OMARI

[PointGuard]

Denver Pioneers (0-2) @ Grambling Tigers (1-1)

I made a change to our starting lineup, bringing in Correy Parker at C, moving Etan Benton from C to PF, and moving Aubrey Johnson from PF to SF. Adam Scott will come in off the bench primarily at SF but possibly also at PF. The new starting 5 played well early to put us up 13-7 at the first media break with Benton and Parker each tallying 4 points. Benton tires quickly so I subbed him out and we responded by missing 7 straight shots. Our lead diminished to a single point but our offense recovered late in the half to put us ahead 36-28 at halftime. Johnson, Parker and Benton combined to 25 of our points in the half. 3 minutes into the 2nd half, Denver overtook us at 41-40. We fell behind by 7 before our D kicked into gear. Since the refs weren’t calling many fouls, I told our guys to rachet up our defensive effort, and we finally regained the lead at 48-47 with 11:39 to go. 3 minutes later we had jumped out to a 60-52 advantage. Our dominance continued as we expanded our lead to 16 with 4 minutes remaining. Our D fell apart in the final 4 or 5 minutes, but the combination of a lockdown D, stellar rebounding, and some sizzling O we’d displayed during the middle 10 minutes of the 2nd half were amazing and gave us enough of a lead to hold on for a 83-75 victory. C Correy Parker put together a great double-double with 23 points and 10 boards; PF Etan Benton scored 14 and grabbed 8 rebounds; and SF Aubrey Johnson dropped in 13 points…so the new starting up-front combination really came through. SG Lonnie Robertson had 12 points and 4 assists and SG/SF Brad O’Neil hit for 10 points. Our only offensive weakness was that our 4 PG’s could only manage to score a single point and dish out 3 assists amongst them.

[PointGuard]

Our lineup

Our next game will be our 3rd straight home game, but then we have 4 straight road games. I’d like to get our starting lineup set and get a better handle on who and when to sub into games before we hit the road. I got together with my assistant coaches and this is the gist of what came out of that:

1. Starting Correy Parker at C, Etan Benton at PF and Aubrey Johnson at SF worked well and we need to solidify that interior dynamic. Correy is now averaging 13.0 ppg and 6.0 rpg, Etan has averaged 10.3 ppg and 6.7 rpg, and Aubrey has a 10.3 ppg and 5.7 rpg average. All 3 are shooting well. Freshman Brody Rowland is definitely improving and has shown the ability to play at SF as well as PF. Adam Scott didn’t work out well at SF, so we’ll just use him to come in off the bench at PF. Anthony Erwin will continue to come in off the bench, primarily at PF. We need to play redshirt freshman Mark Hartsfield more to see if he can be a decent sub at C. Freshman Brad O’Neil has played pretty well at SF when we’ve gone with a smaller lineup at points in our games.
2. Lonnie Robertson has played well at SG and will continue to start, but we need him to start hitting a higher percentage of his shots and improve on his 11.3 ppg average. Brad O’Neil has been our primary backup at SG and done well there…he’s averaging 10.0 ppg while coming in off the bench at both SG and SF.
3. Our continuing major problem continues to be at PG. None of the 4 PG’s on our roster have scored well and haven’t been consistently finding open men. And their D has been just so-so. Senior Duane Robinson has started all 3 games but is averaging just 1.0 ppg and 1.7 apg. If he can’t get it together we will need to try to prepare one of other 3 PG’s to be a starter. But thus far, none of them have stepped up to show they are ready to handle a starting role. Sophomore Mario Kelly started every game for us last season and while not playing great, was adequate. But he’s been very inconsistent this season. If he wants to start again, he needs to fight harder to show us he can produce. Junior Josh Williams has been the only one of the 4 PG’s to shoot well, but needs to develop more as a court general to take over as a starter. Redshirt freshman Hayden Conrad is improving but not yet ready to take over as a starter. Hopefully one of the four will come on strong and do so very soon.
4. Our other primary problem is, as it was last year, an inability to hit 3’s. We’re connecting on just 29% of our 3PA’s.

[PointGuard]

Bowling Green State Falcons (2-1) @ Grambling Tigers (2-1)

The Falcons have scored over 90 points in two of their three games and their C Jamie Cook is averaging 18.7 ppg and PG Jim Zimmerman 17.3 ppg with SF Michael Jarvis logging 12.0 ppg. Zimmerman can definitely torch a team, so our plan was to double team him to try to keep him in check. We have a small crowd since we’re in the midst of Thanksgiving vacations. Cook popped a 3 just 10 seconds into the game so the big guy can shoot from outside. Then Jarvis canned a pair of 3’s as the Falcons firing from far outside. So much for our zone. By the time the first media timeout rolled around we were down 15-11. Bowling Green continued to burn up the net so we trailed 29-17 at the midpoint of the half. We then went on a 13-2 run to get back into the game. But the Falcon’s big 3 (Cook with 15 points, Jarvis with 13, and Zimmerman with 8) carried them to a 46-41 halftime advantage. Some way we gotta throttle those guys since they were a big part of Bowling Green’s 60% shooting in the half. Lonnie Robertson chipped in 14 for us in the first half and Correy Parker scored 9 points during his 10 minutes on the court. We were hitting shots in the 2nd half but not at the rate the Falcons were. In particular, we just had no way of stopping Cook (see one of his shots going through the hoop below) and we trailed by 13 with 10 minutes remaining. We kept chipping away at the lead but could never get over the hump and lost 89-81. At times we just tried too hard, making a few dumb fouls and inopportune turnovers. Leading scorers for us were: C Correy Parker—20; SG Lonnie Robertson—19; SF Aubrey Johnson—11; PG Josh Williams—11; PF Etan Benton—8. For the Falcons, Cook cooked us for 29 points and Jarvis had 19 and Zimmerman scored 15. One bright point for us was the play of Josh Williams at PG…he scored 11 and dished out 4 assists. At the end of this week C Correy Parker named SWAC Conference Player of the Week after scoring 43 points in our two games this week.

[PointGuard]

Grambling Tigers (2-2) @ Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners (1-2)

This was a road game I thought we should win. The first half was a rugged struggle the entire 20 minutes and ended with us holding a slim 41-40 lead. The same occurred throughout the first 14 minutes of the 2nd half at which point there was a 68-68 tie. But then we went on a 10-0 run. We held the Roadrunners off from then on and won 85-76. Top scorers: SG Lonnie Robertson—22 points; SF/SG Brad O’Neil—20 points; PF/C Etan Benton—10 points.

[PointGuard]

Time for a Change

I’m writing a song. It’s called “The Point Guard Blues”. The lyrics are coming to me from experience this season. Duane Robinson continues to be unproductive at the point. Josh Williams had a strong game two games ago, but didn’t do much in our last game. Mario Kelly finally had a decent game against Cal State Bakersfield. Due to him starting reasonably well for us last season, I’m going to start Kelly for a few games to see how he does. Williams is still our best shooting PG, but I think he’ll do better coming in off the bench than starting. And who knows, maybe demoting Robinson will cause him to alter his play since he’s got the skills but just hasn’t been employing them well in games.

[PointGuard]

Grambling Tigers (3-2) @ Manhattan Jaspers (5-0)

Going up against an unbeaten team on their home court. I told our guys to forget about that and just go out and play our game because we can beat this team. I believed, I just hoped I’d suffused the same belief within them. OK, I was wrong, we couldn’t beat the Jaspers. When your team comes to a game with an incomplete alphabet, that’s a problem. We played this entire game with “D” missing from our alphabet. We actually hung in with Manhattan for the first 14 minutes but then when our offense faltered, Manhattan pulled away to a 44-32 halftime advantage. In the 2nd half, they continued to add to their lead and beat us 87-69. Their entire starting five scored in double figures with their starting guards combining for 41 points. C Correy Parker led our scoring with 19 points, SF/PF Brody Rowland tossed in 15 points, SG Lonnie Robertson scored 11, and PF/C Etan Benton added 10. Ever wonder what a Jasper is? If so, here he is:

[PointGuard]

Grambling Tigers (3-3) @ Chicago State Cougars (3-4)

The first half ended in a 40-40 tie. But we went on a 25-6 run in the 2nd half to go up 69-51 with 10 minutes to go. With good shooting (55% from the field) and rebounding (+12) we came away with a satisfying 90-74 win. SG Lonnie Robertson popped in 25 points to lead us. PF/C Etan Benton had 15 points and 6 boards and SF/SG Brad O’Neil scored 11 points. PG Josh Williams had 11 assists but sprained his finger late in the game, and our athletic trainer estimates it’ll take a couple weeks to heal completely.

[PointGuard]

Recruiting Progress

We’re recruiting but in ways that conserve our limited remaining funds. So it’s basically a series of phone calls and social media contacts to develop interest and gain information about the recruits on our list. Even though we have a verbal for a high school senior SF (David Heyward), we’re laser focused on landing another good SF. We’ve created at least minimal interest in 4 SF’s, 3 of whom are 3-star recruits and 1 a 4-star recruit. If they can meet our minimal standards and do not meet the higher standards of many other schools, we stand a good chance of enticing them to play for us. But it well may be that they do very poorly on their SAT’s. So we continue to contact others on our list who are more successful academically to eventually get some of them interested in coming to Grambling. To be honest, it’s a tough sell. We’re a low prestige, low budget basketball program located in a very small town in Louisiana. And while Grambling has a rich history and is a source of black pride, many of the young recruits know nothing about that and many have no desire to learn about us. They want to go to major basketball programs and it takes persistence to get some of them to eventually listen to what we have to offer.

[PointGuard]

Grambling Tigers (4-3) @ Eastern Michigan Eagles (2-3)

I'm hoping to see us continue winning on the road. Even though the Eagles record is unimpressive, they present a big challenge for us on their court. Their PG Samuel Quinn is averaging 18.4 ppg. We got off to a good start by scoring the first 11 points, 7 by Leon (Robertson) and 4 by Correy (Parker). Good shooting (50% from the field), defense (holding the Eagles shooting to 33%) and rebounding (+13) gave us a 31-22 at the break. But we would have been further ahead had it not been for our 9 turnovers. Leon Robertson finished the half with 13 points. Just as the 2nd half began, a protest demonstration about a hot political issue occurred in the stands. The game was stopped until authorities could remove the protesters and the floor was cleaned of things that were thrown onto it. It took a few minutes of play for our guys to get “their game” back together during which the Eagles tied the game. But we then pulled away to a 17 point lead with 5 minutes remaining and coasted to a solid 65-55 victory. We were +16 on the boards. SG Leon Robertson poured in 24 points (the 3rd time in our past 4 games that he’s scored 20+ points). He’s now averaging 16.9 ppg which is the 3rd highest of any player in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

[PointGuard]

Top 10 in the Polls on Dec. 11th:
1. Arizona (10-0); 2. Oregon (10-0); 3. Wichita State (9-1); 4. Kansas (7-0); 5. Marquette (9-1); 6. Xavier (8-0); 7. Alabama (8-0); 8. Kentucky (6-2); 9. Duke (6-3); 10. Maryland (9-0).

Air Force Falcons (3-3) @ Grambling Tigers (5-3)

We hit our first 4 shots to jump out to a 9-2 lead. We continued our blazing start by going up 25-11 after 8 minutes of play, hitting 10 of our first 12 FGA’s. While our shooting cooled a bit, we still hit 62% of our shots in the first half plus out-rebounded the Falcons 24-8 to achieve a 48-28 halftime lead. Aubrey Johnson scored 14 and Lonnie Robertson added 11 points for us in the first half. An unimpressive 2nd half for us, but even though we let Air Force cut into our lead, we were never threatened and came away with an 80-71 victory. SF Aubrey Johnson had a double/double with 18 points and 10 rebounds. SG Lonnie Robertson had 17 points, 4 boards, 7 assists, and 3 steals. PF/C Etan Benton scored 11 and grabbed 6 rebounds. I was happy to see PF Adam Scott come in off the bench to score 9 points and pull down 3 rebounds…his best game this season.