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

[PointGuard]

Game #17: Jan. 12, 2014; Houston Baptist Huskies (7-9, 1-2)CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (11-5, 2-1)

Our defense allowed us to pull away from the Huskies in the first half and take a 33-26 lead to the locker room. We held them to 33% shooting and forced 9 turnovers. We hit 45% of our shots and made just 4 turnovers. Jerell Brown’s 11 points led our scoring.

We came out sluggishly and let the Huskies pull ahead 43-42 midway through the 2nd half. That seemed to wake us up. We clamped down defensively, our offense began to click, and we quickly rallied to go ahead 56-45 with 6:41 remaining and never looked back.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-70, Houston Baptist-53. CSU Bakersfield season record: 12-5; Great West record: 3-1 (1st place tie).

Scoring leaders: Jrl Brown-25, Lyde-13, Pastner-11, Hill-8.

Rebound leaders: Lyde-7, Jrl Brown-7, Williams-5.

Assist leaders: Jrl Brown-3, Williams-3.

Player of the Game: SG Jerell Brown-25 pts, 7 reb, 3 assists, 2 steals.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: C Marcelle Pastner-11 pts, 4 reb.

Other notes: Our offensive spurt towards the end of the game improved our shooting to 47%. We held the Huskies to 34% shooting. We out-rebounded Houston Baptist 36-27 and held a 16-9 turnover advantage.

After the game, Justin Williams experienced back spasms. Medical evaluation later indicated he may miss 3 or 4 games. It's a tough decision as to who will replace him in the starting lineup.

[PointGuard]

Game #18: Jan. 15, 2014; CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (12-5, 3-1) at TX Pan American Broncos (7-10, 2-2)

TX Pan American played most all of their pre-conference games on the road. They have played just 5 home games, but have won them all.

We played sloppily and fell behind the Broncos 11-3 after 5 minutes of play. Before 8 minutes have been played, Ali Lyde, and Darius Dunn both have 2 fouls on them. We were flat throughout most all of the half and fell behind by as much as 10 points before rallying in the final minutes to cut the Broncos lead to 34-33 at the half. We hit 42% of our shots but let the Broncos score on 55% of their shots. We forced the Broncos to make 13 turnovers but made 9 ourselves.

Ali Lyde and Darius Dunn picked up their 3rd fouls in the first 1-1/2 minutes of the 2nd half. The refs continued to call fouls on us and not against the Broncos. I got a technical at the 12:55 mark. We again dropped behind by 10, but rallied again to tie the game at 55-55 with 8;25 to go. Ali Lyde picked up his 4th foul with 7:15 to play. The Broncos continued to pile up points at the line. We couldn’t compete with the Broncos and their ref friends.

Final Score: TX Pan American-71, CSU Bakersfield-64. CSU Bakersfield season record: 12-6; Great West record: 3-2 (3rd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Jrl Brown-24, Lyde-8, Dunn-8.

Rebound leaders: Jsh Brown-10, Jrl Brown-6.

Assist leaders: Kamara-3.

Player of the Game: TX Pan American’s C Kevin Sullivan-13 pts, 2 reb, 2 assists, 3 steals, 1 block.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: SG Jerell Brown-24 pts, 6 reb, 2 assists, 1 steal.

Other notes: The Broncos got 34 free throws (hitting 28 of them). We went to the line just 15 times (hitting 10). That 18 point difference was just too much to overcome. A horrible game.

[PointGuard]

Game #19: Jan. 19, 2014; New Jersey Tech Highlanders (10-8, 2-3) at CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (12-6, 3-2)

This is the only team in the conference we have yet to beat since I arrived here. Yes, we’re 0-5 against them.

We came out of the half with a 31-24 but it wasn’t easy. Both teams started slow and while we grabbed the lead, we struggled offensively. We surrendered the lead with about 6 minutes to go, but were able to use a 22-19 rebounding advantage and 9-5 turnover advantage to retake the lead and get a little breathing room at the end of the half. Ali Lyde scored 12 points and hauled down 11 rebounds as our only player who really played well.

New Jersey Tech scored the first 7 points of the 2nd half to tie the game 31-31 with 17 minutes to go. We had nothing but a continuing series of missed shots and turnovers allowing the Highlanders to take a 41-33 lead with 10:35 left...without even having to play well themselves. We let things go further downhill from there as our shooting simply sucked. We ended up scoring just 12 points in the 2nd half…an all-time low for us.

Final Score: New Jersey Tech-57, CSU Bakersfield-43. CSU Bakersfield season record: 12-7; Great West record: 3-3 (3rd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Lyde-16, Jrl Brown-9.

Rebound leaders: Lyde-14, Jrl Brown -6, Powers-5.

Assist leaders: Jsh Brown-3.

Player of the Game: New Jersey Tech’s SG Adam McLean-14 pt, 4 reb, 2 assists, 3 steals.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: PF Ali Lyde-16 pts, 14 reb, 1 steal.

Other notes: New Jersey Tech only hit 40% of their shots but that was more than enough since we hit just 29%. What a horrible effort. They also pulled down 41 rebounds to our 38. The only area we excelled was in turnovers where we had an 18-13 advantage. A strong double-double by Ali Lyde totally wasted. New Jersey Tech seems to just hold some magical power over us. What a disappointment it was to lose that home game.

[PointGuard]

Game #20: Jan. 23, 2014; CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (12-7, 3-3) at Seattle Redhawks (12-7, 5-1)

We journey north for a game against the conference leaders. Their SG Adam Givens is scoring 20.9 ppg.

The early part of the first half was a dog fight as both teams shot well. We were behind 25-24 and then Seattle reeled off 13 straight points as we went through one of our cold spells. Seattle ended the half hitting 62% of their FG attempts to our 46% plus were awarded 10 more free throw attempts and scored 8 more points from the line. We ended up on the short end of a lopsided 48-35 score. Adam Givens of Seattle scored 14 points, but the individual battle of SG’s was won by Jerell Brown who scored 18 for us. Unfortunately, no one else on our team was chipping in many points. That left a big hill to climb for us in the 2nd half.

We came out of the locker room with a fire in our eyes and closed the lead to 48-43 in less than 3 minutes of play. Even though the refs then decided to blow continuous whistles against us, the rally continued and we took the lead 52-51 with 12:20 remaining. At that point Seattle came roaring back to blow by us and take a 68-57 lead with 7 minutes to play. They held us off there on and we picked up our 3rd straight loss.

Final Score: Seattle-79, CSU Bakersfield-70. CSU Bakersfield season record: 12-8; Great West record: 3-4 (4th place tie).

Scoring leaders: Jrl Brown-35, Lyde-14.

Rebound leaders: Lyde-6, Jrl Brown-6.

Assist leaders: Kamara-8, Jsh Brown-4, Powers-3.

Player of the Game: Seattle’s SG Adam Givens-25 pts, 5 reb, 1 assist.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: Jerell Brown-35 pts, 6 reb, 1 assist, 2 steals.

Other notes: Our defense was terrible, as we allowed Seattle to drop in 51% of their shots. We hit 46% of ours so if we’d played our typical game defensively, we could have won this game. Again our opponents got 11 more free throw attempts and their 10 more points scored at the line were the difference in this game. We lost the rebounding battle31-26 but had a 22-15 advantage in turnovers.

[OOC: I’ve been saying I like DDSCB2 associations where it’s difficult to create quick success and making big improvements for a team is challenging. Well, after the latest 3 straight losses THIS association certainly is fulfilling that desire…LOL]

[PointGuard]

Game #21: Jan. 26, 2014; Utah Valley Wolverines (8-12, 3-4) at CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (12-8, 3-4)

Wahoo! The doctors have cleared Justin Williams to play tonight. While he’s not a big scorer this year, he is the team’s captain and a key part of our lineup, as evidenced by our 3 losses while he was injured. None of the 3 other players who filled in for him were able to pick up the slack.

When playing at Utah Valley earlier this year, we barely won 69-67 in OT, so we need to get back on track and play well tonight.

We hit 58% of our shots while Utah Valley only hit 39% of theirs in the 1st half, but we had just a 32-31 lead at the intermission. Jerell Brown’s 11 points were tops for us.

The score stayed close in the first portion of the 2nd half, but we then took control and pulled away for an easy win.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-70, Utah Valley-49. CSU Bakersfield season record: 13-8; Great West record: 4-4 (3rd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Jrl Brown-21, Dunn-11, Kamara-9, Lyde-9.

Rebound leaders: Williams-8, Lyde-5, Jrl Brown-5.

Assist leaders: Dunn-4, Kamara-3.

Player of the Game: SG Jerell Brown-21 pts, 5 reb, 1 assist, 1 block.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: PG Darius Dunn-11 pts, 1 reb, 4 assists.

Other notes: We hit 55% of our shots, Utah Valley hit 29%. We had a 37-28 rebounding advantage. Both teams made 14 turnovers. We played our entire bench.

[PointGuard]

Jan. 28, 2014: Both Jerell Brown and Ali Lyde were named quarterfinalists for the Norton Award.

[PointGuard]

Game #22: Jan. 30, 2014; CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (13-8, 4-4) at Chicago State Cougars (8-13, 3-5)

Chicago State has been a terrible team on the road but a great team at home, but they are a team we really need to beat tonight on their home court. We’re going to slow things up a bit tonight at the start and see if that helps us get some better looks at the basket.

We played very well in the early portion of the first half, hitting over 60% of our shots and building a 10 point lead, only to lose the shooting touch and toss the ball away to allow the Cougars to cut our lead to 4 points. We ended the half ahead 31-25, having hit 47% of our shots to Chicago State’s 30% shooting. We controlled the boards 21-14, but lost the turnover battle 10-6. Jerell Brown led our scoring with 8 points.

The 2nd half was pretty much a replay of the previous half. We held a 4 to 11 point lead throughout the half but made far too many turnovers which kept us in jeopardy.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-62, Chicago State-57. CSU Bakersfield season record: 14-8; Great West record: 5-4 (2nd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Lyde-15, Jrl Brown-13.

Rebound leaders: Jsh Brown-7, Lyde-7, Williams-7, Pastner-5.

Assist leaders: Hill-3, Dunn-3.

Player of the Game: PF Ali Lyde-15 pts, 7 reb, 1 assist, 1 block.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: C Josh Brown-4 pts, 7 reb, 2 assists, 1 assist.

Other notes: Our shooting dropped off in the 2nd half but we still outshot the Cougars, 44% to 28%. We held a 42-34 rebounding advantage, but made 17 turnovers to the Cougars 10. Chicago State hit 18 of 21 free throws, while our foul shooting was only 12 for 19. Again our defense won this game.

At first I thought our good shooting was due to slowing up our offense, but then our shooting dropped off to typical levels. I’m wondering if our large numbers of turnovers was in part caused by running a slower paced offense which meant more passing.

The Great West has become very competitive with all the teams’ conference records clustered. We are in a 3 way tie for 2nd place just one game behind Seattle.

[PointGuard]

Game #23: Feb. 2, 2014; North Dakota Fighting Sioux (11-11, 5-4) at CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (14-8, 5-4)

Herb Dahl, North Dakota’s SG, is averaging 21.6 ppg. Dahl has a sore hand, but still is likely to play extensively. We lost 62-53 playing on their home court earlier this year. They like to run a 2-3 zone and we tend to shoot poorly against that defense.

Both teams had a hard time getting the ball in the hoop (we hit 35%, North Dakota hit 31%) and the score remained close throughout the first half. We finished the half with a 33-30 lead. Jerell Brown’s 10 points were tops for us.
We increased our lead to 46-36 in the first 4 minutes of the 2nd half as we played aggressively on both ends of the court. Our lead ballooned to 17 but North Dakota cut our lead to 4 points before we pulled away a little at the end of the game.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-71, North Dakota-62. CSU Bakersfield season record: 15-8; Great West record: 6-4 (2nd place).

Scoring leaders: Jrl Brown-21, Williams-12, Lyde-11, Pastner-10.

Rebound leaders: Lyde-11, Williams-8, Jrl Brown-5.

Assist leaders: Kamara-5, Dunn-3, Pastner-3.

Player of the Game: SG Jerell Brown-21 pts, 5 reb, 2 assists, 1 steal.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: PF Ali Lyde-11 pts, 11 reb, 1 block.

Other notes: We held North Dakota’s shooting to 37%. We put in 44% of our shots. We grabbed 38 rebounds to the Fighting Sioux’ 35. We controlled the ball well making only 11 turnovers. North Dakota turned the ball over 13 times. Justin Williams had a strong game, scoring 12, pulling down 8 rebounds, dishing off 1 assist, and getting 1 block. North Dakota’s Herb Dahl was limited to 17 minutes of play and 8 points.

Surprisingly our RPI is now 85th best in the country.

[PointGuard]

Game #24: Feb. 6, 2014; CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (15-8, 6-4) at Houston Baptist Huskies (10-13, 4-6)

We beat Houston Baptist 70-53 when we played them earlier this year on our court. But we will have to play a very good game to win on their court.

We turned the ball over 6 times in the first 5 minutes which put us behind 11-5. Our play sucked through most of the half and we fell behind by 12 points, but then clamped down defensively and starting hitting some shots in the last part of the half to pull ahead at the end of the half 27-26. We turned the ball over 13 times and only forced 7 turnovers by the Huskies. But our shooting improved to 43% and Houston Baptist’s shooting declined to 38%. We held a 21-14 rebounding advantage. Jerell Brown hit for 9 points and Ali Lyde added 8.

The 2nd half went back and forth with each team having mini-runs that resulted in lead changes. The game was tied 51-51 with 2:52. The Huskies hit the first of a 1 and 1, then dropped a 3 on us to put us down 55-51 with 1:50 to go. Rashun Kamara hit a jumper to cut their lead to 2. After a Huskies turnover, we took a time out. We missed the driving jumper on a pick and roll. Houston Baptist them scored on a baseline jumper on which we were called for a foul. They converted the 3 point play to give them a 58-53 lead with just 55 seconds remaining. After another time out, our designed 3 point play failed to get Jerell Brown free, but he passed off to Justin Williams tough shot inside that dropped into make the score 58-55. We fouled one of their poorer foul shooters with 25 seconds on the clock. He missed both shots and we rebounded. We took a timeout with 20 seconds to play, again diagramming a 3 point shot. Jerell Brown got off a contested 3 that banged off the rim and we fouled with 7 seconds to play. Houston Baptist missed the first shot giving us hope, but then dropped in the 2nd to give them a 4 point lead. Darius Dunn hit a 3 from the head of the key, but was not fouled while shooting and we lost by one point.

Final Score: Houston Baptist-59, CSU Bakersfield-58. CSU Bakersfield season record: 15-9; Great West record: 6-5 (2nd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Kamura-15, Lyde-12, Jrl Brown-9, Jsnh Brown-8.

Rebound leaders: Lyde-8, Jsh Brown-6, Jrl Brown-6, Williams-5, Pastner-5.

Assist leaders: Jrl Brown-4.

Player of the Game: Houston Baptist’s PF Craig Hawkins-13 pts, 5 reb, 1 assist, 1 steal.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: PF Rashun Kamara-15 pts, 1 reb, 1 assist.

Other notes: Both teams hit 40% of their shots. We turned the ball over 17 times compared to the Huskies’ 12 turnovers. We held a 43-31 rebounding advantage. Houston Baptist got 10 more free throw attempts and scored 5 more points from the line than us.

[PointGuard]

Game #25: Feb. 9, 2014; TX Pan American Broncos (10-14, 5-6) at CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (15-9, 6-5)

We were beaten 71-64 by TX Pan American in our earlier game this year on their court.

Our offense clicked thoughout the 1st half. We hit 61% of our FG attempts. The Broncos hit 52% of their shots, but turned by ball over 10 times (to our 3) and pulled down just 8 rebounds compared to our 16. We expanded our lead throughout the half and were ahead 48-30 at the buzzer. Ali Lyde led our scoring with 11 points.

We continued to hammer the Broncos and expanded our lead to 76-46 with 5 minutes to play. We played the far end of our bench from there on. Our subs played well also.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-86, TX Pan American-54. CSU Bakersfield season record: 16-9; Great West record: 7-5 (2nd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Lyde-21, Jrl Brown-10, Powers-9, Hill-9, Waitre-8.

Rebound leaders: Lyde-8, Jrl Brown-8.

Assist leaders: Kamara-3.

Player of the Game: PF Ali Lyde-21 pts, 8 reb, 2 blocks.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: SG Jerell Brown-10 pts, 8 reb.

Other notes: We finished the game having hit 54% of our shots. We shut down the Broncos FG shooting in the 2nd half so that they finished hitting just 35% of their FG attempts. We dominated the boards 42-23. We made just 9 turnovers compared to 14 by the Broncos.