Sioux as they brought the ball up court and they were unable to get off a shot.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-70, North Dakota-68. CSU Bakersfield season record: 12-10; Great West record: 6-3 (2nd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Powers-15, Chase-13, Settles-12, Brown-10.

Rebound leaders: Settles-9, Brown-6, Chase-5.

Assist leaders: Hill-5, Settles-3.

Player of the Game: C Mike Settles-13 pts, 9 reb, 3 assists, 1 steal.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: SG/SF Andrew Powers-15 pts, 3 reb, 2 assists.

Other notes: Our defense in the 2nd half reduced North Dakota’s shooting percentage for the game to 40% while we were able to increase ours to 44%. We had a 37-28 rebounding advantage, and both teams had 10 turnovers. North Dakota scored 4 more points from the line that we did. They also hit 12 three’s to our 6.

Herb Dahl scored 31 points for the Fighting Sioux.

With the win, we crept to within one game of North Dakota and remained in a tie with New Jersey Tech for 2nd place.