We lost to Western Carolina at home yesterday. We played an ok game. We were down by 2 at the half and ended up losing by 11. The game was close for almost the entire second half. Bryson Barnes had a great dunk with around 5 minutes left to cut their lead to 1. The next possession we had one of their guards trapped just over halfcourt but he managed to get a pass off to Brandon Giles who got a dunk of his own. We had a couple of empty possessions and they made the most out of their possessions late. Like the title says, we couldn’t capitalize. We got the dunk and had the momentum but couldn’t keep it. Their leading scorer fouled out with like 6 minutes left but we couldn’t capitalize on that either. Giles scored 20 points in the second half. What really hurt us was not capitalizing on open shots and free throws. We were 5-20 from 3 which is unacceptable because we are all very capable shooters.
Today we went over the film of the game and lifted weights. We went out for dinner as a team and I’ve been hanging out watching college basketball, watching the NFL playoffs, playing Madden 09, and playing with my Christmas/Birthday present (by the time you’ve read this I’ve taken off the “lunch box” from the back).
I’m going to get some extra shooting in this week which brings me to this great youtube video of Tim Duncan having trouble handling “the gun”, a rebounding/passing machine. Enjoy.
Last night we played Berry College, an NAIA school from Rome, GA. I have a great deal of respect for their coaching staff and their players. They were great guys but most importantly they executed their Princeton style offense perfectly for a majority of the game and they knocked down open shots.
The game started out like a nightmare. Aside from the 2 free throws they gave us for dunking in warm-ups, the first half was unbelievable. Two of their players were red hot and it seemed like their team missed 1 three pointer in the whole first half (they were actually 50%). One time we had 4 guys under our basket the ball came off the rim awkwardly and bounced right off of one of our guys laps into the hands of a Berry player. It felt like if something could go wrong it did. We were down by 9 at the half. To start the second half they went on another run and went up by 15 at the 16 minute mark media time out. We finally started playing with a sense of urgency as a unit and went on a 19-3 run. I guess there are a number of ways you can look at the game in a negative way, but at the end of the day, we won the game. It doesn’t matter who we were playing, we fought back from being down 15 and got the win.
After the game I overheard some of the most asinine comments I’ve ever heard. Two people were talking and this is how the conversation went:
Person A: (Noting the Celtics t-shirt) So are you a Celtics fan?
Person B: Yeah I’m a huge Kevin Garnett fan. I went to his basketball camp in Greenville when I was a kid. I was the only person at camp to ever score on him. I actually got recruited to play at Costal Carolina before I messed up my back.
A: Oh wow. I was just wondering because I’m from Boston.
B: Time out! You’re from Boston? My best friend works at UCONN!!! I’ve been dying to go visit him up there. (Keep in mind that UCONN is roughly 2-3 hours away from Boston)
Today we had a short practice that focused on shooting, weights, and films. I have an eye appointment tomorrow morning before our 1:00 practice. I’ll be back later on in the week, but until then, Mark Titus has inspired me to end all of my posts with youtube videos.
I present to you the worst basketball possession ever (from Basketbawful)
I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I was able to go home for three and a half days and I made the most of it. Hung out with some close friends and most importantly my family. We had a great time just playing cards and having fun. Driving back to Furman was as expected - one of the worst drives I’ve ever made. Its really hard to leave home after being there for only 3 days, especially when pretty much every other college student gets close to a month with their families.
We had practice last night at 6. It went pretty well but some of our guys had some trouble getting back to Greenville. One had his flight canceled and the other arrived in Greenville but his bag did not. We had a short shooting session at 1 and lifted weights afterwards and we’re watching film from our Vanderbilt game and practicing again at 7.
Right now I’m watching the Wisconsin-FSU game. I didn’t have high expectations for this game at all but my Badgers are doing alright so far.
We just got to the hotel in Nashville. Last week we had finals and I think I finished the term pretty strong academically. We lost to North Florida last Thursday. Thats all I’m going to say about that.
Yesterday we worked out in the morning and in the afternoon we made a trip to the Frazee Center in downtown Greenville. We got to hang out with some kids that were spending the afternoon at the center. The Frazee center provides a free after school program for kids and they focus on academics, character development, sportsmanship and emotional wellness. Most of all, I could tell that at the Frazee center the kids were able to relax and have fun and just be kids. I think it was a good opportunity for our team to get our minds off of our recent struggles and well, just be kids. Here are some pictures of our trip:
Tomorrow we’re practicing in the early afternoon and having our 2nd annual Christmas gift exchange. Its basically a white elephant exchange. We are randomly put in order and when its your turn you can either steal a gift that was opened before you or you can open a new gift from the bag. Last year I got Escape from New York on DVD. I’ll get back to you later on whether my gift this year can even hold a candle to that.
Here’s a story that I found too awesome to keep to myself. Its the kind of story that everybody should hear, but ends up getting no press. Unless ESPN is doing its Make-a-wish series, they don’t have time for stuff like this.
Larry Hedden is a redshirt Junior Tight End for Furman’s football team. In the purple and white scrimmage to kick off the football season he separated his shoulder and missed the first couple games of the season. Then in early October he lost his father to cancer. About a month later, in a game against Georgia Southern, he completely blew out his knee. Torn ACL, LCL, and PCL. On the sidelines they couldn’t get his kneecap to stay in place. He had surgery and as far as I know his recovery is going smoothly. Unfortunately, the injury ended his football career.
We had practice today a 3:30 and had weight lifting immediately after. At one point in between sets, our strength coach told a few of us about a package Larry recently received in the mail. It was from Heath Miller, the tight end for the Pittsburgh Steelers. The package contained an autographed football and some other odds and ends. There was a note that said something like “From one tight end to another….Good luck recovering”. I thought this was a really awesome gesture from Heath Miller. He’s quickly become my favorite NFL tight end. Its never hard for me to cheer for someone that takes the time to do something like that. Like I said, I couldn’t resist sharing this story. Larry and his family have had a rough year and are in my prayers and I encourage you to do the same.
Today was my last day of class for this semester. I have 2 finals next week, but other than that, I’m done. We played South Carolina last Friday in Columbia. I was really impressed by their arena. It was much nicer than Notre Dame’s and was just as nice if not nicer than Clemson’s. I played ok. I scored some points, got some rebounds, made some free throws, stole the ball a couple times, and turned the ball over. We don’t play another game until the 18th against North Florida at home. This gives us a break to study for our finals and hopefully get some of our players back to full strength.
If you haven’t noticed the link on the side of my blog, I’ve recently become a huge fan of the blog Club Trillion. Mark Titus, a walk on at Ohio State writes about life as a Buckeye basketball player. Being a Wisconsin fan, I hate Ohio State but this hilarious masterpiece might be my favorite blog to read.
Yesterday we had a game against Appalachian State. They beat us like a drum twice last year and looked pretty good on film and paper coming into the game against us. We looked pretty bad on film and paper coming into the game and that’s not ok with our team. We were ready to play a home game for the first time since November 14th. We played well for about 32 minutes. In the last 8 minutes of the game they finished plays and we didn’t. We missed a few shots in the paint and some jumpshots that we normally knock down and they won 65-60.
It was a disappointing game for sure. I can’t remember another game where I was this frustrated. I just know I can do more to help our team than I have been doing lately. Early on in the first half Daryll Evans drove baseline and passed to me at the left elbow, I took one dribble, jump-stopped, and shot a mid range pull up. Their small forward tried to take a charge and in my opinion he initiated the contact. The ref didn’t see it the same way but he tricked me by waiting for the ball to go in and making the and 1 fist pump before calling a charge on me. Shortly after I went up for a defensive rebound and when I landed it felt like 3 people landed on my back and I went crashing down to the floor. Turns out my own teammate was the one that accidentally ran into/tackled me which lead to a travel. I also got called for a block a few plays later. The ref that called that one told me at halftime that he messed up and shoulda called a charge. I appreciated the honesty but that didn’t do me a whole lot of good now did it?
Our season is moving along at a pretty fast clip right now so we don’t have time to dwell on any one game in particular. Today we prepared for our game against South Carolina tomorrow. We can’t worry about what has happened in the past.
I could write a 2 page paper on each topic I talk about but I’m going to try to keep it brief.
We took a bus to Charlotte at around 7:30 AM on Saturday morning. We were scheduled to fly out of Charlotte into Chicago and then take a bus down to South Bend, Indiana for our game against Notre Dame. We made it to South bend around 3 or so. We headed over to Notre Dame’s arena for practice at 5:30. We got to the arena and started making our way through a tunnel to the empty arena floor when we got stopped by an arena employee. Apparently Coach Brey had decided that we were not going to be allowed to use the main court for practice despite being scheduled to use it. We had a pretty good practice in their practice gym.
At 10:30 we had a meeting in Coach Jackson’s room. We were going to go over their offense and their personnel with a scouting video one of our coaches made. Bryson Barnes and I left the room at about 10:23, took the elevator downstairs and met up with another teammate at the bottom of the elevator. We went into a room labeled Furman Basketball right outside the elevator but it was clear that this wasn’t the room we were meeting in so we walked down the hall and found the right room. The next couple of minute went a little like this:
Coach Jackson: Are you guys serious?
Coach Price: (points to the clock that reads 10:33) What the crap guys?
Coach Jackson: Are you kidding me? What could be more important than being in my room on time?
Me: Well, we were in the room labeled Furman Basketball-
Coach Jackson: I don’t care where you were… Bryson Are you SERIOUS?
Bryson: Uh, we were in the other room.
Coach Jackson: Guess What? We’re just messing with you guys.
Entire room: Hysterical Laughter
So now I know what it feels like to be on Punk’d.
Sunday morning we woke up and had our shootaround at 8:45 am and this time we got to use the main floor. We came back had pregame meal and headed over to the gym at 12:30. The place filled up and I think I heard there were 10,000+ in attendance. We started off pretty well and were tied with 12 minutes to go in the first half if I’m mistaken. Kyle McAlarney was everything we expected and more. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think he is a better shooter than Stephen Curry. Curry is a better scorer by far but McAlarney is a better shooter. They went on a run going into halftime and we never did recover.
The trip home was absolutely ridiculous. We drove to Chicago after the game on Sunday so we wouldn’t have to make the drive in the morning. We woke up at 6:45 and were in the lobby eating breakfast in time to catch the sports highlights on the local news. Our fingers were crossed that ND/Furman highlights wouldn’t be following the NFL highlights but sure enough they showed like 6 of McAlarney’s threes.
We got the airport at 7:45, checked in, made it through security, and got to our gate for our 9:00 am flight. Our flight got delayed to 9:20. Then 9:45. Then 10:15. Then cancelled. We were travelling with 20+ people so the best thing they could do was send us to Atlanta. We were supposed to fly to Atlanta at 12:00. Delayed to 1:00. Then 1:15. Then 1:25. We ended up leaving Chicago at 2:00 when everything was said and done. We landed in Atlanta at 5:00 (after the time change) to find that one of our coaches bags was misplaced. My bag must have been left out in the snow while we were in Chicago because everything in my bag was dripping wet. It took our busdriver like 45 minutes to find us once we got our luggage in Atlanta. (I don’t really blame him though. He had a long day. Drove to Charlotte, then to Atlanta, then to Greenville.)
Then we made the drive to Greeville stopping only at the Mall of Georgia for a quick dinner. I got back to my dorm room at 9:30. As a general rule, a trip is too long for me when I can read an entire 370 page book before I get to my destination.
We’re practicing tonight to prepare for our home game against Appalachian State on Wednesday.
Last night we had our game vs. Dartmouth. Early on in the game we went up 18-13, forcing them to call a timeout. They then went on a 17-2 run. I think at halftime we were down by 10. We had something like 4 turnovers in a row in the beginning of the second half. Despite that, the most we were down in the second half was 12 points. We went on some big runs down the stretch and I hit a three to cut their lead to 1 with like 7 minutes left and a 3 with 40 seconds left to cut their lead to 2. At the end of their game, their best player had the ball in the middle of the floor around half court. I was guarding him. There was a 5 second differential between the shot clock and the game clock and with about 25 seconds he made a move and I let him get by me going to his right and he made a layup. A couple of my teammates told me they were late in giving help and that it was their fault. I haven’t seen the film but bottom line, I shouldn’t have let him get by me at all, much less with his strong hand.
It was a disappointing loss because we are a better team than the way we are playing. This was definitely a winnable game for our team.
If you are a college basketball fan you are probably watching the Notre Dame - UNC game that’s going on as I type this. I’m watching it too but I’m probably looking at different things than you. This is because our next game is against Notre Dame. I’ll probably be guarding Ryan Ayers. I have a strange connection with Ayers actually. I’ve never met him but it turns out that (stick with me here) one of my best friends from high school’s brother was a good friend of Ayers in middle school somewhere in PA I think in Elementary school in Ohio. Notre Dame is a great team and we are aware that they might be slightly favored in this game.
We are practicing tomorrow morning and coach is having the team over for Thanksgiving dinner. Last year the whole team went and we had a great time. The food was great and it was nice to just hang out. We had a game the day after Thanksgiving last year so it didn’t make sense for any of us to go home. This year we don’t play until Sunday so coach is letting those of us that live within a couple hours go home and come back for an evening practice on Friday. I haven’t been home in a while so I’m really looking forward to seeing my family.
I’ll be back later with more on our preparation for the ND game. Happy Thanksgiving.
We woke up early flew from Greenville to Detroit at 9am on Monday morning. We had a short layover in Detroit and flew to Pittsburgh around 1:30. We practiced at Duquesne from 6:30 to about 8. Pittsburgh is a pretty cool place. I like seeing different parts of the country. Its always fun to imagine where I would be going to school had I grown up somewhere else.
We got up early and had a shootaround this morning around 8:30. After practice and the shootaround I had a good feeling about the game. The arena was a little old but besides a few dead spots on the floor, the court and rims felt pretty good.
We went over personnel again after our pregame meal and we felt like we matched up pretty well with them. The didn’t shoot the ball overly well in their first few games so we decided we wanted to focus on keeping the ball out of the paint and have them shoot from the outside rather than get easy buckets in the paint.
Duquesne started off the game on fire. They hit 3 threes en route to a 11-2 start and shot the 3 pretty well for the whole game. They also were really good at getting around the basket and dumping the ball off to a slasher. I came in off the bench and played one of my better halves of basketball in the first half. I hit a couple of threes, hit a pull up jumper, and was 2/2 on free throws. I also had a few assists and a couple rebounds. We went into halftime down by 9. I didn’t have a great second half. I turned the ball over twice in back to back posessions and on the second turnover I got a foul called on me as I chased down my turnover. We cut the lead to 6 at one point in the second half but I think that was the closest we got.
It was a disappointing game, but the good news is we don’t have time to let it get us down. We play at Dartmouth on Tuesday night. I’m gonna call it a night since our wake up call is coming at 4:15 AM. Yes you read that right - 4:15 AM. Dartmouth isn’t that easy to get to and I guess the selection of flights was limited. We don’t rent out an entire plane like the big boys.
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