NCDS: Mark Vanderslice, Asst. Coach - Furman
By: Mark Vanderslice, Asst. Coach - Furman
I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year! There is nothing like starting off the New Year by getting a win under your belt. We just wrapped up part I of this season with a victory over Erskine College and concluded our non-conference schedule with a 6-5 record. Were heading into what I like to call part II of the season which is conference play TONIGHT, January 7th, versus Elon. With discipline, teamwork, and a little bit of luck we hope to be at the peak of our game as a team heading into the final stage of the season, part III. Post season play!!
Like many teams throughout the Christmas holidays we were able to take part in a Christmas tournament as well. For us we decided to take our travels to University of Cal Berkeley's two day tournament right outside of San Francisco. Aside from the actual games we feel it is important that each player have the opportunity to witness and see places that they might never have the chance to observe again once they graduate. This year we felt San Francisco was somewhere that majority of our players would appreciate and that it could be seen as a "new experience." The first day sightseeing in San Fran was interesting considering it was cut short due to flight delays earlier in the morning. None the less, we were able to stroll through Pier 39, witness the sea lions, and view Alcatraz from afar. The biggest disappointment of the day was not being able to witness the guys being startled by the "Bush Man" (you tube) who happened to cut his day short.
Getting back to basketball, we left California one and one with a loss versus UC Santa Barbara and a win over Utah Valley State. Two tough opponents! In game one versus UC Santa Barbara two of our Juniors Jordan Miller and Amu Saaka scored 19 and 16 points for us respectively. Even after a hot shooting performance by the Gauchos with 78% on 7 of 9 shooting from 3 and 52% from the field, we still only trailed by 3 at the half. Our major emphasis at half time was to make some adjustments defensively to hinder a possible entourage of 3's like we saw in the first half and to make sure we played with a 6th defender by having great communication. Mission was accomplished! They didn't sink another long ball the rest of the night. Unfortunately we were unable to score on our end as well. We shot a surprisingly poor 30% from the field and 17% from beyond the arc in the second half. We decided to play small ball with about 7 minutes remaining and cut it down to 5, but it wasn't enough in the end.
Our guys showed a lot of resiliency and character going into the final game of the tournament against Utah Valley. It would have been easy to have packed it in at that point, using excuses as to being tired from the long trip, or letting a streak of 5 consecutive loses psychologically effect their mental approach to the game. However, they showed a great deal of character and earned a victory by playing lock down defense and holding Utah Valley to 38% shooting from the field. Going back to our Saturday win versus Erskine, which put us at two wins in a row heading into conference play, there is nothing more important for us at this point than to build some quality momentum.
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