I'll Be a Son of a Shark

[CoachC]

#1 DUKE W 60-44
The Blue Devils came in undefeated and with an average victory margin of 20 pts/g. It was a big defensive battle in the first half, and at the half the game was tied 19-19. Our defense was better than theirs in the 2nd half though, and we pounded the boards, as our superior depth wore them down as it has many teams. A ton of transition baskets midway through the frame allowed us to pull away for good.
POG: Matt Houston 14 pts, 6 rebs
Notable Lines:
Martin Ray 9 pts, 7 rebs, 2 blocks
Jon Angelli 9 pts, 8 rebs, 3 asts
Isaac Garren 13 pts.

@ (#25 in CNN/USA Today poll)Michigan W 70-62
Our defense not quite as good in this one as the Wolverines shot 49% from the field, but give them some of the credit. The fact that Travann Ohl was limited to just 13 minutes in this one because of flu symptoms was a factor as well. We shot 54% ourselves on the road, however and that was enough to get the win.
POG: Martin Ray 13 pts, 8 rebs, 2 asts, 1 block, 3 steals
Notable Lines:
Dominique Webster 14 pts, 4 asts
Matt Houston 14 pts, 3 asts, 3 stls
Jon Angelli 10 pts, 2 rebs, 5 asts, 5 stls

@ #13 Louisville W 61-47
Their first team all american Ron Johnson scored 20, but just 4 in the 2nd half as our ball denial was incredible, and he had very few touches. They had little else going on offensively and we steadily pulled away down the stretch.

POG: Travann Ohl 15 pts, 9 rebs, 2 asts, 2 blocks, 1 stl
Notable lines:
Martin Ray 8 pts, 8 rebs, 2 asts
Kendrick English 10 pts, 3 rebs, 4 stls and lock down defense on Johnson in the
2nd half


We finish the non-conference portion of the schedule 11-3, ranked #8 with an RPI of 5 and start conference play with a ton of momentum. Our defense is light years beyond where it was in November, and our offense continues to improve. We are able to go about 11 deep, and do with 10 players averaging double digit minutes, and are getting very consistent play from the starters and from the bench. Angelli and Houston have really acclimated to coming off the bench, so that when we sub we have very little letdown if any. Freshman Marlon Storey is coming along very nicely and almost always contributes. Our other freshman Nate Betts has had some real flashes, along with the occasional hiccups you expect from a freshman point guard. Lately minutes have been a lot more difficult for him to come by, but things bode well for the future with Nate at the helm.

The MWC is down this year, with only Air Force (85) finally without Paul Hines and UNLV (91) in the top 50# of DI in RPI. As a result it may be difficult to maintain our RPI, but we are picked to win the conference easily this year.

[Wayne23]

Nice close to pre-conf sched.!

[CoachC]

Through our first 4 conference games:

SAN DIEGO ST W 83-60
POG: Isaac Garren 17 pts, 2 stls
Notable Lines:
Travann Ohl 12 pts, 10 rebs, 2 blocks
Martin Ray 10 pts, 8 rebs
Matt Houston 13 pts, 3 rebs
Jon Angeli 10 pts, 5 rebs, 2 asts, 2 steals

@ Boise St. W 69-38
POG: Matt Houston 16 pts, 5 rebs, 3 stls
Notable Lines:
Travann Ohl 13 pts, 5 rebs
Martin Ray 10 pts, 6 rebs
Dominique Webster 4 pts, 7 assists

@ Wyoming W 79-59
POG: Matt Houston 16 pts, 4 rebs
Notable Lines:
Martin Ray 5 pts, 9 rebs, 2 blocks
Osei Petion 13 pts, 2 rebs in 16 minutes
Isaac Garren 10 pts

COLORADO ST. W 76-50
POG: Matt Houston 20 pts on 9/11 shooting
Notable Lines:
Martin Ray 7 pts, 7 rebs, 3 steals, 3 blocks
Dominique Webster 6 pts, 8 asts, 3 steals
Isaac Garren 16 pts, 2 rebs in 15 minutes

Every night everyone up and down the rotation does their job, we get balanced scoring, and with our top 8 or 9 guys it really doesn't matter much who is on the floor, their is no letdown. I honestly believe this is a a deeper more talented team than the one that won the national championship two years ago. We have a one game lead over TCU in first thus far.

We are now ranked #5 with an RPI of 3. Good enough for a 6 seed probably thus far :S

[CoachC]

through the first half of the conference season:

@Texas Christioan W 64-48
Beating TCU on the road gave us a 2 game lead in first and the hammer.
POG: Kendrick English 16 pts, 8 rebs, 2 stls
Kendrick's best effort of the season in a game where Ray was subpar and
Ohl had early foul trouble.
Notable Lines:
Dominique Webster career high 18 pts, 3 asts
Dominique found all the seams in their zone tonight
Marlon Storey 10 pts, 11 rebs
Marlon has had a superb freshman season and matched his career highs
in both points and rebounds. He hasn't had a bad game all year..
just gets the job done night after night. Tonight he had the opportunity
to get a few more minutes than usual and shined.

AIR FORCE W 61-48
Last year we went 0-3 vs the Falcons because A) we couldn't solve their zone and B) we couldn't control their offensive attack. Their defense is still very formidable (we shot under 38% for the game), but in the post Hines world the Falcons are living in they just lack the offense to punish a team at the other end of the court. They are also very shaky with the basketball (27 turnovers). Still, give them credit, they rebounded hard and refused to go away. The return game at the Academy will be tough.

POG: Matt Houston 24 pts, 2 rebs...probably the best performance against a
zone in his career.
Notable Lines:
Nate Betts 8 pts, 5 rebs, 5 asts. With both Webster and Bullock in early
foul trouble the freshman came through,
Isaac Garren 9 pts... we get 33 pts from Houston and Garren against a
zone we are usually going to be in good shape.

@UNLV W 66-60
Going into the conference season this was one of the games that scared me. It took the worst officiating crew in the MWC, an entire world of foul trouble, and to the Rebel's credit some pretty good defense out of their 1-2-2 zone to maintain the lead for 32 minutes. We finally got our first lead of the game with 7:27 left in the game, and didn't give it up. Depth saved us.

POG: Jon Angelli 8 pts, 9 rebs, 2 asts, 2 blocks, 3 stls
It was Jon's defense in the 2nd half more than anything that dug us out of the hole we were in (down by 11 at the half and as much as 17 in the first half)
Notable Lines:
Matt Houston 14 pts, 2 rebs
Pat Bullock 10 pts in 14 minutes
Isaac Garren 15 pts, 3 rebs (29 pts again from our 2 headed shooting guard)

We run the table for the first half of the conference season 7-0 although the last two games had me pulling my hair out. We have a comfortable 3 game lead over TCU, Air Force, and Wyoming. Our toughest games are out of the way. The return game at the Academy may make a difference in who get's the 2 seed, but we should be able to finish out from here in style.

[PointGuard]

Whoa! Winning with ease (except for a close one against UNLV). Nice going to clip Air Force's wings.

[CoachC]

This team is incredible, PG! That two game swing at Fresno St. and Memphis early in the season was a blip. Our depth is amazing.. i have 6 guys averaging over 20 minutes a game. have 11 guys averaging double digit minutes or close to it. Our starting 5 could average 30 minutes a game or more easily if we needed them to. We only have one player (Houston) averaging double digit points, but have 8 guys averaging 6.5 a game or better. We haven't had a player win a single conference player of the week award all season, but our top 7 guys are probably the top 7 players in the league. We'll see what happens in the post-season, but this team is better than our national championship team, hands down.

[CoachC]

As a team we are 3rd in the nation in both blocks and steals per game, 5th in fewest turnovers, 3rd in Points allowed, 4th in assists allowed (strange stat but must mean something), 5th in forced turnovers.

Even with his minutes greatly reduced to 23.6/g because of our depth, Martin Ray is still 9th in the nation in blocked shots.

[CoachC]

Because of our depth, none of our individual stats are going to pop out at you, but consider this.....per 40 minutes:

13 of our 14 eligible players are averaging at least 7.8 pts, 11 are averaging 10 or more.
8 of 14 are averaging 4.5 rebounds or more, 5 are averaging 9 or more.
13 are averaging better than a a steal per 40 minutes. 10 are averaging 1.5 or more.

Depth rules. Individual stats mean nothing. Well, not nothing, but definitely over-rated.

[PointGuard]

I agree...depth is where its at (and I'm talking BASKETBALL here, although it could apply to many things )

[Wayne23]

Oh MYYYY!!!