We’ve added a new section to your melange…Boxscore Flunkies celebrates the guys who made a difference but didn’t post crooked numbers on the stat sheet. You won’t notice a thing from the stat sheet, but the coach will give the kid a game ball.
We also added our favorite coach quote from the weekend. It’s the last item.
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Two games never made it out of the gate: UNCW heads back to Wilmington without winning nor losing, and without a check for $65,000. JMU may eventually host Radford.
Weekend Boxes
Old Dominion 61, Georgetown 57
Georgia State 66, Eastern Michigan 65
Drexel 75, Cal State Northridge 63
What We Learned
1. Heart is a wonderful intangible and makes us all warm and fuzzy, but nothing replaces talent, or production. Ben Finney has been mostly MIA this season for ODU and was given a pass becaue of said “heart.” Finney contributed 13 points, five assists, zero turnovers, and three steals in the ODU victory over Georgetown.
2. Hofstra’s Chaz Williams is legit. Sure, Williams had a palindromic 41/14 assist-to-turnover ratio the first 10 games of the year. But you were skeptical, because not being a fan of the Pride you don’t know the level of competition. Dubious, you think. Well, add seven assists and one turnover against St. John’s in The Garden on Sunday. That’s 48/15 for the math-challenged, and 17/1 in his past two games. Oh, and 14 smackers yesterday.
3. You’d better prepare for Bob Nwankwo. For two years, the scouting report has been a quick “very active but cannot hurt you. Put a body on him.” After 11 points (on only seven shots) and 18 rebounds (and three blocks), Nwankwo extends the Towson scouting report.
What We Verified
1. You can’t give JohnMarkLudwick time to shoot. I know it was Doggone Vassar, but JML fired in five of six threes and I’m told a couple were “from distance.” Here’s the funny thing: the guy looks like your dad shooting in the driveway. Ludwick and David Schneider easily form the ugliest great shooting combo in the country. (And we verified that if The Pugs run their offense they will beat you to death because they can shoot. A middling team beats a D3 school by about 20. This was an outright destruction.)
2. Georgia State continues to befuddle us. Trae Goldston broke out with 22 points on 5-8 long distancing to give Joe Dukes some help. They also withstood a 28-34 EMU effort from the foul line–tough to accomplish on the road in December. No clue what to make of these guys.
3. That we still don’t know the secret to end game execution. Hofstra was on the wrong side of an 18-1 close against St. John’s. Hofstra led the Johnnies 59-54 with a little less than seven minutes to play, and a Jenkins free throw with 1:11 to play kept the Pride from going scoreless in those final seven minutes. The problem is that we understand momentum and missed shots and poor execution. We understand 12-4 runs. But 18-1 over the final seven minutes?
What We Don’t Know
1. Break the rules and hit on 17. VCU has coughed up huge second half leads all season, and for a variety of reasons. On Saturday the Rams were thrashing Tulane by 17 points in the middle of the second half and then chose to combat poor offensive sets by not playing defense, either. The result: held breath until a halfcourt heave went awry at the buzzer. Mental image for VCU: foot stepping on the accelerator.
2. What’s the deal with Fonzie? Alphonso Dawson seems stuck in Monte Ross’s doghouse in a season in which he could become a star in this league. Dawson missed all five threes in the Hens win over Vermont and is 15-54 on the season.
3. The fascination Larry Sanders has with three point shooting. The big guy took and missed another three against Tulane. Marker for the rest of the league: people seem unhappy with his play, but 16/9 broke a string of four consecutive double-doubles for Sanders. Imagine what happens when Sanders starts impressing people.
Boxscore Flunkies
1. Marquel Delancey, ODU. Lots of bagels surround two assists, but Delancey brought calm to the floor for ODU in the first half against Georgetown. With Darius James again sputtering, Delancey stepped up and settled down the Monarchs. The Hoyas had withstood ODUs initial burst and looked like they were going to get back into the game. But Delancey did exactly what he was supposed to do: nothing, except do the things that allow others to do things.
2. James Fields, Georgia State. Rod Barnes has been talking about the improvement of Fields and how much he likes the kid. Pay more attention to the 21 minutes than the zero points and three turnovers. (Big picture thinking, folks.)
3. Everyone who plays for UNCW. The Seahawks had a legit opportunity to beat a struggling Virginia team. UNCW made the bus ride, stayed in the hotel, and did all the road trip stuff during the holidays. Craig Littlepaige, the UVa athletics director, concocted some of the worst excuses I’ve heard to postpone the game. (My house had no electricity? Really?)
Interesting Stats
1. Gerald Colds and his Ben Finney impersonation. Colds has been Drexel’s answer to MIA this season. Colds had 17 points against Northridge, but 13 shots, four steals and three turnovers tell me more.
2. The Leo Durocher “I don’t like those guys that drive in two but let in three” Award: Delaware’s Kelvin McNeil with 13 points, 13 rebounds, zero assists and six turnovers (in a low possession game).
3. 4-1 (7-1)…the conference’s road record and overall record for the weekend. Particularly impressive was Drexel shaking off a long flight and enjoyable Cally trip to beat Northridge, and VCU playing poorly in front of about 14 fans at Tulane but winning.
My Favorite Things
1. A tweet from Matt Janning with a pic of the Huskies in Hawaii, five minutes after I shoveled the snow from the driveway and read about UNCW/UVa snow cancellation.
2. See that road record in the stats section.
3. Christmas in four days, conference season in 12 days.
Best Coaching Quote
Blaine Taylor, to the Washington Post:
Obviously people will call this an upset, and it certainly probably is, with the [Hoyas'] record and ranking and what-not. But I like to think our program had gotten to the point that this sort of thing is certainly in the cards for us when we do the right things.
December 21st, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Interesting quote from Taylor. Based on their play to date it was a hell of an upset.
Nice win for sure but if he feels the program has gotten to the point that a win at GU is not an upset than how do you explain earlier losses (several of them where they looked very pedestrian) to much worse teams.
December 21st, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Michael
I can tell you why Hofstra went without a bucket the last seven minutes. Williams picked up his fourth foul and didn’t come back until four minutes left. Without him, their offense was very much like last year’s. Four guys stand around and wait until Jenkins does something. When Williams came back, like Jenkins, he tried to do too much (and also St John’s defense was stifling the last 7 minutes). Williams is very important to that team.