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

[PointGuard]

CSU Bakersfield........11-2.....RPI: 13
Chicago State.............10-3.....RPI: 31
New Jersey Tech.........10-3.....RPI: 93
Seattle......................10-3.....RPI: 99
Houston Baptist...........7-6.....RPI: 164
Utah Valley.................7-6.....RPI: 174
North Dakota..............6-7.....RPI: 213
TX Pan American.........5-8.....RPI: 251

The teams in our conference played extremely well during the pre-conference period…a great improvement over previous years. This year 6 of the 8 teams have winning records and 4 teams not only have at least 10 wins thus far but all have RPI’s in the top 100. Chicago State has a win over #24 Washington in Seattle. New Jersey Tech has a win over Missouri. Seattle has played an easier schedule but they have had a stalwart defense in almost all of their games.

While we seem much stronger than last year, it is readily apparent that we are going to have to fight hard to win games in the Great West Conference this year. I call a team meeting and let the players know they absolutely cannot overlook any team and that they have to focus on preparing for each and every Great West team…as cliché as it sounds, we have to take these games one at a time and not look ahead on the schedule.

[PointGuard]

Game #14; Jan. 3, 2016: CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (11-2) at Chicago State Cougars (10-3)

Nothing like having to jump right into the deep end of the pool like we must do in our first conference game this year. Chicago State is greatly improved over last year. SG Gerald Woods is their primary offensive threat, scoring 14.3 ppg. They’re likely to throw a 1-2-2 zone defense against us for much of the game.

We maintained a very small lead throughout most of the first half, but then turned the ball over every time we got our hands on it at the end of the half allowing Chicago State some quick buckets. They took a 32-28 lead at the break. We made 12 turnovers! You better believe the team heard some hollering in the locker room about how they need to get their minds into the game and their hands on the ball. Our leading scorer was Marcus Evans with 9 points.

Our first two possessions of the 2nd half…yes…you guessed…two turnovers! That put Chicago State up by 8 points. Two more turnovers and we were down by 10 at the first media time out. Randy Durham and Jerell Brown earned a trip to the bench since they seemed incapable of making good passes. Since we also couldn’t hit our shots, we dropped behind by 17 and were down 49-34 at the 2nd media timeout. Things definitely were looking bleak since absolutely NO one was playing well. I don’t do much screaming, but they earned it during that timeout. I was hoping it would shake them up and get them untracked. At the next media timeout we trailed 51-35, so my screaming had only caused the players to shrink further into their shells. Nothing worked. We went down in flames.

Final Score: Chicago State-67, CSU Bakersfield-50. CSU Bakersfield season record: 11-3; Great West record: 0-1 (5th place tie).

Scoring leaders: Jrl Brown-16, Evans-12.

Rebound leaders: Jrl Brown-7, Pastner-6, Evans-5.

Assist leaders: Durham-6.

Player of the Game: Chicago State’s SG Gerald Woods-20 pts, 6 reb, 1 assist.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: C Marcelle Pastner-6 pts, 6 reb.

[I]Other notes: We shot horribly, 37%. Chicago State canned 50% of their FG attempts. Chicago State turned the ball over 14 times…but we turned it over 20 times. We held a 34-33 rebounding advantage, but that was of little consolation.

Marcelle Pastner’s knee was badly swollen after the game, so he will miss the next game.

[PointGuard]

Game #15; Jan. 6, 2016: New Jersey Tech Highlanders (11-3, 1-0) at CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (11-3, 0-1)

Freshman SG Darius Williams has played in only the last 3 Highlanders’ games, but he is scoring 23.7 ppg for New Jersey Tech and hitting 53% of his FG’s and 63% of his 3’s. It’s going to be difficult, but we need to control him.

The Highlanders turned the ball over on their first 3 possessions but we returned the favor by turning it over on 3 of our first 4 possessions. We then got our act together and seemed to be intent upon taking out the frustrations of our last game on New Jersey Tech. We dropped in 60% of our shots and ended up with just 4 turnovers compared to the Highlanders 12. We held New Jersey Tech to 23% shooting. We ran away to a 46-19 halftime lead. Awvee Calton caught fire and hit 6 of 6 FG’s and 4 of 5 FT’s for 16 first half points. Jerell Brown added 13 points. We kept Darius Williams from scoring.

New Jersey Tech played much better in the 2nd half and cut our lead a little but we pretty much held it at about 20 points most of the way. Awvee Calton played a fantastic game for us.

Final Score: CSU Bakersfield-81, New Jersey Tech-60. CSU Bakersfield season record: 12-3; Great West record: 1-1 (3rd place tie).

Scoring leaders: Calton-27, Jrl Brown-25, Durham-10.

Rebound leaders: Evans-7, Calton-6.

Assist leaders: Durham-6, Bryson-3, Curry-3.

Player of the Game: PF/C Awvee Calton-27 pts, 6 reb, 1 steal.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: SG Jerell Brown-25 pts, 1 reb, 2 assists, 1 steal.

[I]Other notes: We hit 57% of our shots; the Highlanders hit 40% of theirs. We held an 18-10 turnover advantage, but New Jersey Tech pulled down 28 rebounds to our 25. New Jersey Tech's Darius Williams scored 10 points, well below his season average. Awvee Calton completely dominated this game, hitting 11 of 13 FG’s and dropping in 5 of 6 FT’s. He played a great deal at center, rather than his normal PF position, and it seemed to be very natural to him.

We broke into one of the polls--#24 in the Media Poll. Our RPI also improved to 9th best in the country.

[CoachC]

Having a heckuva season. Can't believe it took you that long to get ranked with the non-conference schedule you had.

[PointGuard]

We're just a state school from a farm community in the middle of nowhere.

[Wayne23]

Aw shucks. That's right, lure them and then put the hammer down. UConn used that line for a long time but then they got too successful for it to work.

[CoachC]

May not work for much longer for UConn, no offense, but i think the handwriting is on the wall for pretend football teams in pretend football conferences.. the Catholic 7 breakoff i think will just be the tip of the iceberg

[Wayne23]

Zero interest in American football but yeah, it totally screwed up what was the best basketball conference EVER (at least if you're from the Northeast). What a shame.

[CoachC]

with barely a 3rd of all DI teams in the "bowl division" and maybe at most 20 teams that have even a remote chance at a mythical national championship I think the NCAA is going to get a comeuppance very soon. Of the 6 so called BCS leagues with automatic qualifiers, 2 of those conferences have about zero chance of every delivering a national championship, and 2 others have maybe 2 teams at best with a remote chance. That leaves the Big can't count to ten and the southeast cheaters conference ... everyone else is gonna follow the lead of the Catholic 7... away from the NCAA. Teams like TCU and Tulsa, who so desperately want someone to pretend they play football at the bowl division level will stick around at the further detriment of their other programs, but they'll deserve what they get.

[Wayne23]

The end of the NCAA could only be a good thing, but if the football powers run things that will only be worse. Oh well, it probably needs to get worse before it gets better.

At some point PG can have his thread back, right?