We took care of business today with a win over the now 1–9 Marist Red Foxes. The effort was most certainly there, and much improved from last Tuesday's debacle at Navy (although that's not saying much). The performance was not dazzling, but not disappointing either. Regardless, we head into exam break with a 5–6 record, which, in all honesty, is where we should be.
The 55 three point attempts we took today was one shy of a Division I school record. Incredibly, 73% of all our field goal attempts were from behind the arc, of which we made 35%. Three of our starters took double-digit 3P attempts, and Marshall (who got his second career start) made 6 of 16, including four in a row early in the second half. Brian made only 3 of 10, and QJ hit 6 of 17. Presumably this is what Duggar wants. The only problem is that after our first half and early-second half three point barrage, Marist's guards (in particular, James Griffin and KJ Lee, who played the entire game) starting defending the arc much better, but our offense was slow to react. Instead of attacking the paint in retaliation, we continue to shoot threes. It didn't cost us against Marist, but it may very well cost us against any team in the upper half of the SoCon. Despite the lack of inside shooting, we do finish with a modest 20 points in the paint. Our lack of an inside game can be nullified only as long as our three point shooting is on point.
As a team, Marist got to the line more, but couldn't shoot well from the charity stripe. Creating contact is another area of the game that guys like Phil Anglade and Jordan Weethee need to work on. To Phil's credit, though, he did have two monster slams early on that got the team going. We also outrebounded Marist, the bulk of which came on the offensive glass; this explains our 18-6 advantage in second-chance points, a must have come conference play. Marist is much taller than us, as are most teams in the country, so it just goes to show that rebounding is 100% effort and hustle.
Phil hustled, and for that reason found himself all over the stat sheet - 6 points, 7 rebounds, 2 blocks, 2 steals. Four fouls too, but that's nothing unexpected. Jarid also hauled in 11 rebounds, but did foul out in 24 minutes.
Trey Chapman, coming off the bench, contributed 10 points, 6 boards, and 6 assists in twenty or so quality minutes. Perhaps he is more comfortable not starting, or it was just his night. Either way, I liked what I saw from Chap. Eleby also came off the bench to score 9 on 3-of-6 shooting. The team turned it over twelve times, but hey, at least we're spreading the wealth: no player had more than two turnovers, which is a positive. It is, however, a disappointment that we allowed 77 points to a team scoring less than 55 PPG, 345th best in DI. Anglade is giving it his all, but he and Watson must remain disciplined when opponents attack the rim, or they will be shooting FT's all game long.
We should keep in mind here that Marist was missing their two leading scorers in Khallid Hart (24.5 PPG, 3.5 RPG) and Chavaughn Lewis, who did play but only for one minute. Although Hart has played in only two games (against Bucknell and Army, a 14-point loss), Lewis came in averaging 17.9/4.4/2.3, which most certainly would've made an impact, and narrowed out the 15-point spread. Neither player is very tall, so we did hold our own against Marist's big men.
And one other thing: did Duggar Baucom read my blog post from last week's game against Mercer? Both Marshall and Watson started today, as I suggested. They effectively replaced Chapman and Anglade, and, as it turns out, both players gave us quality minutes in their respective roles. I like the three-guard lineup with Watson, the only true center on the roster, down low. Luckily it's still December, and Duggar has plenty of time to tinker with his starting rotations. For now, we wait, and hope that the players' focus on exams translates into focus on the court.
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