Another away game on the road for the Pipers yesterday. We stayed in Madison, WI before heading to Whitewater for our game. We got there a little early and were able to check out some of the facilities that Whitewater had to offer. It was a great facility with a massive field house, gym, and swimming pool. The main attraction was the display of the national championship trophies. They had won two in men's basketball as well as a couple in football. I need one of those, BADLY.
We got off to a pretty good start and actually made some 3's for the first time in a while. We still were going a lot of standing around on offense which I can't stand. Whenever we got into the paint good things happened. I don't understand how our guys don't get that, ever. We might have one or two straight quality possessions and then we got back to standing around and hoping someone else will make a play. I can't stand that. We finished off 6-16 from 3 in the first half, meaning more than half of our shots were 3's. Not exactly how we planned it but we were getting decent looks. We executed two "end of game plays" at the end of the first half and got a 3 from Tyler Pannell to push our lead to 12 at the half. Our guys were excited, as was the staff.
Second half started with quite a bit of back and forth play (surprise, surprise). We got their most explosive player, Antone Byrd, in foul trouble including a "T" and that helped us get our lead back up to 12, and it seems like we were in control. Carl then got two quick fouls on and 1's. It seems like anyone we put in after Carl couldn't get it done defensively on their big guy. It literally seemed like every time we made a sub, he scored. Unacceptable to say the least.
As the second half rolled on, we just made mistake after mistake and let them back in the game. Guys were playing like Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. We had several chances to put them away and just couldn't. Now, they are an extremely talented team but there is no excuse for how we played. We survived until overtime and then all hell broke loose. We had too many opportunities that we didn't take advantage of. We didn't play physically or mentally tough. As a staff, we have to find toughness somewhere. We'll see what happens.
We ended up losing by 11. It might have been the highest scoring overtime in history as Whitewater scored 27 and we scored 16. To finish the game, they outrebounded us by over 20, forced us into 25 turnovers, and shot 30 more free throws than we did. Hmmmmmmmm, not going to win those ones. The scary thing about it was that we were right there and should've won. I might be completely bald by the end of the season.
We play at Gustavus on Monday to get league play going again. We have Bethel on Wednesday and then Macalester on Saturday to finish the week.
RAY BROWN UPDATE: Ray went down to Fort Sill, Oklahoma to tryout for their PBL team and was the last cut. Hopefully, he'll see what it takes for him to make it there or someplace else. We'll see what happens and I'll to keep you updated on his status.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
And We're Back
After a ten day layoff (too long in my opinion but not much we can do about it) we headed back to practice on the night of the 26th. I wasn't able to make it until the last few minutes because of flight issues.
As most of you know the east coast got hit with a barrage of snow at the beginning of the week. This was after seeing GREEN grass at my parents' house when I got home on the 22nd. Green grass in December, absolutely unheard of. It snowed on Christmas day a little bit to cover the green and made Christmas "white." My time at home was great. I got to see my mom's dad aka "Big Grandpa" right after I landed up in Rochester. It was nice to see him, he's definitely moving a little slower but as always is still pretty sharp. Over the next couple of days I got to see a lot of family, friends (only 3 left back home), and had some real NY style pizza. Lots of fun.
On the way back to Rochester we heard on the radio that 270 Continental flights to and from Newark had been canceled. My flight was headed to Newark. Surprise, surprise. I have some family members that work in the airline industry and they told me to get to the airport as quickly as possible to see what I could do to get back to the Twin Cities. All Continental flights were on hold until Monday and it looked like I would be headed to Cleveland Monday before going to Minneapolis. I wasn't happy about it but there is nothing I could do at that point. The guy at the counter ask me again where I was headed and I said MSP and he looked up a couple of other airlines to see what he could do and Voila (I know I spelled it wrong) I got to head to MSP at 7pm on a direct Delta flight. On top of getting a flight out on Sunday I was also able to get to spend time with five of my aunts and uncles (three more weren't there, my mom has 8 brothers and sisters) before leaving.
I got back to school right when practice was over and we headed to the weight room to get the guys to look like me. Rome certainly wasn't built in a day. It's really important that our guys get after it in the weight room, they need to get stronger because we need to get to loose balls and be able to finish around the basket.
We had double sessions yesterday and overall it went well. A couple of guys weren't feeling to well because I think they overate for lunch and dinner. It happens, I would rather have them overeat then not eat enough. We had doubles again today and that went ok. We are still making some of the same mistakes over and over and the learning curve of each guy has to be better. We also had a little chippiness (if that's a word) today. A couple of guys were going at it in a rebounding drill and neither was backing down. There was a big shove and some verbal sparring but nothing too much. I didn't stop it at all and I actually enjoyed seeing it. I haven't seen that at all in the past three years. Competitive people going after each other, that's how practice is supposed to be. Guys fighting for spots and fighting for minutes, no harm at all.
We leave tomorrow to head to UW-Whitewater for a game on the 30th. It should be another good one. They are a good team but I think we should right there. Hopefully, Carl will play his usual 30 minutes a game that he has during all non-conference games. You can find all the info for Live Stats/Radio/etc for the Whitewater game HERE.
As most of you know the east coast got hit with a barrage of snow at the beginning of the week. This was after seeing GREEN grass at my parents' house when I got home on the 22nd. Green grass in December, absolutely unheard of. It snowed on Christmas day a little bit to cover the green and made Christmas "white." My time at home was great. I got to see my mom's dad aka "Big Grandpa" right after I landed up in Rochester. It was nice to see him, he's definitely moving a little slower but as always is still pretty sharp. Over the next couple of days I got to see a lot of family, friends (only 3 left back home), and had some real NY style pizza. Lots of fun.
On the way back to Rochester we heard on the radio that 270 Continental flights to and from Newark had been canceled. My flight was headed to Newark. Surprise, surprise. I have some family members that work in the airline industry and they told me to get to the airport as quickly as possible to see what I could do to get back to the Twin Cities. All Continental flights were on hold until Monday and it looked like I would be headed to Cleveland Monday before going to Minneapolis. I wasn't happy about it but there is nothing I could do at that point. The guy at the counter ask me again where I was headed and I said MSP and he looked up a couple of other airlines to see what he could do and Voila (I know I spelled it wrong) I got to head to MSP at 7pm on a direct Delta flight. On top of getting a flight out on Sunday I was also able to get to spend time with five of my aunts and uncles (three more weren't there, my mom has 8 brothers and sisters) before leaving.
I got back to school right when practice was over and we headed to the weight room to get the guys to look like me. Rome certainly wasn't built in a day. It's really important that our guys get after it in the weight room, they need to get stronger because we need to get to loose balls and be able to finish around the basket.
We had double sessions yesterday and overall it went well. A couple of guys weren't feeling to well because I think they overate for lunch and dinner. It happens, I would rather have them overeat then not eat enough. We had doubles again today and that went ok. We are still making some of the same mistakes over and over and the learning curve of each guy has to be better. We also had a little chippiness (if that's a word) today. A couple of guys were going at it in a rebounding drill and neither was backing down. There was a big shove and some verbal sparring but nothing too much. I didn't stop it at all and I actually enjoyed seeing it. I haven't seen that at all in the past three years. Competitive people going after each other, that's how practice is supposed to be. Guys fighting for spots and fighting for minutes, no harm at all.
We leave tomorrow to head to UW-Whitewater for a game on the 30th. It should be another good one. They are a good team but I think we should right there. Hopefully, Carl will play his usual 30 minutes a game that he has during all non-conference games. You can find all the info for Live Stats/Radio/etc for the Whitewater game HERE.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
UW River Falls 12/15
We headed on the road for a little doubleheader action with the women's team (all of our games should be that way, especially in our league) as we take on the River Falls Falcons (a little more creative than our league). River Falls was #17 in the latest D3hoops poll and knocked off former #1 Stevens Point two weeks ago. We were planning on a scrap and we sure got one.
The first half started out great for us as we went up 16-6 after the first media timeout (nobody let us know they had those there). We were clicking on all cylinders. They didn't know what to do offensively and we were making shots defensively. They made a couple of changes and that definitely got them going. I believe they went on a 25-5 run at one point led by Jontae Koonkaew. He is a small but strong point that can really fill it up and he did. We battled back and got the game within three at the half. We had 14 turnovers and gave up 9 offensive boards. Just next acceptable anywhere, especially on the road against a veteran team. Halftime score, 36-33.
The second half per usual was back and forth pretty much the whole time. We both made little runs here and there but neither of us could get away from each other. As the second half progressed, it looked like we had them on the heels. We kept getting the ball inside to Carl and he was either scoring or getting to the free throw line. They certainly didn't have an answer for him, just like we didn't have an answer for Jontae. River Falls got a little comfortable with their lead late and we kept on attacking and scoring but could never get it closer than five. Final score, 81-74 River Falls.
We were led by Carl's 22 points, 14 boards and 6 blocks. He probably had a bunch more blocks as well. Mike and Noah rounded out our double figure scoring with 15 and 13, respectively. As usual, we couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from 3, as we finished 5-20 for the game. We shot a stellar 35.7% from the floor overall. Tough to win on the road with those numbers. We ended up 29-33 from the line, which is our best performance from there this season. Just wish we could've gotten there a couple more times during the game.
Once again, we had a close game. That seems to be our MO this year. Hopefully, as time goes on we will be comfortable in these situations and it will help us get a playoff berth and potentially an NCAA berth.
Looking at River Falls' roster and the guys that played, they are a veteran group. They have one 5th year guy in Jontae, three other seniors, one 4th year Jr in Shane Manor, three Jrs., and then two sophomores. That must be nice to have and that is probably why they have won some big games this year and will probably do pretty well throughout the season. We'll get there at some point but we have to get stronger and tougher. Every loose ball has to be ours. That just isn't the case right now. It's clearly a mentality. Either us as a coaching staff isn't doing a good enough job of recruiting tough kids or our guys get soft as soon as they step on campus.
We have a little break before our next one. We play another quality WIAC opponent in UW-Whitewater at their place on Dec. 30th.
I'm off to Portland tomorrow morning to go recruit, Nelson will be in Arizona. Hopefully, we come back with a couple of studs and a good outlook for the 2011 recruiting class.
The first half started out great for us as we went up 16-6 after the first media timeout (nobody let us know they had those there). We were clicking on all cylinders. They didn't know what to do offensively and we were making shots defensively. They made a couple of changes and that definitely got them going. I believe they went on a 25-5 run at one point led by Jontae Koonkaew. He is a small but strong point that can really fill it up and he did. We battled back and got the game within three at the half. We had 14 turnovers and gave up 9 offensive boards. Just next acceptable anywhere, especially on the road against a veteran team. Halftime score, 36-33.
The second half per usual was back and forth pretty much the whole time. We both made little runs here and there but neither of us could get away from each other. As the second half progressed, it looked like we had them on the heels. We kept getting the ball inside to Carl and he was either scoring or getting to the free throw line. They certainly didn't have an answer for him, just like we didn't have an answer for Jontae. River Falls got a little comfortable with their lead late and we kept on attacking and scoring but could never get it closer than five. Final score, 81-74 River Falls.
We were led by Carl's 22 points, 14 boards and 6 blocks. He probably had a bunch more blocks as well. Mike and Noah rounded out our double figure scoring with 15 and 13, respectively. As usual, we couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from 3, as we finished 5-20 for the game. We shot a stellar 35.7% from the floor overall. Tough to win on the road with those numbers. We ended up 29-33 from the line, which is our best performance from there this season. Just wish we could've gotten there a couple more times during the game.
Once again, we had a close game. That seems to be our MO this year. Hopefully, as time goes on we will be comfortable in these situations and it will help us get a playoff berth and potentially an NCAA berth.
Looking at River Falls' roster and the guys that played, they are a veteran group. They have one 5th year guy in Jontae, three other seniors, one 4th year Jr in Shane Manor, three Jrs., and then two sophomores. That must be nice to have and that is probably why they have won some big games this year and will probably do pretty well throughout the season. We'll get there at some point but we have to get stronger and tougher. Every loose ball has to be ours. That just isn't the case right now. It's clearly a mentality. Either us as a coaching staff isn't doing a good enough job of recruiting tough kids or our guys get soft as soon as they step on campus.
We have a little break before our next one. We play another quality WIAC opponent in UW-Whitewater at their place on Dec. 30th.
I'm off to Portland tomorrow morning to go recruit, Nelson will be in Arizona. Hopefully, we come back with a couple of studs and a good outlook for the 2011 recruiting class.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
St. Thomas and Row of Honor Cancelled
Row of Honor Ceremony and the St. Thomas game have been canceled due to weather. What I don't understand is how the plows aren't out right now. In both Minneapolis and St. Paul, the plows don't come out until there is a "snow emergency." What a joke. Be proactive instead of reactive. Or in sports' terms, "make things happen instead of waiting for things to happen."
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Augsburg 12/8
Another barnburner for the Pipeshow last night. What a game, 102-98 in overtime. A bigtime defensive struggle. There were stops on what seems like every possession. Just kidding. Neither team could cover a 97 year old grandmother with bad arthritis.
We got off to a really quick start (a first) last night and knocked down a couple of 3's early (another first). We ended up taking a 20-9 lead with about 11 minutes left in the first half. We were playing really good defense on top of getting pretty looks on the offensive end. After letting them get back in the game, we basically went back and forth with them for about a five minute span.
With a little over a minutes to play to the lead was down to three with Christian Taber aka Ainge at the line for two. He makes the first and missed the second, not very Danny Ainge like. We get a stop and then force up a bad shot on offense and Brandon Rieg gets a big time offensive rebound and goes straight up with and scored pushing our lead to six with 15 seconds left. We then foul them (not on purpose), they miss it, we push the ball up the floor and B Rieg hits a huge 3 to get momentum headed our way for the second half. We lead 46-37 at the break.
The second half did not start off well for us. Matt Quamann (one of the best shooters in the league) hits two 3's because we got under screens to cut the lead to two immediately. Not fun. We certainly didn't want to see him get hot. The rest of the second half was a see-saw battle with nine lead changes and tons of back and forth action. We made a free throw with 12 seconds left to put us up 92-90. Parker Hines, their starting point, brings the ball down and gets flustered with our fans and heaves a one footed 40 footer with about four seconds left. Noah Aguirre grabs the board (not quite as securely as we wanted) and we win....wait, not yet. Noah gets both of his arms karate chopped (seriously, I think they would've broke three cement blocks), loses the ball, Hines gets it and hit a fadaway jumper with .7 seconds left. Tie ball game, now onto overtime.
Overtime gets started both of our starting centers out of the game in Carl Hipp (more of this later) and Cory Polta. We started off with a really aggressive move to the basket by Mike that led to two made free throws. Mike then had another aggressive take and scored a layup. B Rieg was then fouled and made 1 of 2 for a five point lead with 1:26 left. Quamann made a layup and then Ainge missed a great look for 3 in the corner as Tyler Pannell made a great play and got a rebound on the back side, nevermind, he got called for over the back when he just flat out outjumped the guy that tried for a rebound. They make both free throws and it's a one point game again. They foul, B Rieg hits 1 of 2 to put it at 98-96. They miss a off balance jumper, Noah gets the board, passes to Ainge and he is fouled. Ainge knocks down both to give every one free tacos for the night (100 points). We basically left them score (not intentionally) to get it back to a two point game. B Rieg then gets fouled knocks down both from the charity stripe and we go up four to clinch the game, 102-98.
We had six guys in double figures led by Mike Campbell's 22. Ainge had 14, Carl had 13, both B Rieg and Noah had 11, and Andy had 10. We finished the game shooting 53% from the floor, 7-20 from 3, and 33-44 from the line.
We have the Row of Honor ceremony on Saturday at 1pm. The details can be viewed HERE.
We got off to a really quick start (a first) last night and knocked down a couple of 3's early (another first). We ended up taking a 20-9 lead with about 11 minutes left in the first half. We were playing really good defense on top of getting pretty looks on the offensive end. After letting them get back in the game, we basically went back and forth with them for about a five minute span.
With a little over a minutes to play to the lead was down to three with Christian Taber aka Ainge at the line for two. He makes the first and missed the second, not very Danny Ainge like. We get a stop and then force up a bad shot on offense and Brandon Rieg gets a big time offensive rebound and goes straight up with and scored pushing our lead to six with 15 seconds left. We then foul them (not on purpose), they miss it, we push the ball up the floor and B Rieg hits a huge 3 to get momentum headed our way for the second half. We lead 46-37 at the break.
The second half did not start off well for us. Matt Quamann (one of the best shooters in the league) hits two 3's because we got under screens to cut the lead to two immediately. Not fun. We certainly didn't want to see him get hot. The rest of the second half was a see-saw battle with nine lead changes and tons of back and forth action. We made a free throw with 12 seconds left to put us up 92-90. Parker Hines, their starting point, brings the ball down and gets flustered with our fans and heaves a one footed 40 footer with about four seconds left. Noah Aguirre grabs the board (not quite as securely as we wanted) and we win....wait, not yet. Noah gets both of his arms karate chopped (seriously, I think they would've broke three cement blocks), loses the ball, Hines gets it and hit a fadaway jumper with .7 seconds left. Tie ball game, now onto overtime.
Overtime gets started both of our starting centers out of the game in Carl Hipp (more of this later) and Cory Polta. We started off with a really aggressive move to the basket by Mike that led to two made free throws. Mike then had another aggressive take and scored a layup. B Rieg was then fouled and made 1 of 2 for a five point lead with 1:26 left. Quamann made a layup and then Ainge missed a great look for 3 in the corner as Tyler Pannell made a great play and got a rebound on the back side, nevermind, he got called for over the back when he just flat out outjumped the guy that tried for a rebound. They make both free throws and it's a one point game again. They foul, B Rieg hits 1 of 2 to put it at 98-96. They miss a off balance jumper, Noah gets the board, passes to Ainge and he is fouled. Ainge knocks down both to give every one free tacos for the night (100 points). We basically left them score (not intentionally) to get it back to a two point game. B Rieg then gets fouled knocks down both from the charity stripe and we go up four to clinch the game, 102-98.
We had six guys in double figures led by Mike Campbell's 22. Ainge had 14, Carl had 13, both B Rieg and Noah had 11, and Andy had 10. We finished the game shooting 53% from the floor, 7-20 from 3, and 33-44 from the line.
We have the Row of Honor ceremony on Saturday at 1pm. The details can be viewed HERE.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
St. John's 12/6
Had another barnburner last night against the Johnnies (terrible nickname, one of many in our league). St. John's has a big time veteran core with three senior starters that have all started essentially their whole career to go along with two junior starters that have started the past three years. Those guys all generally play at least 30 minutes a game. Their 6th man is another senior who has not seen a ton of time over his four years but he is a very skilled 5 man with a body like Joe Burger but not fat and balding.
The first half started off as a back and forth first couple of minutes (seems like every game has been like that for us). He find Carl Hipp for a bunch of scores early as he is getting great position position. St. John's pulls away a little as we didn't find their two best shooters in Sam Blank and Andy Burns. That's one of the things we have talked about over and over and we still do it. Very frustrating, hopefully we'll learn and become better. Aaron Barmore hits three early baskets all off of Aaron Burtzel's passes. That is all he does and we couldn't match up with him after going over that for the past two seasons. We ended up being down by as many as 11 and battled back to within five before Burtzel made his first jumpshot of the season, making the game 34-27 at the half.
We were led by Carl's ten points and Mike Campbell had six to round out our leading scorers. Once again, we struggled again from 3 shooting 0-7 in the first half. We are getting good looks too. Just not knocking them down.
Second half was more of the same as SJU got their lead up to as many as 16 with about 14:30 left to play. After that point, Nelson got a "T" for getting on an official after everyone in the gym heard a slap (you can hear it on the film as well) and it wasn't called (sound familiar). After that point, we revved up our intensity and started chipping away on their lead. We started attacking the basket more and getting to the free throw line. As the game wore on, they looked tired and their main players were getting into foul trouble. Momentum was on our side. We kept on attacking and getting the ball inside. We got the game within four points with about 45 seconds left and missed an open layup which somewhat deflated our sails. We were still battling and got it within three but could get no closer. Final score 80-72.
Here is a couple of things that could've gone our way and didn't (no fault but our own). Two guys dove for a loose ball (second time this season and second time this game) and their guy hit it out to Sam Blank and he hits a huge three with about six minutes to play. Mike Campbell and Andy Voigt battle for a rebound (just communicate, AHHHHHHHH), they lose it and it goes right into Barmore's hands and he scored a layup. Those two plays are a potential ten point swing. On top of those two, we go 25-35 from the line (not an awful percentage) and lose by eight.
Stats of the night.
Hamline
38%FG
1-16 from 3
25-35 from line
14 offensive boards
10 turnovers
St. John's
52%FG
5-12 from 3
21-25
6 offensive boards
17 turnovers
Bottom line, we have to make shots. We didn't do a great job defensively tonight but a ton of those FT's for them were in the last couple of minutes. We were clearly the aggressor late. We need to play like that all the time and to have that urgency to win basketball games.
We were led by Carl's 23 and 9 boards. Mike had 15, while Noah Aguirre rounded out our double figure scorers with 13. Levi Wenrich played a solid game at the point with 7 points, 3 assists, and no turnovers. He also made all five of his free throws.
We have the Augsburg Auggies (terrible, I know) tomorrow night at home again. They lost to St. Thomas 65-61 last night at their place. Hopefully, we can knock down some shots.
The first half started off as a back and forth first couple of minutes (seems like every game has been like that for us). He find Carl Hipp for a bunch of scores early as he is getting great position position. St. John's pulls away a little as we didn't find their two best shooters in Sam Blank and Andy Burns. That's one of the things we have talked about over and over and we still do it. Very frustrating, hopefully we'll learn and become better. Aaron Barmore hits three early baskets all off of Aaron Burtzel's passes. That is all he does and we couldn't match up with him after going over that for the past two seasons. We ended up being down by as many as 11 and battled back to within five before Burtzel made his first jumpshot of the season, making the game 34-27 at the half.
We were led by Carl's ten points and Mike Campbell had six to round out our leading scorers. Once again, we struggled again from 3 shooting 0-7 in the first half. We are getting good looks too. Just not knocking them down.
Second half was more of the same as SJU got their lead up to as many as 16 with about 14:30 left to play. After that point, Nelson got a "T" for getting on an official after everyone in the gym heard a slap (you can hear it on the film as well) and it wasn't called (sound familiar). After that point, we revved up our intensity and started chipping away on their lead. We started attacking the basket more and getting to the free throw line. As the game wore on, they looked tired and their main players were getting into foul trouble. Momentum was on our side. We kept on attacking and getting the ball inside. We got the game within four points with about 45 seconds left and missed an open layup which somewhat deflated our sails. We were still battling and got it within three but could get no closer. Final score 80-72.
Here is a couple of things that could've gone our way and didn't (no fault but our own). Two guys dove for a loose ball (second time this season and second time this game) and their guy hit it out to Sam Blank and he hits a huge three with about six minutes to play. Mike Campbell and Andy Voigt battle for a rebound (just communicate, AHHHHHHHH), they lose it and it goes right into Barmore's hands and he scored a layup. Those two plays are a potential ten point swing. On top of those two, we go 25-35 from the line (not an awful percentage) and lose by eight.
Stats of the night.
Hamline
38%FG
1-16 from 3
25-35 from line
14 offensive boards
10 turnovers
St. John's
52%FG
5-12 from 3
21-25
6 offensive boards
17 turnovers
Bottom line, we have to make shots. We didn't do a great job defensively tonight but a ton of those FT's for them were in the last couple of minutes. We were clearly the aggressor late. We need to play like that all the time and to have that urgency to win basketball games.
We were led by Carl's 23 and 9 boards. Mike had 15, while Noah Aguirre rounded out our double figure scorers with 13. Levi Wenrich played a solid game at the point with 7 points, 3 assists, and no turnovers. He also made all five of his free throws.
We have the Augsburg Auggies (terrible, I know) tomorrow night at home again. They lost to St. Thomas 65-61 last night at their place. Hopefully, we can knock down some shots.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Nike Basketball 'No excuses' advert... with a twist!
One of the best commericials of all time. Sick of hearing excuses.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Coaches' Poll
The other day, the MIAC Coaches came out with a "preseason" poll for fun. We were predicted to finish 9th out of 11 teams. If this isn't a motivator for our team then I don't what is.
Here is the POLL
Here is the POLL
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Carleton 12/1
Over the past couple of years, our games with Carleton have been really good ones. It's essentially a battle of two different styles. They want to slow the ball down and the their stuff and we want to get it out in transition and take advantage of our athleticism. They knocked us out the conference tournament last season, so we are hoping for a little revenge.
The games started with a little back and forth action. We ended up taking a four to seven point lead throughout most of the first half. We were getting great catches inside with Carl Hipp and Andy Voigt. They were getting catches really deep in the post and basically just turning and shooting before a double team could get there. Those guys will need to do that more often for us to be successful throughout the season. The scored ended up being tied at the half, 26-26 after some timely 3's by Tom Sawatzke and Jeremy Sutherland. We were led by Brandon Rieg's 10 points.
The second half started off pretty even and then Carleton started gradually pulling away after our lack of defensive rebounding. It's embarassing to watch our guys not want the ball. Last season, we dominated the boards and this year we are getting killed. Is it strength? Is it wanting it more? Is it size and athleticism? I think we are flat out being soft. We can't expect teams to fall back to defense instead of crashing. Scott Theisen had a career high of 10 boards, four of them offensive against us. His previous high was six. Not acceptable at all.
Though Carleton never really pulled away, we couldn't string together enough baskets to get it closer than three down the stretch. They made their free throws down the stretch after missing a bunch early while we shot 8-15 in the second half from the line. They had four offensive boards off of free throws and capitalized on every one of them. We missed probably four to six layups in the second half. We got outrebounded by 15. We lose 62-56. Hmmmmmmm. All things that we can fix and take care of. No way we should've lost that game.
On a positive note, we held them to 36% shooting from the floor and 27% from 3. Former player Nick Carroll said that he thought that was the best he had ever seen us defend against Carleton. It was just a very frustrating loss to take. My hairline creeped back a little more than I would've like as well.
On a funny side. Coach Whitmore ripped the hell out of his pants in the first half. No one noticed it until halftime when Victor Easter said something to him after his halftime speech. It wasn't just a little rip either. His pants split basically from the middle of his butt to his crotch, probably a six inch rip. He ended up coaching the second half in a warmup suit. That'll be a story for us to tell for a long time.
We play our first home game of the year on Monday vs. St. John's. They are playing really well right now and I believe are 5-1 with their only loss coming to UW-Stevens Point. We also play Augsburg at home on Wednesday and then St. Thomas on Saturday as we put up the Row of Honor in Hutton Arena at 1pm and we play at 3pm.
The games started with a little back and forth action. We ended up taking a four to seven point lead throughout most of the first half. We were getting great catches inside with Carl Hipp and Andy Voigt. They were getting catches really deep in the post and basically just turning and shooting before a double team could get there. Those guys will need to do that more often for us to be successful throughout the season. The scored ended up being tied at the half, 26-26 after some timely 3's by Tom Sawatzke and Jeremy Sutherland. We were led by Brandon Rieg's 10 points.
The second half started off pretty even and then Carleton started gradually pulling away after our lack of defensive rebounding. It's embarassing to watch our guys not want the ball. Last season, we dominated the boards and this year we are getting killed. Is it strength? Is it wanting it more? Is it size and athleticism? I think we are flat out being soft. We can't expect teams to fall back to defense instead of crashing. Scott Theisen had a career high of 10 boards, four of them offensive against us. His previous high was six. Not acceptable at all.
Though Carleton never really pulled away, we couldn't string together enough baskets to get it closer than three down the stretch. They made their free throws down the stretch after missing a bunch early while we shot 8-15 in the second half from the line. They had four offensive boards off of free throws and capitalized on every one of them. We missed probably four to six layups in the second half. We got outrebounded by 15. We lose 62-56. Hmmmmmmm. All things that we can fix and take care of. No way we should've lost that game.
On a positive note, we held them to 36% shooting from the floor and 27% from 3. Former player Nick Carroll said that he thought that was the best he had ever seen us defend against Carleton. It was just a very frustrating loss to take. My hairline creeped back a little more than I would've like as well.
On a funny side. Coach Whitmore ripped the hell out of his pants in the first half. No one noticed it until halftime when Victor Easter said something to him after his halftime speech. It wasn't just a little rip either. His pants split basically from the middle of his butt to his crotch, probably a six inch rip. He ended up coaching the second half in a warmup suit. That'll be a story for us to tell for a long time.
We play our first home game of the year on Monday vs. St. John's. They are playing really well right now and I believe are 5-1 with their only loss coming to UW-Stevens Point. We also play Augsburg at home on Wednesday and then St. Thomas on Saturday as we put up the Row of Honor in Hutton Arena at 1pm and we play at 3pm.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Buena Vista 11/28
Saturday night we traveled down to East Jesus, Iowa. That's not really the name but it might as well have been. Buena Vista is in the middle of nowhere. It's a decent town with a great campus, right on a lake, but it couldn't be further from civilization. It was about a four and a half hour drive from St. Paul. Our hotel was on the "outskirts" of town and they told us that the hot water heater was down and it didn't look like we would get hot water. Great start to our stay.
The game got off to a decent start for both teams. We initially didn't have an answer for their bigs as they started 6'6" and 6'6" for their 4's and 5's. We are definitely smaller but at the same time, much more athletic. Midway through the first, we went on a 12-0 run with our defensive intensity. It was exactly what we have talked about with our team. Create a tempo that the other team can't keep up with. The problem with that is, we can also give up those types of runs. We gave up an 11-0 run almost immediately after that. The rest of the half was played pretty even and we ended up up one 39-38 at the horn. According to the stats, we had 19 points off of BV's turnovers. That's a stat we can definitely take pride in. We also gave up 13 offensive rebounds. Not exactly something to be proud of.
The second half started off with a bunch of back and forth action as we gradually extended our lead to seven points throughout the middle part of the half. We essentially kept the game anywhere from a four point lead to a nine point lead the rest of the game. We took away a few of their offensive rebounds and "held" them to nine in the second half. Not exactly what we wanted but we'll take the win. We forced them into 23 turnovers, which I believe is highly uncharacteristic for them (they do have a freshman point guard). We were led by Mike Campbell's 24 points on 8-11 shooting and 8-9 from the line. Noah Aguirre had 15 on 5-7 shooting including 2-4 from 3. Carl Hipp finished with 14 and 8, while Tyler Pannell had 12 on 4-6 shooting from 3 in his first collegiate start.
In case you were wondering where Jordan Schmidt was (he wasn't in the box score). He is back in Chicago dealing with an infection. He is supposed to see the doctor today. Not exactly sure if or when he will return.
We play Carleton on Wednesday in our first MIAC game of the season. They ended our season last year in the MIAC Playoffs and ended up winning the conference tournament. They lost to UW-Stevens Point in the first round of the NCAA tournament and Stevens Point ended up winning the whole thing. The Knights are 0-3 right now but have played two D2 teams out in Hawaii over the weekend, so I'm expecting a good one. HERE is the link to video and everything else for the game.
The game got off to a decent start for both teams. We initially didn't have an answer for their bigs as they started 6'6" and 6'6" for their 4's and 5's. We are definitely smaller but at the same time, much more athletic. Midway through the first, we went on a 12-0 run with our defensive intensity. It was exactly what we have talked about with our team. Create a tempo that the other team can't keep up with. The problem with that is, we can also give up those types of runs. We gave up an 11-0 run almost immediately after that. The rest of the half was played pretty even and we ended up up one 39-38 at the horn. According to the stats, we had 19 points off of BV's turnovers. That's a stat we can definitely take pride in. We also gave up 13 offensive rebounds. Not exactly something to be proud of.
The second half started off with a bunch of back and forth action as we gradually extended our lead to seven points throughout the middle part of the half. We essentially kept the game anywhere from a four point lead to a nine point lead the rest of the game. We took away a few of their offensive rebounds and "held" them to nine in the second half. Not exactly what we wanted but we'll take the win. We forced them into 23 turnovers, which I believe is highly uncharacteristic for them (they do have a freshman point guard). We were led by Mike Campbell's 24 points on 8-11 shooting and 8-9 from the line. Noah Aguirre had 15 on 5-7 shooting including 2-4 from 3. Carl Hipp finished with 14 and 8, while Tyler Pannell had 12 on 4-6 shooting from 3 in his first collegiate start.
In case you were wondering where Jordan Schmidt was (he wasn't in the box score). He is back in Chicago dealing with an infection. He is supposed to see the doctor today. Not exactly sure if or when he will return.
We play Carleton on Wednesday in our first MIAC game of the season. They ended our season last year in the MIAC Playoffs and ended up winning the conference tournament. They lost to UW-Stevens Point in the first round of the NCAA tournament and Stevens Point ended up winning the whole thing. The Knights are 0-3 right now but have played two D2 teams out in Hawaii over the weekend, so I'm expecting a good one. HERE is the link to video and everything else for the game.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Elmhurst 11/20
Just a little note to the seven people that read this, I got my first head coaching Technical foul the other day when our JV's play against Northwestern. Quite hysterical and all I said was "Are you kidding me? Everyone in the gym heard it." This was after one of my guys essentially got a low five when driving to the basket. At least I got that one out of the way. Now I just need a win. JV's also lost to Elmhurst by 3 yesterday.
On to Saturday night's main event. We took on the Bluejays from Elmhurst. It is a homecoming game for Jordan Schmidt. His family lives about 20 minutes down the road and a lot of friends and family made it to the game. A couple of his high school coaches were there as well. Great to see them supporting their former players (one of many on the college level).
Elmhurst made it quite an event with the lights out and spotlights on their players during the player introductions. Even their cheerleaders had these little lights in their poms poms to create more atmosphere. It somewhat reminded me of Apollo taking on the Russian in Rocky IV. Apollo comes out with all this glits and glamour and proceeds to get pummeled. I was hoping that were going to be like Drago.
The game started off a little slow for us as Carl Hipp lost the tip to 6'2" Zach Boyd (that doesn't happen often). The game was back and forth for a little bit until we decided to pressure the basketball a little more and we created a lot of turnovers and a lot of confusion. We were up as many as 18 in the first half led by some great defense by Levi Wenrich and Brandon Rieg. That burst was the spurtability (I don't know if that's a word but they use it on tv) that we always had with our Brockport teams. The first half ended with us taking a 13 point lead to the locker room. We had very balanced scoring in the first with Mike Campbell, Carl Hipp, Brandon Rieg, and Christian Taber aka Danny Ainge all with 6 points.
The second half did not start the way would we have liked with a bunch of turnovers on our end and our guys not playing at the intensity like the first half on defense. Elmhurst switched over to zone and it made us somewhat stagnant on offense and we weren't able to get the penetration and post passes as we would have liked. The biggest thing for us is that we didn't want Zach Boyd or Sean Fendley to get hot. We somewhat took away Boyd but Fendley made three 3's in the second half because we were either lazy or didn't find him. Elmhurst took the lead on a questionable three point play with about a minute left in the game. We came back down the floor with a jumper by Mike Campbell. We fouled again right after that, just missed a steal, as Mike McCurdy knocked down both free throws. Next possession, we got the ball to Carl inside and he hit a turnaround jumper to make it a one point lead again. On the ensuing inbounds play we trapped Boyd big time and he swung his elbows to create some space. The refs called an intentional foul on Boyd due to the new Manny Harris Rule (not the name of the rule but it is because of him). Noah Aguirre hits both free throws and we take the lead. After a series of back and forth free throws, we ended up with a four point victory. Our first win against Elmhurst in three years.
We were led by Carl's 15 points and 8 boards (5 offensive) and Mike Campbell with 12 points. We had balanced scoring behind that with Jordan Schmidt having 9, Danny Ainge with 8, Noah with 7, Brandon, Levi Wenrich, and Tyler Pannell with 6. Great effort from our guards last night. Much different story than the Northwestern game.
Here is a video of the whole game that is available on youtube.
On to Saturday night's main event. We took on the Bluejays from Elmhurst. It is a homecoming game for Jordan Schmidt. His family lives about 20 minutes down the road and a lot of friends and family made it to the game. A couple of his high school coaches were there as well. Great to see them supporting their former players (one of many on the college level).
Elmhurst made it quite an event with the lights out and spotlights on their players during the player introductions. Even their cheerleaders had these little lights in their poms poms to create more atmosphere. It somewhat reminded me of Apollo taking on the Russian in Rocky IV. Apollo comes out with all this glits and glamour and proceeds to get pummeled. I was hoping that were going to be like Drago.
The game started off a little slow for us as Carl Hipp lost the tip to 6'2" Zach Boyd (that doesn't happen often). The game was back and forth for a little bit until we decided to pressure the basketball a little more and we created a lot of turnovers and a lot of confusion. We were up as many as 18 in the first half led by some great defense by Levi Wenrich and Brandon Rieg. That burst was the spurtability (I don't know if that's a word but they use it on tv) that we always had with our Brockport teams. The first half ended with us taking a 13 point lead to the locker room. We had very balanced scoring in the first with Mike Campbell, Carl Hipp, Brandon Rieg, and Christian Taber aka Danny Ainge all with 6 points.
The second half did not start the way would we have liked with a bunch of turnovers on our end and our guys not playing at the intensity like the first half on defense. Elmhurst switched over to zone and it made us somewhat stagnant on offense and we weren't able to get the penetration and post passes as we would have liked. The biggest thing for us is that we didn't want Zach Boyd or Sean Fendley to get hot. We somewhat took away Boyd but Fendley made three 3's in the second half because we were either lazy or didn't find him. Elmhurst took the lead on a questionable three point play with about a minute left in the game. We came back down the floor with a jumper by Mike Campbell. We fouled again right after that, just missed a steal, as Mike McCurdy knocked down both free throws. Next possession, we got the ball to Carl inside and he hit a turnaround jumper to make it a one point lead again. On the ensuing inbounds play we trapped Boyd big time and he swung his elbows to create some space. The refs called an intentional foul on Boyd due to the new Manny Harris Rule (not the name of the rule but it is because of him). Noah Aguirre hits both free throws and we take the lead. After a series of back and forth free throws, we ended up with a four point victory. Our first win against Elmhurst in three years.
We were led by Carl's 15 points and 8 boards (5 offensive) and Mike Campbell with 12 points. We had balanced scoring behind that with Jordan Schmidt having 9, Danny Ainge with 8, Noah with 7, Brandon, Levi Wenrich, and Tyler Pannell with 6. Great effort from our guards last night. Much different story than the Northwestern game.
Here is a video of the whole game that is available on youtube.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Northwestern 11/16
We opened up our season with a really tough loss against Northwestern last night. Final score was 62-61. We played pretty well in stretches but it obviously wasn't enough. After watching film and saw how awful we played, changes will probably be made this week before our game with Elmhurst.
We opened up the game holding a 16-9 lead and it quickly turned to a 23-17 lead for them. We got super stagnant on offense and our defensive intensity was terrible. Our "second group" at the moment just isn't getting it done on the offensive end. They aren't moving the basketball at all and are doing a lot of standing, which we can't do at all in our offense. Northwestern was lead by Wade Chitwood with 11 points on 4-9 shooting and Brian Lechler who had 9 points and 4 assists. Halftime score was 36-32.
Second half was more of the same, as we couldn't get things going offensively. We had a bunch of transition opportunities that we didn't convert. Can't expect to win games, especially on the road when not converting transition layups. It also didn't help that we were 14-25 from the line. Not making transition layups + not making free throws = losing ball games.
Carl Hipp led us with 19 points and 20 rebounds. Mike Campbell and Noah Aguirre rounded out our double figure scorers with 13 and 11, respectively.
Back to work today with some film and lifting. Our JV guys play their opener against Northwestern's JV in my head coaching debut.
Next game on Saturday vs. Elmhurst, who lost their opener to Cornell College (IA) in overtime. Elmhurst played small ball for most of the night and it should be interesting how we match up with each other.
We opened up the game holding a 16-9 lead and it quickly turned to a 23-17 lead for them. We got super stagnant on offense and our defensive intensity was terrible. Our "second group" at the moment just isn't getting it done on the offensive end. They aren't moving the basketball at all and are doing a lot of standing, which we can't do at all in our offense. Northwestern was lead by Wade Chitwood with 11 points on 4-9 shooting and Brian Lechler who had 9 points and 4 assists. Halftime score was 36-32.
Second half was more of the same, as we couldn't get things going offensively. We had a bunch of transition opportunities that we didn't convert. Can't expect to win games, especially on the road when not converting transition layups. It also didn't help that we were 14-25 from the line. Not making transition layups + not making free throws = losing ball games.
Carl Hipp led us with 19 points and 20 rebounds. Mike Campbell and Noah Aguirre rounded out our double figure scorers with 13 and 11, respectively.
Back to work today with some film and lifting. Our JV guys play their opener against Northwestern's JV in my head coaching debut.
Next game on Saturday vs. Elmhurst, who lost their opener to Cornell College (IA) in overtime. Elmhurst played small ball for most of the night and it should be interesting how we match up with each other.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Northwestern Preview
As a beautiful Sunday evening rolls to an end here in St. Paul, I've decided to give everyone a preview of our Northwestern game coming up on Tuesday. We play at Northwestern on Tuesday at 7:30pm Central time, directly after the women's game.
Northwestern is a perennial power in the UMAC (small Christian based institutions throughout Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin). Last season they won the NCCAA Division 1 National Championship. I'm not exactly sure what the NCCAA is but for a team to play a bunch of extra games is certainly beneficial, as well as being one of the few teams throughout the country that actually ends their season with a win. We had a really close game and controversial game with them at our place last season, you can check out the summary HERE.
The Eagles lost three of their top scorers from last season which included Hamline killer Reid Berens. He was a big bruising forward that could shoot 3's, we always had a tough time matching up with him. I will be happy to enter their gym and not see him in uniform. They also lost Stephen Hanson and Eric Garst, their second and fourth leading scorers from last year. Even though they lost these players, I still expect Northwestern to play hard and compete for all 40 minutes.
Returning for them will be Sr. Brian Lechler, their third leading scorer from last season. He is a very solid guard and a pretty good shooter. A trio of sophomores will also be significant contributors after stellar freshmen campaigns. Their three sophs are Robbie Anderstrom (got a tough introduction to college hoops last season when Carl Hipp had 25 and 12 on him in his collegiate debut), Tom Gisler, and Wade Chitwood. Anderstrom is a solid 6'7" center with solid skills inside and out. Gisler is a very good shooter and played better as the season progressed last year. Chitwood is very capable of shooting the lights out like his namesake Jimmy from Hickory High. Their probable fifth starter will be Gabe Jefferson, a junior from Omaha. Jefferson will probably play the 4 for them and has shot close to 40% from 3 for his career.
Hopefully, what you'll see from us is a faster tempo with a lot of transition baskets. We really need to push the ball up the wings and try to get the ball to our bigs in secondary break look. Our guys need to be patient if nothing is there. We will get good early looks in our offense but we need to look to score on our second and third catches instead of trying to score right away.
Here is the link for the Northwestern Athletics Website. I am not sure if they will have a live broadcast or live stats for the game but from the looks of the website, I have to believe they will.
Northwestern is a perennial power in the UMAC (small Christian based institutions throughout Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin). Last season they won the NCCAA Division 1 National Championship. I'm not exactly sure what the NCCAA is but for a team to play a bunch of extra games is certainly beneficial, as well as being one of the few teams throughout the country that actually ends their season with a win. We had a really close game and controversial game with them at our place last season, you can check out the summary HERE.
The Eagles lost three of their top scorers from last season which included Hamline killer Reid Berens. He was a big bruising forward that could shoot 3's, we always had a tough time matching up with him. I will be happy to enter their gym and not see him in uniform. They also lost Stephen Hanson and Eric Garst, their second and fourth leading scorers from last year. Even though they lost these players, I still expect Northwestern to play hard and compete for all 40 minutes.
Returning for them will be Sr. Brian Lechler, their third leading scorer from last season. He is a very solid guard and a pretty good shooter. A trio of sophomores will also be significant contributors after stellar freshmen campaigns. Their three sophs are Robbie Anderstrom (got a tough introduction to college hoops last season when Carl Hipp had 25 and 12 on him in his collegiate debut), Tom Gisler, and Wade Chitwood. Anderstrom is a solid 6'7" center with solid skills inside and out. Gisler is a very good shooter and played better as the season progressed last year. Chitwood is very capable of shooting the lights out like his namesake Jimmy from Hickory High. Their probable fifth starter will be Gabe Jefferson, a junior from Omaha. Jefferson will probably play the 4 for them and has shot close to 40% from 3 for his career.
Hopefully, what you'll see from us is a faster tempo with a lot of transition baskets. We really need to push the ball up the wings and try to get the ball to our bigs in secondary break look. Our guys need to be patient if nothing is there. We will get good early looks in our offense but we need to look to score on our second and third catches instead of trying to score right away.
Here is the link for the Northwestern Athletics Website. I am not sure if they will have a live broadcast or live stats for the game but from the looks of the website, I have to believe they will.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Exhibition Game vs. Concordia St. Paul
Last night we met the Golden Bears from Concordia St. Paul. It's an easy game for us in a sense that we are right down the road from each other. Plus, it's another solid test for us before we start our regular season schedule. With them being a D2 team, it gives us another chance to play against higher level competition just like St. Cloud State.
We started off with a 10-0 run and they looked a little shell shocked. Any time a lower level team (us) plays a higher level team (them), the lower level team usually comes out guns a-blazin and that was true last night. We were really running the floor and getting out in transition just like we talked about the whole preseason. After a Concordia timeout, they settled down which led to a pretty even keel first half both ways. We ended up being up by five at the end of the half with a pretty mediocre first half for us. Frequent visitor to open gyms this summer, Peter Olafeso kept them in the game with 17 first half points. We had no answer for his size and strength at the guard spot. We were pretty balanced as a team with Mike Campbell leading the way with ten points. Halftime score 33-28.
The second half started off with a bang from the Golden Bears. They got back to back "and 1's" to start the half. It was certainly the momentum booster they were looking for. After three minutes of back and forth lead changes, Concordia took control with some quality inside play. They were getting layups basically every possession and we were settling for early bad shots against their 2-3 zone. We just couldn't get it going offensively against their zone. Their length really bothered us for the second game in a row (St Cloud as well). We ended up shooting 7-26 in the second half and that's just not getting it done. We "held" them to 17-25 shooting in the second half. Needless to say, us not making shots gave them better opportunities on the offensive end because our intensity was not good enough.
The final ended up being 76-58. The game was much closer than that and I believe we could've made a little run on them if we wanted to show our other offensive and defensive sets. We knew that a lot of future opposing coaches were there and there was no reason to show them everything. Mike Campbell led us with 14 while Carl Hipp had a good all around game in limited minutes with 10 points, 9 boards, 4 blocks, and 5 steals. Looks like AK47 numbers if you ask me. We shot 34% overall from the floor, 5-17 from 3, and 15-22 from the line. That's just not going to get it done when playing against good teams.
As far as improvement goes, we have to get the ball into the post more often. For Carl to only take seven shots, that's just not cutting it for our team. He is too good not to get 12-15 shots a game. We have to get better at attacking a zone. We obviously didn't do a good job of that. The ball must get to the short corner or our zone offense will be effective. We need to take care of the basketball better. Twenty turnovers just won't cut it for us. We have to give ourselves extra possession at every opportunity.
On a positive note, we forced another D2 team into playing zone. They couldn't cover our penetration at all. We normally don't play against a lot of teams that play zone, so that will be interesting as the season progresses if we see any. We outrebounded them. They had a distinct size advantage and we still had 16 offensive boards. Hopefully, that will continue throughout the year.
I believe we are still adjusting to playing with each other and as a coaching staff we have to get the guys to play harder and longer for us to be successful. In time, I think we have a chance to be very good as long as we work hard on the court and in the weight room throughout the season.
We started off with a 10-0 run and they looked a little shell shocked. Any time a lower level team (us) plays a higher level team (them), the lower level team usually comes out guns a-blazin and that was true last night. We were really running the floor and getting out in transition just like we talked about the whole preseason. After a Concordia timeout, they settled down which led to a pretty even keel first half both ways. We ended up being up by five at the end of the half with a pretty mediocre first half for us. Frequent visitor to open gyms this summer, Peter Olafeso kept them in the game with 17 first half points. We had no answer for his size and strength at the guard spot. We were pretty balanced as a team with Mike Campbell leading the way with ten points. Halftime score 33-28.
The second half started off with a bang from the Golden Bears. They got back to back "and 1's" to start the half. It was certainly the momentum booster they were looking for. After three minutes of back and forth lead changes, Concordia took control with some quality inside play. They were getting layups basically every possession and we were settling for early bad shots against their 2-3 zone. We just couldn't get it going offensively against their zone. Their length really bothered us for the second game in a row (St Cloud as well). We ended up shooting 7-26 in the second half and that's just not getting it done. We "held" them to 17-25 shooting in the second half. Needless to say, us not making shots gave them better opportunities on the offensive end because our intensity was not good enough.
The final ended up being 76-58. The game was much closer than that and I believe we could've made a little run on them if we wanted to show our other offensive and defensive sets. We knew that a lot of future opposing coaches were there and there was no reason to show them everything. Mike Campbell led us with 14 while Carl Hipp had a good all around game in limited minutes with 10 points, 9 boards, 4 blocks, and 5 steals. Looks like AK47 numbers if you ask me. We shot 34% overall from the floor, 5-17 from 3, and 15-22 from the line. That's just not going to get it done when playing against good teams.
As far as improvement goes, we have to get the ball into the post more often. For Carl to only take seven shots, that's just not cutting it for our team. He is too good not to get 12-15 shots a game. We have to get better at attacking a zone. We obviously didn't do a good job of that. The ball must get to the short corner or our zone offense will be effective. We need to take care of the basketball better. Twenty turnovers just won't cut it for us. We have to give ourselves extra possession at every opportunity.
On a positive note, we forced another D2 team into playing zone. They couldn't cover our penetration at all. We normally don't play against a lot of teams that play zone, so that will be interesting as the season progresses if we see any. We outrebounded them. They had a distinct size advantage and we still had 16 offensive boards. Hopefully, that will continue throughout the year.
I believe we are still adjusting to playing with each other and as a coaching staff we have to get the guys to play harder and longer for us to be successful. In time, I think we have a chance to be very good as long as we work hard on the court and in the weight room throughout the season.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Scrimmages
We are now three weeks into practice and guys are finally starting to get their legs under them. We are still having a tough time with a couple of guys to do what we ask. It's really tough for players to adjust from being the man in high school to being an "average" player in college. By "average," I mean that you aren't "the man" right away. That rarely happens at the D3 level.
The intensity level at practice needs to increase significantly for us to be better. Our veteran players have a decent understanding of where we want to be in practice but we need to take it up another notch. Our newcomers don't really know what it's like to practice hard. Part of the reason for that is that many of these guys have been allowed to play in cruise control while playing throughout high school. That just can't happen at our level.
We scrimmaged our alums ten days ago today and we came out on top 114-76. Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of defense especially from our alums in the second half. We scored pretty much at will and it certainly gave our guys some confidence.
That confidence was quickly taken away after we scrimmaged D2 Final Four team, St Cloud State. They are ranked in the top ten in two different preseason polls. We scrimmaged them on Monday and got a rude awakening (not Ravishing Rick Rude's finishing move). The Huskies played hard, tough, and executed their offense very well. We certainly didn't back down but their size, strength, and length gave us some problems. We didn't shoot the well very well from the floor, from 3, or from the free throw line in part because of the factors mentioned above.
I do think we gave them a little trouble with our offense. They couldn't seem to keep us in front of them and I believe we forced them in a couple of different zones. We still need to find a balance of attacking the rim and finding our bigs. Our bigs showed that they could hang with their D2 counterparts throughout the scrimmage. Their zones definitely made us stagnant and forced us to change our gameplan. We haven't practiced against zones that much so it took our guys a lot of time to adjust.
Overall, I thought it was a great scrimmage for us because of the learning experience of playing against a high level opponent. They are where we want to be. Our guys are going to have get in the weight room throughout the season and in the offseason for us to challenge them next year when we scrimmage them again.
We have an exhibition game coming up on Tuesday against Concordia-St Paul. They are picked to finish 7th in the NSIC (same league at St Cloud). It will be another great challenge for us. We will open up on the 16th vs. Northwestern (MN) and have a JV game the following night against Northwestern again.
Quote of the blog, "You are what you repeatedly do."
The intensity level at practice needs to increase significantly for us to be better. Our veteran players have a decent understanding of where we want to be in practice but we need to take it up another notch. Our newcomers don't really know what it's like to practice hard. Part of the reason for that is that many of these guys have been allowed to play in cruise control while playing throughout high school. That just can't happen at our level.
We scrimmaged our alums ten days ago today and we came out on top 114-76. Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of defense especially from our alums in the second half. We scored pretty much at will and it certainly gave our guys some confidence.
That confidence was quickly taken away after we scrimmaged D2 Final Four team, St Cloud State. They are ranked in the top ten in two different preseason polls. We scrimmaged them on Monday and got a rude awakening (not Ravishing Rick Rude's finishing move). The Huskies played hard, tough, and executed their offense very well. We certainly didn't back down but their size, strength, and length gave us some problems. We didn't shoot the well very well from the floor, from 3, or from the free throw line in part because of the factors mentioned above.
I do think we gave them a little trouble with our offense. They couldn't seem to keep us in front of them and I believe we forced them in a couple of different zones. We still need to find a balance of attacking the rim and finding our bigs. Our bigs showed that they could hang with their D2 counterparts throughout the scrimmage. Their zones definitely made us stagnant and forced us to change our gameplan. We haven't practiced against zones that much so it took our guys a lot of time to adjust.
Overall, I thought it was a great scrimmage for us because of the learning experience of playing against a high level opponent. They are where we want to be. Our guys are going to have get in the weight room throughout the season and in the offseason for us to challenge them next year when we scrimmage them again.
We have an exhibition game coming up on Tuesday against Concordia-St Paul. They are picked to finish 7th in the NSIC (same league at St Cloud). It will be another great challenge for us. We will open up on the 16th vs. Northwestern (MN) and have a JV game the following night against Northwestern again.
Quote of the blog, "You are what you repeatedly do."
Sunday, October 17, 2010
And so it begins...
Friday was the official start of practice and it turned out to be a good one. The intensity was very good for the first 30 minutes of practice. Guys were all over the place and it was obvious that there would be a lot of competition at every position. I believe this team is the most athletic team Hamline has had in a long time. Even with our guys not really having a clue about our defensive concepts it's plain to see that our length and athleticism will cause other teams problems.
After about twenty minutes of practice we had our first casualty, first to injury and then to an apparent lack of commitment. Noah Aguirre, one of our best returning players went down with a turned ankle and hasn't practiced since. Hopefully, he'll be ready to go by Wednesday (we have Tuesday off). We had a freshmen decide that college basketball wasn't for him. He said his heart wasn't in it and he left. We wish him the best, hopefully he continues his studies at Hamline and finishes his degree here.
As a coach, we don't want to have guys that aren't committed to our program. It's unfortunate that a kid that we spent a decent amount of time and money on decided it wasn't for him, but that's the reality of our situation at the D3 level. It's survival of the fittest a lot of the time.
So far we have had four practices in the past three days. It's been quite the shock for the newcomers. I think they were expecting to work a lot but not at the intensity level that we are working at. As time goes on, everyone's body will adjust to amount of work we do but it will be a while before the body completely adjusts. We want to be in great shape in order to wear teams down in the last eight minutes of every game.
As far as the tryouts go, we've handled everything like we are practicing. We have way more guys than we did last season and it has increased our intensity in every drill. We still haven't decided exactly how many guys we will keep but we are at 20 right now and have only been practicing with 18 because of injuries. We will decide after tomorrow's practice what are plans are.
We will be scrimmaging our alums next Sunday. We will once again scrimmage against Div. 2 St. Cloud State on Nov. 1. They made the D2 Final Four last year with a lot returning. Should be a great test. Our final "scrimmage" will be an exhibition game vs. Concordia-St. Paul on Nov. 9 at their place. It should be interesting to see how we respond to playing against outside competition.
Ray Brown Update - Last weekend Ray traveled to Vermont for a tryout with the Vermont FrostHeaves of the Premiere Basketball League (PBL). He said the tryout went really well and he got a callback for their training camp in a couple of months. He also had a tryout for the NBDL this weekend in Sioux Falls, SD. Not sure how it went but from my understanding they had some representatives in Vermont and really liked his game. He will have to "sign" with the NBDL to be able to be drafted by the league. Ray will be around campus and working out with me to prepare for the leagues. We wish him the best.
After about twenty minutes of practice we had our first casualty, first to injury and then to an apparent lack of commitment. Noah Aguirre, one of our best returning players went down with a turned ankle and hasn't practiced since. Hopefully, he'll be ready to go by Wednesday (we have Tuesday off). We had a freshmen decide that college basketball wasn't for him. He said his heart wasn't in it and he left. We wish him the best, hopefully he continues his studies at Hamline and finishes his degree here.
As a coach, we don't want to have guys that aren't committed to our program. It's unfortunate that a kid that we spent a decent amount of time and money on decided it wasn't for him, but that's the reality of our situation at the D3 level. It's survival of the fittest a lot of the time.
So far we have had four practices in the past three days. It's been quite the shock for the newcomers. I think they were expecting to work a lot but not at the intensity level that we are working at. As time goes on, everyone's body will adjust to amount of work we do but it will be a while before the body completely adjusts. We want to be in great shape in order to wear teams down in the last eight minutes of every game.
As far as the tryouts go, we've handled everything like we are practicing. We have way more guys than we did last season and it has increased our intensity in every drill. We still haven't decided exactly how many guys we will keep but we are at 20 right now and have only been practicing with 18 because of injuries. We will decide after tomorrow's practice what are plans are.
We will be scrimmaging our alums next Sunday. We will once again scrimmage against Div. 2 St. Cloud State on Nov. 1. They made the D2 Final Four last year with a lot returning. Should be a great test. Our final "scrimmage" will be an exhibition game vs. Concordia-St. Paul on Nov. 9 at their place. It should be interesting to see how we respond to playing against outside competition.
Ray Brown Update - Last weekend Ray traveled to Vermont for a tryout with the Vermont FrostHeaves of the Premiere Basketball League (PBL). He said the tryout went really well and he got a callback for their training camp in a couple of months. He also had a tryout for the NBDL this weekend in Sioux Falls, SD. Not sure how it went but from my understanding they had some representatives in Vermont and really liked his game. He will have to "sign" with the NBDL to be able to be drafted by the league. Ray will be around campus and working out with me to prepare for the leagues. We wish him the best.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
School Has Begun
School officially started two and a half weeks ago and all of the guys that we expected are there. I'm really looking forward to this year's team because it will be the most talented and deepest team Hamline has had in years. As of right now, we will have 22 guys trying out. Though, we will have a JV team, there is no way we will keep everyone. There could be some interesting cuts.
Speaking of JV team, we are planning on playing a full JV schedule with 13 games this year. It will be the first time we have had a JV in my time at Hamline. We will use JV as a stepping stone to varsity just like they do in high school. Here is the almighty question for us as a coaching staff. Would we rather have a kid play 5 to 10 minutes on varsity compared to 30+ minutes on JV? That is something we are going handle in our own way. One thing about the JV team is that kids can only play 25 total regular season games. That basically means that if they play in a JV game they won't be able to play varsity. There is a little leeway in that but not in the total amount of games. We could possibly have some guys that played minutes for us last season get some JV time.
As far as recruiting goes, here is our freshmen class for this year.
Sam Gullickson - Academy of Holy Angels
Tim Markoe - Hill-Murray School
Joey Osinski - South Kitsap HS (Seattle, WA)
Tyler Pannell - Centennial HS (Portland, OR)
Josh Pratt - St. Anthony Village HS
By the way, for those people that think that basketball coaches don't do anything during the summer, here is my schedule from this past summer.
Greece - May 23 - June 5
Mr. Basketball Showcase - Sioux Falls, SD - June 20-23
Chicago Summer Classic - Chicago, IL - July 9-11
All Sports Camp - July 12-15
All Sports Camp - July 19-22
Fab 48, Adidas Super 64, Center Stage - Las Vegas, NV - July 22-26 (no, sitting in a gym for 12 hours a day is not a vacation like many people think Vegas is)
Speaking of JV team, we are planning on playing a full JV schedule with 13 games this year. It will be the first time we have had a JV in my time at Hamline. We will use JV as a stepping stone to varsity just like they do in high school. Here is the almighty question for us as a coaching staff. Would we rather have a kid play 5 to 10 minutes on varsity compared to 30+ minutes on JV? That is something we are going handle in our own way. One thing about the JV team is that kids can only play 25 total regular season games. That basically means that if they play in a JV game they won't be able to play varsity. There is a little leeway in that but not in the total amount of games. We could possibly have some guys that played minutes for us last season get some JV time.
As far as recruiting goes, here is our freshmen class for this year.
Sam Gullickson - Academy of Holy Angels
Tim Markoe - Hill-Murray School
Joey Osinski - South Kitsap HS (Seattle, WA)
Tyler Pannell - Centennial HS (Portland, OR)
Josh Pratt - St. Anthony Village HS
By the way, for those people that think that basketball coaches don't do anything during the summer, here is my schedule from this past summer.
Greece - May 23 - June 5
Mr. Basketball Showcase - Sioux Falls, SD - June 20-23
Chicago Summer Classic - Chicago, IL - July 9-11
All Sports Camp - July 12-15
All Sports Camp - July 19-22
Fab 48, Adidas Super 64, Center Stage - Las Vegas, NV - July 22-26 (no, sitting in a gym for 12 hours a day is not a vacation like many people think Vegas is)
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Summer Rant
All these complete craziness happening and now I get my fourteen cents in.
I decided that I would rock my Landon Donovan jersey just like I did last World Cup. Apparently, people didn't know that he wore #21 before he switched to #10. Thanks for the support and hopping on the bandwagon. The bandwagon was hot and heavy this World Cup for some reason. But people soon forget about Cobi Jones, Tab Ramos, Ernie Stewart, and all the former "stars" of the US National Team.
The US Soccer Federation idea of "Project 2010," where it's goal was to win this World Cup. Obviously, that didn't happen. The plan was a good one and certainly produced some decent players but not enough "starpower" to score goals on a consistent basis. The US still doesn't have enough players playing in the top divisions in Europe. You can only get better playing in the English Premier League or La Liga (Spain's top division).
Jurgen Klinsman made a great point about the soccer in the US. He said that parents pay a bunch of money in order to earn scholarships while in other countries kids that don't have any money are the ones playing on the street from the time they are young. Basically what he is saying there shouldn't be a pay for play system. That system just helps the wealthy because their families can afford to send their kids on these teams and pay all the entry fees. This is a very white collar system while other countries' systems designed for blue collar people and below. I certainly see his point but the problem is that those same lower income families see basketball and football as a way out not soccer. Kids dream about playing in the NBA and NFL not the EPL. Could that change? It remains to be seen.
I think the US games have been great to watch and a lot of the reason for fans hopping on the bandwagon could be off all the controversial calls made throughout the tournament. The US has been screwed over by two terrible calls throughout the tourney. People must think you can't mess the US like that, so all of a sudden they become fans with their US Soccer gear.
I decided that I would rock my Landon Donovan jersey just like I did last World Cup. Apparently, people didn't know that he wore #21 before he switched to #10. Thanks for the support and hopping on the bandwagon. The bandwagon was hot and heavy this World Cup for some reason. But people soon forget about Cobi Jones, Tab Ramos, Ernie Stewart, and all the former "stars" of the US National Team.
The US Soccer Federation idea of "Project 2010," where it's goal was to win this World Cup. Obviously, that didn't happen. The plan was a good one and certainly produced some decent players but not enough "starpower" to score goals on a consistent basis. The US still doesn't have enough players playing in the top divisions in Europe. You can only get better playing in the English Premier League or La Liga (Spain's top division).
Jurgen Klinsman made a great point about the soccer in the US. He said that parents pay a bunch of money in order to earn scholarships while in other countries kids that don't have any money are the ones playing on the street from the time they are young. Basically what he is saying there shouldn't be a pay for play system. That system just helps the wealthy because their families can afford to send their kids on these teams and pay all the entry fees. This is a very white collar system while other countries' systems designed for blue collar people and below. I certainly see his point but the problem is that those same lower income families see basketball and football as a way out not soccer. Kids dream about playing in the NBA and NFL not the EPL. Could that change? It remains to be seen.
I think the US games have been great to watch and a lot of the reason for fans hopping on the bandwagon could be off all the controversial calls made throughout the tournament. The US has been screwed over by two terrible calls throughout the tourney. People must think you can't mess the US like that, so all of a sudden they become fans with their US Soccer gear.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Greek Tales
Looking back on Greece, it was a great experience and something that I will never forget. The history there is just amazing and to be able to spend it with my "Minnesota family" made it even better. I'm just going to go over a bunch of observations that I made while being there for a week.
- The Greek people are very similar to people in NYC. Things can get a little confrontational and that's the norm. No one gets offended by it. That's just the way it is.
- Many of the people there can speak and understand English. They have learned it from the time they were in elementary school. It's too bad that isn't the case in the US with languages.
- The Greek people like to strike and protest. Is it because they are lazy? Levon Kendall said that when we were talking to him before our game. He had been there for three years, he would have a better grasp of things then I would.
- Just like many big cities, if you act like a tourist people will target you whether it be to buy goods, stealing something from you, or mugging you.
- Athens was very crowded. Even more so than in NYC (with the exception of Times Square). People are in cars, trucks, four wheelers, motorcycles, and scooters. It's not unusual to see people on scooters on the sidewalks.
- Prices are sneakers were much higher. I'll give an example. The Nike Air Max 360 is $160 here in the States. It is priced at 170 Euros there. Essentially, the shoe is over $200. I wouldn't even go that high to buy a pair.
- The double line on the road doesn't mean anything. The slower car just gets to the right more and lets you go past. It seemed to be an understanding that the car coming from the opposite direction knows to get over as well. There were many times there were two cars and our bus hitting the same area at the same time.
- People are just plan skinnier there. Serving size is a lot smaller than it is here in the States (obviously there are exceptions).
- The Greeks are trying to restore a lot of the archeological sites to their original state. I do understand this but I would've rather have seen just the ruins instead of all this new stuff.
Basketball Stuff
- Three steps are the norm when getting to the rim. It took our guys a while to get use to this.
- They let the bigs play. Any hand check by the guards will be called.
- It's called a little different as far as pivoting goes. Even if you have established a pivot foot you can't extend to get to the rim. You have to dribble before any movement to the basket.
- Defense seemed to be an option for the players. If they wanted to play it great, if they didn't, no big deal. I think that is reason why we scored a lot and won all of our games.
- The wider lane forces some of our sets to a change a little but it help our guys with others.
- Starting in October, FIBA is changing to the NBA lane line (a foot wider on each side compared to the college game) and extending the three point line to get it closer to the NBA line. Right now the lane is trapezoidal and the three point line is a little shorter than the men's college three.
That's all that I can think of now. Overall, it was a great trip and for the first time ever I can say that I'm happy to be back in Minnesota.
- The Greek people are very similar to people in NYC. Things can get a little confrontational and that's the norm. No one gets offended by it. That's just the way it is.
- Many of the people there can speak and understand English. They have learned it from the time they were in elementary school. It's too bad that isn't the case in the US with languages.
- The Greek people like to strike and protest. Is it because they are lazy? Levon Kendall said that when we were talking to him before our game. He had been there for three years, he would have a better grasp of things then I would.
- Just like many big cities, if you act like a tourist people will target you whether it be to buy goods, stealing something from you, or mugging you.
- Athens was very crowded. Even more so than in NYC (with the exception of Times Square). People are in cars, trucks, four wheelers, motorcycles, and scooters. It's not unusual to see people on scooters on the sidewalks.
- Prices are sneakers were much higher. I'll give an example. The Nike Air Max 360 is $160 here in the States. It is priced at 170 Euros there. Essentially, the shoe is over $200. I wouldn't even go that high to buy a pair.
- The double line on the road doesn't mean anything. The slower car just gets to the right more and lets you go past. It seemed to be an understanding that the car coming from the opposite direction knows to get over as well. There were many times there were two cars and our bus hitting the same area at the same time.
- People are just plan skinnier there. Serving size is a lot smaller than it is here in the States (obviously there are exceptions).
- The Greeks are trying to restore a lot of the archeological sites to their original state. I do understand this but I would've rather have seen just the ruins instead of all this new stuff.
Basketball Stuff
- Three steps are the norm when getting to the rim. It took our guys a while to get use to this.
- They let the bigs play. Any hand check by the guards will be called.
- It's called a little different as far as pivoting goes. Even if you have established a pivot foot you can't extend to get to the rim. You have to dribble before any movement to the basket.
- Defense seemed to be an option for the players. If they wanted to play it great, if they didn't, no big deal. I think that is reason why we scored a lot and won all of our games.
- The wider lane forces some of our sets to a change a little but it help our guys with others.
- Starting in October, FIBA is changing to the NBA lane line (a foot wider on each side compared to the college game) and extending the three point line to get it closer to the NBA line. Right now the lane is trapezoidal and the three point line is a little shorter than the men's college three.
That's all that I can think of now. Overall, it was a great trip and for the first time ever I can say that I'm happy to be back in Minnesota.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Last Day in Greece, Game vs. Argonaut BC
This morning we headed over to the National Museum. This place was flat out history. I've never so many artifacts in my life. They had huge marble statues and a bunch of bronze statues as well. The artistry for everything was amazing. Once again, the pictures will be up once I get back.
On to our game vs. Argonaut Basketball Club. This squad was just promoted from the 4th Division to the 3rd Division and kind of had a rag tag group of players. Many of them were students, a couple of them worked full time, and another one was in Greek Navy Seal program. This guy actually played in the 1st Division for a couple of years but his career is winding down and his waistline is bulging out.
Once again we started off pretty well and clearly was the better team. At the end of the first quarter we got the turnover bug and ended up blowing a nine point lead to go up by two at the end of the first, 21-19. We started to push the tempo and really get after it starting the 2nd quarter. We ended up outscoring them 27-13 in the 2nd and really took control of the game.
Our second half started off terrible as our leaded dwindled pretty quickly. One of the players, #7, scored their first 13 points. We really didn't have an answer for him. They got as close to seven points before we finally decided to start getting back in transition. We pulled away in the 4th with some great 3 point shooting from Christian Taber and Brandon Rieg. We won 85-70. We were led in scoring by Carl Hipp with 16. Christian Taber had 15 on five 3's. Brandon Rieg also reached double figures with 12. Andy Voigt was our final double digit scorer with 11. Four guys also had six points (Noah Aguirre, Charlie Choiniere, Victor Easter, and Dan Andersen).
We finished the tour 4-0 and played much better in spurts. Our next step to control the other team's spurts and control the game. Part of this is being young and part of it is still lacking the strength to sustain for long stretches. I believe that our team MVP for the trip was Brandon Rieg. He really gave us a spark off the bench and provided great pressure on defense and he really showed us something.
This trip clearly gave us a head start to next year and hopefully our incoming guys will buy in to what we want to do.
I guess the film will be up later.
On to our game vs. Argonaut Basketball Club. This squad was just promoted from the 4th Division to the 3rd Division and kind of had a rag tag group of players. Many of them were students, a couple of them worked full time, and another one was in Greek Navy Seal program. This guy actually played in the 1st Division for a couple of years but his career is winding down and his waistline is bulging out.
Once again we started off pretty well and clearly was the better team. At the end of the first quarter we got the turnover bug and ended up blowing a nine point lead to go up by two at the end of the first, 21-19. We started to push the tempo and really get after it starting the 2nd quarter. We ended up outscoring them 27-13 in the 2nd and really took control of the game.
Our second half started off terrible as our leaded dwindled pretty quickly. One of the players, #7, scored their first 13 points. We really didn't have an answer for him. They got as close to seven points before we finally decided to start getting back in transition. We pulled away in the 4th with some great 3 point shooting from Christian Taber and Brandon Rieg. We won 85-70. We were led in scoring by Carl Hipp with 16. Christian Taber had 15 on five 3's. Brandon Rieg also reached double figures with 12. Andy Voigt was our final double digit scorer with 11. Four guys also had six points (Noah Aguirre, Charlie Choiniere, Victor Easter, and Dan Andersen).
We finished the tour 4-0 and played much better in spurts. Our next step to control the other team's spurts and control the game. Part of this is being young and part of it is still lacking the strength to sustain for long stretches. I believe that our team MVP for the trip was Brandon Rieg. He really gave us a spark off the bench and provided great pressure on defense and he really showed us something.
This trip clearly gave us a head start to next year and hopefully our incoming guys will buy in to what we want to do.
I guess the film will be up later.
Game Videos
Here are clips of the three games that we have played so far. Again, the first game is super sloppy, so don't be surprised by that.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Day 9 and Game vs. Ilissiakos BC
Today consisted of us taking a two hour bus ride to head to Epidaurus, the site of the popular Sanctuary of Asclepius. It is a huge theater with unbelievable acoustics. A couple of our guys headed all the way to the top of the theater and could hear our tour guide drop a coin on the ground as well as her tearing a newspaper. It was quite amazing.
After this we headed to a ruin in the countryside. It was here where Greece's first capital was located. They built a castle that many of it's original pieces where still there. The views from this area were great. We also got to see a "cave" that the Greeks developed not far from the castle. It is just unreal to think how these ancient people could move that amount of rock all over the place. I couldn't imagine to view the Pyramids in Egypt in person.
After catching a quick lunch we heading over for our game versus Ilissiakos Basketball Club. We were under the impression that this was going to be our easiest game of the tour. When we walk into the gym, we once again see 6'8" and 6'9" again and these guys look young. Not only were they that big, they were very skilled as well. Not exactly what I was hoping for in my coaching debut. These guys definitely passed the look test with their height and length. I was told from our tour guide, Yanni, that one of guys that is playing against us played on the U18 and U20 Greek National Team last summer. The same kid also plays on the pro team and makes a significant amount of money. We were in for a big time challenge.
I was able to speak to their head coach and he was a great guy. He was raised in Manhattan and attending Jersey City State for college. His whole family is over here and he has bounced back and forth since college. He told us that he is the pro team's assistant as well as the director of player development (for their younger players). He was coaching today because the pro team's head coach resigned and he is basically holding everything together.
Once the game started our guys really went after them. We challenged them at the rim and with our defense. We still had a bunch of mental lapses but are playing better for longer stretches than we have previously. I was really impressed once again with Brandon Rieg's play. He really got after defensively for the second day in a row and he really got our guys going. We made a push towards the end of the first half to push our lead to 13 after 20 minutes of play.
The second half started off with a bang as we really got after it and started finishing more than we did in the first. We are starting to make adjustments to the European game even though the three step non travel still frustrates us while we get called for traveling while catching on the run. We really started putting it on their team with a barrage of 3's and got our lead up to as many as 22. They called a timeout and then proceeded to go on an 11-0 run to cut the lead in half. Dan Andersen came in and hit three straight 3's and got our lead back up to 20 very quickly.
We ended up winning 84-62 against a very talented team (thought they didn't play as a team). I am not sure who lead us in scoring but as I said Brandon Rieg played really well. Dan Andersen and Christian Taber both hit a bunch of 3's and we got our usual double-double from Carl Hipp. Our guys really responded to the challenge today. I keep forgetting that we have six guys that just got done with their freshmen season. We are certainly making strides but we need to keep working.
Tomorrow we are heading to the National Musuem and getting a little free time before our game at 6pm. I am hoping to get some videos on the blog soon. Two are now uploaded on the youtube under my channel, hamlinembb. Check them out when you get a chance.
After this we headed to a ruin in the countryside. It was here where Greece's first capital was located. They built a castle that many of it's original pieces where still there. The views from this area were great. We also got to see a "cave" that the Greeks developed not far from the castle. It is just unreal to think how these ancient people could move that amount of rock all over the place. I couldn't imagine to view the Pyramids in Egypt in person.
After catching a quick lunch we heading over for our game versus Ilissiakos Basketball Club. We were under the impression that this was going to be our easiest game of the tour. When we walk into the gym, we once again see 6'8" and 6'9" again and these guys look young. Not only were they that big, they were very skilled as well. Not exactly what I was hoping for in my coaching debut. These guys definitely passed the look test with their height and length. I was told from our tour guide, Yanni, that one of guys that is playing against us played on the U18 and U20 Greek National Team last summer. The same kid also plays on the pro team and makes a significant amount of money. We were in for a big time challenge.
I was able to speak to their head coach and he was a great guy. He was raised in Manhattan and attending Jersey City State for college. His whole family is over here and he has bounced back and forth since college. He told us that he is the pro team's assistant as well as the director of player development (for their younger players). He was coaching today because the pro team's head coach resigned and he is basically holding everything together.
Once the game started our guys really went after them. We challenged them at the rim and with our defense. We still had a bunch of mental lapses but are playing better for longer stretches than we have previously. I was really impressed once again with Brandon Rieg's play. He really got after defensively for the second day in a row and he really got our guys going. We made a push towards the end of the first half to push our lead to 13 after 20 minutes of play.
The second half started off with a bang as we really got after it and started finishing more than we did in the first. We are starting to make adjustments to the European game even though the three step non travel still frustrates us while we get called for traveling while catching on the run. We really started putting it on their team with a barrage of 3's and got our lead up to as many as 22. They called a timeout and then proceeded to go on an 11-0 run to cut the lead in half. Dan Andersen came in and hit three straight 3's and got our lead back up to 20 very quickly.
We ended up winning 84-62 against a very talented team (thought they didn't play as a team). I am not sure who lead us in scoring but as I said Brandon Rieg played really well. Dan Andersen and Christian Taber both hit a bunch of 3's and we got our usual double-double from Carl Hipp. Our guys really responded to the challenge today. I keep forgetting that we have six guys that just got done with their freshmen season. We are certainly making strides but we need to keep working.
Tomorrow we are heading to the National Musuem and getting a little free time before our game at 6pm. I am hoping to get some videos on the blog soon. Two are now uploaded on the youtube under my channel, hamlinembb. Check them out when you get a chance.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Maroussi Game
As I reported earlier we were going to play Maroussi Basketball Club. As I was told, it was going to be a tough game and we were going to play against some really talented players. As we walked into the gym, we saw a couple of 6'9" and 6'10" guys. I wasn't suprised because I knew they were good. A couple of those guys included former Pitt player Levon Kendall, former St. Joseph's player Pat Calathes, former Virginia Tech player Jamon Gordon, and former Iowa State player Jared Homan.
We talked to all of those guys and had a real good conversation with Levon Kendall. I brought up to him about being at West Virginia for a few years and the conversation started. He was a real good guy and really gave us an insight of how European basketball works. He said that the Greek league is notorious for not paying their players on time. He said he has gotten paid on-time only three out of the ten months he has been here. Each one of the guys gets a car and a house on top of their salary. Each one of the players plans on going to another club next year because Maroussi has been having a lot of finanacial problems.
After talking with these guys for a while, we were told that we were playing their junior team and not the one with the guys that we were talking to. We also found out that a couple of the players we were playing practiced with the senior team and played sparingly for them if games were out of hand. These two players got paid a little but were still considered professionals.
The game started and we were clearly the better team. We got off to great start and really were giving it to them with an eleven point lead midway through the 2nd quarter. Maroussi made a run with a slew of pick and rolls. They actually took the lead for a little bit before we started to play like we were capable of. I thought we were going to have "sea legs" for the rest of the game with the way we were playing.
As we got going, Brandon Rieg led the charge with his defensive pressure and great play at the point guard spot. Both Victor Easter and Levi Wenrich were in foul trouble and "B" played really well. Though, his numbers don't show up in the box score but he led us on a huge run that got our lead up to 20. Final score was 85-64 in our favor. Carl Hipp led us with 32 and a ton of rebounds. Jordan Schmidt rounded out the double figure scoring with 17. Charlie Choiniere rounded out our major scoring with 9.
Next up tomorrow, we are going to check out a couple of monuments to go along with our game at 6pm Greek time. We are playing Ilissiakos Basketball Club and I am making my head coaching debut. Coach Whitmore is playing the assistant coach for a game. It should be interesting for both of us and I am really looking forward to it.
We talked to all of those guys and had a real good conversation with Levon Kendall. I brought up to him about being at West Virginia for a few years and the conversation started. He was a real good guy and really gave us an insight of how European basketball works. He said that the Greek league is notorious for not paying their players on time. He said he has gotten paid on-time only three out of the ten months he has been here. Each one of the guys gets a car and a house on top of their salary. Each one of the players plans on going to another club next year because Maroussi has been having a lot of finanacial problems.
After talking with these guys for a while, we were told that we were playing their junior team and not the one with the guys that we were talking to. We also found out that a couple of the players we were playing practiced with the senior team and played sparingly for them if games were out of hand. These two players got paid a little but were still considered professionals.
The game started and we were clearly the better team. We got off to great start and really were giving it to them with an eleven point lead midway through the 2nd quarter. Maroussi made a run with a slew of pick and rolls. They actually took the lead for a little bit before we started to play like we were capable of. I thought we were going to have "sea legs" for the rest of the game with the way we were playing.
As we got going, Brandon Rieg led the charge with his defensive pressure and great play at the point guard spot. Both Victor Easter and Levi Wenrich were in foul trouble and "B" played really well. Though, his numbers don't show up in the box score but he led us on a huge run that got our lead up to 20. Final score was 85-64 in our favor. Carl Hipp led us with 32 and a ton of rebounds. Jordan Schmidt rounded out the double figure scoring with 17. Charlie Choiniere rounded out our major scoring with 9.
Next up tomorrow, we are going to check out a couple of monuments to go along with our game at 6pm Greek time. We are playing Ilissiakos Basketball Club and I am making my head coaching debut. Coach Whitmore is playing the assistant coach for a game. It should be interesting for both of us and I am really looking forward to it.
Greek Cruise
After we played at Kalamata we went on a cruise which included several Greek islands along with a stop in Turkey. The islands were just beautiful and it was quite impressed. For most of us it was our first cruise experience and we weren't ready for the tiny rooms and tiny bathrooms. I'd never been in a shower that I was able to touch the shower curtain as well as the shower wall. It definitely took a little bit to get use to.
Our first stop was the island of Mykonos. I didn't go on the island and decided to relax on the ship and hang out with our AD, Bob Beeman. I can't really tell you much about the island other than it looked really cool from the boat. The next stop was Kusadasi in Turkey. I was told that the "bizarre" there was just great and that I would really like it. I was told wrong. It was a really nice island with some interesting stuff but the bizarre wasn't much of anything. The shops that I've been to in Tijuana, Mexico were much better and more entertaining than the ones they had in Kusadasi.
After Kusadasi we headed back to Greece and the island of Patmos. Patmos was our first stop to be able to swim on their "white sandy beaches." We went into port and headed to the beach. It was a quite a site. We were told that the beaches were white and sandy. The shells and rocks were a little bit brighter but it wasn't exactly Jamaica. I don't want to place a terrible picture of the places that we went because they were great but it wasn't exactly what we expected. Carl Hipp, Noah Aguirre, and myself all swam out the buoy near our boat for a little workout after being on the boat for a couple of days. It was pretty tiring but a good workout. There was a great hotel there though, it was called Chris Hotel. I took a couple of picture but of course I didn't have the cord to transfer them to my computer.
Our next stop was the island of Crete. We got off to an early morning start and took a tour with our guide, Yanni. We walked around quite a bit and checked a Greek Orthodox mass which was thirty minutes in to a three and a half hour service. Quite impressive. We also got to see the most famous water fountain in Crete. It had four lion heads around it. After drifting around the rest of the city Dan Andersen and myself checked out the castle and pier that was the entrance to the island. The castle had wasn't huge but it was quite interesting. Tons of stray dogs surrounded it and just hung out all over the place. Dan and myself walked about a mile of the pier before headed back to catch the cruise boat. Some of the views from the pier were just awesome and it like many of the sites are once in a lifetime opportunity.
Last night we pulled into the beautiful island of Santorini. This island is most famous for being the place where they filmed the movie "Mamma Mia." It certainly didn't disappoint. As soon as we got there, we had three choices to the city from the port. 1) Take the cable car, time was about 2 minutes and it cost five euros each way. 2) Take a donkey up the zig zag trail, takes about 30 minutes and cost 4 euros each way. Being the cheap and competitive guy that I am, I took the third option. The third option consisted of walking or running up a total of 582 steps and it was free. On top of that, you had to avoid the donkeys on the way up as well as their feces (it was everywhere). All but one of the guys went this way (Charlie went with his dad on the cable car). It was quite the workout.
Once we got to the top, the view was picturesque. Having never seen the movie, I didn't know what to expect. The view was more than breathtaking. All the buildings were white and it was just fantastic. We got to go around the shops a little bit and took some great pictures. I hope to take some of those pictures will hopefully be hanging up in my house sometime soon. Noah and myself decided that we want to the take the "donkey" trail again on the way down and it took about 30 minutes and was much harder than I expected. Not exactly the best thing for my knees.
After leaving Santorini, we headed back to port in Athens. We got into port before 5am, just before the seaman strike that would've held us out to sea for at least two days. We got into Athens and on the bus by 8am and immediately went to the 1896 Olympic Stadium. It was quite impressive for being build in 1896. It sat 67,000 people and was used for the marathon in the Athens Games of 2008. After heading to Olympic Stadium we headed to the Acropolis. What a site that was. They are doing a lot of renovation to the grounds. I really wanted to see everything in it's own form but with the renovation they did a lot of restoring to these old pieces. It certainly mixed a lot of the old and the new. On top of the Acropolis was one of the best sites I've seen in a while. You could see vast amounts of land just jam packed with buildings. When they say that Minneapolis or St. Paul are big cities then you need to see Athens. It is just flat out jam packed with buildings. Not a lot of open spaces at all. It was quite a site.
Tonight we play Maroussi Basketball Club. This should be a really great test for us. As fas as I know this team is getting promoted to Division A in the Greek League. Next year they will play Olympiakos and Panathinkous (I know I spelled these wrong ). We also found that Vassilis Spoonoulis (again spelling) played for Maroussi before he was signed by the Houston Rockets. We are expected a very talented basketball team. Hopefully, our guys will be ready to go.
That's it for now. I am stealing the internet right now so I don't know if I'll be able to update after tonight's game. Hopefully, I can get something out tomorrow.
Our first stop was the island of Mykonos. I didn't go on the island and decided to relax on the ship and hang out with our AD, Bob Beeman. I can't really tell you much about the island other than it looked really cool from the boat. The next stop was Kusadasi in Turkey. I was told that the "bizarre" there was just great and that I would really like it. I was told wrong. It was a really nice island with some interesting stuff but the bizarre wasn't much of anything. The shops that I've been to in Tijuana, Mexico were much better and more entertaining than the ones they had in Kusadasi.
After Kusadasi we headed back to Greece and the island of Patmos. Patmos was our first stop to be able to swim on their "white sandy beaches." We went into port and headed to the beach. It was a quite a site. We were told that the beaches were white and sandy. The shells and rocks were a little bit brighter but it wasn't exactly Jamaica. I don't want to place a terrible picture of the places that we went because they were great but it wasn't exactly what we expected. Carl Hipp, Noah Aguirre, and myself all swam out the buoy near our boat for a little workout after being on the boat for a couple of days. It was pretty tiring but a good workout. There was a great hotel there though, it was called Chris Hotel. I took a couple of picture but of course I didn't have the cord to transfer them to my computer.
Our next stop was the island of Crete. We got off to an early morning start and took a tour with our guide, Yanni. We walked around quite a bit and checked a Greek Orthodox mass which was thirty minutes in to a three and a half hour service. Quite impressive. We also got to see the most famous water fountain in Crete. It had four lion heads around it. After drifting around the rest of the city Dan Andersen and myself checked out the castle and pier that was the entrance to the island. The castle had wasn't huge but it was quite interesting. Tons of stray dogs surrounded it and just hung out all over the place. Dan and myself walked about a mile of the pier before headed back to catch the cruise boat. Some of the views from the pier were just awesome and it like many of the sites are once in a lifetime opportunity.
Last night we pulled into the beautiful island of Santorini. This island is most famous for being the place where they filmed the movie "Mamma Mia." It certainly didn't disappoint. As soon as we got there, we had three choices to the city from the port. 1) Take the cable car, time was about 2 minutes and it cost five euros each way. 2) Take a donkey up the zig zag trail, takes about 30 minutes and cost 4 euros each way. Being the cheap and competitive guy that I am, I took the third option. The third option consisted of walking or running up a total of 582 steps and it was free. On top of that, you had to avoid the donkeys on the way up as well as their feces (it was everywhere). All but one of the guys went this way (Charlie went with his dad on the cable car). It was quite the workout.
Once we got to the top, the view was picturesque. Having never seen the movie, I didn't know what to expect. The view was more than breathtaking. All the buildings were white and it was just fantastic. We got to go around the shops a little bit and took some great pictures. I hope to take some of those pictures will hopefully be hanging up in my house sometime soon. Noah and myself decided that we want to the take the "donkey" trail again on the way down and it took about 30 minutes and was much harder than I expected. Not exactly the best thing for my knees.
After leaving Santorini, we headed back to port in Athens. We got into port before 5am, just before the seaman strike that would've held us out to sea for at least two days. We got into Athens and on the bus by 8am and immediately went to the 1896 Olympic Stadium. It was quite impressive for being build in 1896. It sat 67,000 people and was used for the marathon in the Athens Games of 2008. After heading to Olympic Stadium we headed to the Acropolis. What a site that was. They are doing a lot of renovation to the grounds. I really wanted to see everything in it's own form but with the renovation they did a lot of restoring to these old pieces. It certainly mixed a lot of the old and the new. On top of the Acropolis was one of the best sites I've seen in a while. You could see vast amounts of land just jam packed with buildings. When they say that Minneapolis or St. Paul are big cities then you need to see Athens. It is just flat out jam packed with buildings. Not a lot of open spaces at all. It was quite a site.
Tonight we play Maroussi Basketball Club. This should be a really great test for us. As fas as I know this team is getting promoted to Division A in the Greek League. Next year they will play Olympiakos and Panathinkous (I know I spelled these wrong ). We also found that Vassilis Spoonoulis (again spelling) played for Maroussi before he was signed by the Houston Rockets. We are expected a very talented basketball team. Hopefully, our guys will be ready to go.
That's it for now. I am stealing the internet right now so I don't know if I'll be able to update after tonight's game. Hopefully, I can get something out tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Greece Trip Day 3
Today was a long day for us as a team as we went to the original Olympic ruins in Olympia. It was about a two and a half hour drive to get there so it was going to be tough for our guys to have their legs for our game.
The ruins were quite the site for us. We had a tour which was somewhat informative but we got to see all the sites. Most of the sites were ruined because of the floods, wars, and the start of Christianity. The pictures were very impressive though I won't have them uploaded for at least a week. The original Olympic stadium wasn't as impressive as I thought it would be. They did say that 45,000 people would sit and watch the games which consisted of naked men running (that's basically how our guys remembered it as).
As for our game, we played the Kalamata Basketball Club. We were very flat to start the game. We were clearly more talented than the other team but we played down to their level for the most part. We ended up with 74 turnovers in part because of the basketball that we played with. At least that is what our guys would say. It was ugly but we ended up winning 71-52. Andy Voigt led us with 15, while Noah Aguirre and Carl Hipp both finished with 13.
Tomorrow we will head to Delphi in central Greece. Half there we will be able to swim and then eat some lunch. It should be another long day on the bus. Today and tomorrow are supposed to be the two toughest days of the tour for that. We are looking forward to the cruise that is starting on Saturday. During that trip we will head to several of the Greek islands as well as the bizarre in Turkey.
I have three videos of today's game and unfortunately it is taking forever to upload the game. Hopefully as some point we can have a better internet connection to get these videos on the youtube and this blog. I'll keep you updated.
On a lighter note, Noah Aguirre is mad at our tour guide Yanni because there were a couple of girls that asked about him and Yanni told the ladies Noah didn't have Facebook. Noah was very disappointed and is looking forward to our cruise.
The ruins were quite the site for us. We had a tour which was somewhat informative but we got to see all the sites. Most of the sites were ruined because of the floods, wars, and the start of Christianity. The pictures were very impressive though I won't have them uploaded for at least a week. The original Olympic stadium wasn't as impressive as I thought it would be. They did say that 45,000 people would sit and watch the games which consisted of naked men running (that's basically how our guys remembered it as).
As for our game, we played the Kalamata Basketball Club. We were very flat to start the game. We were clearly more talented than the other team but we played down to their level for the most part. We ended up with 74 turnovers in part because of the basketball that we played with. At least that is what our guys would say. It was ugly but we ended up winning 71-52. Andy Voigt led us with 15, while Noah Aguirre and Carl Hipp both finished with 13.
Tomorrow we will head to Delphi in central Greece. Half there we will be able to swim and then eat some lunch. It should be another long day on the bus. Today and tomorrow are supposed to be the two toughest days of the tour for that. We are looking forward to the cruise that is starting on Saturday. During that trip we will head to several of the Greek islands as well as the bizarre in Turkey.
I have three videos of today's game and unfortunately it is taking forever to upload the game. Hopefully as some point we can have a better internet connection to get these videos on the youtube and this blog. I'll keep you updated.
On a lighter note, Noah Aguirre is mad at our tour guide Yanni because there were a couple of girls that asked about him and Yanni told the ladies Noah didn't have Facebook. Noah was very disappointed and is looking forward to our cruise.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Greece Trip Day 1 and 2
Day one started with us getting stuck behind a band from Luther College at the MSP airport. There must have been 75 to 90 students making the trip. It seemed like we waited forever just to get to the terminal. We got through security and everything with about an hour and a half to spare. Then our adventure began…
We got on a flight headed to Amsterdam, Netherlands. We got on a bigger plane that was set up 2-4-2 with passengers. Of course, I was in the stuck right in the middle with a barrier beneath my seat that wouldn’t let me spread out my legs. We each had our own tv screen and we able to choose from about 15 different movies. My first choice in movies was the ultimate guys’ movie in Hangover. Always a classic. I noticed Avatar was on the list and I figured I would watch that next and I was extremely disappointed. Yes, the technology was great but the movie just didn’t do it for me. I know I was watching on a very small screen but I wasn’t impressed at all.
We arrived in Amsterdam around 6am Dutch time. It was the first time for most of us being outside the continental US (or North America for that matter). After we arrived, a lot of guys exchanged some money and went to McDonald’s for some food. Many were surprised by the smaller serving size. I knew that was coming considering Europeans generally consider us Americans to be fat.
After a three hour wait for our flight to Athens to were almost ready to leave. We headed through Customs and got our first stamp on our passports. We thought we had everyone through but there was no Victor Easter. I thought he went with his mom and her fiancé but I was wrong. We couldn’t call him over the loud speaker until 15 minutes before the flight was to depart. We can thank the Panathinakos Football Club (I found out later, this was not their main team but their Junior team) for delaying our flight. We were finally able to track down Victor after getting called twice over the airport’s voice system. He apparently fell asleep where we were eating and just woke up five minutes before his name was called. Not exactly mine or his finest moment. He made it and we got on our flight and left with about a 25 minute delay.
We made it to the Athens airport a little late and then headed to baggage claim. I was surprised to see a smoking station as soon as we arrived at the airport. It smelled awful but hopefully not a sign to come. We waited for a long time for our luggage and then meet up with several others in our traveling party for our bus trip to Kalamata, Greece. Kalamata is in the northern part of the country and it’s beautiful. We are right on the Mediterranean Sea.
After we arrived at our “hotel,” we were able to get a little practice in. The practice was basically to get the guys legs loose so we can be a little ready for our first game tomorrow. There is an outside court on the hotel grounds. It’s a beautiful setting with a huge mountain range right behind us. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring the cords for my camera to load on the computer, so they will have to come later.
It’s approximately, 6am Greece time right now and we (Dan Andersen, Victor Easter, and I) are watching the Suns-Lakers playoff game on tv. We are rooming together in a “villa.” The villa consists of a loft, a little living area, and a bathroom. Not exactly huge, but it works for what is necessary.
Today, we are headed to the original Olympic Stadium and going to do some sight seeing. We will head back to Kalamata for our game at 6pm Greek time. We are part of a double header with a semifinal playoff game to follow us immediately after our game. We were told that the Kalamata Basketball Club that we are playing isn’t that good but it should be nice to see some other competition. Hopefully, I was will have updated after the game today and possibly have some video to upload to see some footage of the game.
We got on a flight headed to Amsterdam, Netherlands. We got on a bigger plane that was set up 2-4-2 with passengers. Of course, I was in the stuck right in the middle with a barrier beneath my seat that wouldn’t let me spread out my legs. We each had our own tv screen and we able to choose from about 15 different movies. My first choice in movies was the ultimate guys’ movie in Hangover. Always a classic. I noticed Avatar was on the list and I figured I would watch that next and I was extremely disappointed. Yes, the technology was great but the movie just didn’t do it for me. I know I was watching on a very small screen but I wasn’t impressed at all.
We arrived in Amsterdam around 6am Dutch time. It was the first time for most of us being outside the continental US (or North America for that matter). After we arrived, a lot of guys exchanged some money and went to McDonald’s for some food. Many were surprised by the smaller serving size. I knew that was coming considering Europeans generally consider us Americans to be fat.
After a three hour wait for our flight to Athens to were almost ready to leave. We headed through Customs and got our first stamp on our passports. We thought we had everyone through but there was no Victor Easter. I thought he went with his mom and her fiancé but I was wrong. We couldn’t call him over the loud speaker until 15 minutes before the flight was to depart. We can thank the Panathinakos Football Club (I found out later, this was not their main team but their Junior team) for delaying our flight. We were finally able to track down Victor after getting called twice over the airport’s voice system. He apparently fell asleep where we were eating and just woke up five minutes before his name was called. Not exactly mine or his finest moment. He made it and we got on our flight and left with about a 25 minute delay.
We made it to the Athens airport a little late and then headed to baggage claim. I was surprised to see a smoking station as soon as we arrived at the airport. It smelled awful but hopefully not a sign to come. We waited for a long time for our luggage and then meet up with several others in our traveling party for our bus trip to Kalamata, Greece. Kalamata is in the northern part of the country and it’s beautiful. We are right on the Mediterranean Sea.
After we arrived at our “hotel,” we were able to get a little practice in. The practice was basically to get the guys legs loose so we can be a little ready for our first game tomorrow. There is an outside court on the hotel grounds. It’s a beautiful setting with a huge mountain range right behind us. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring the cords for my camera to load on the computer, so they will have to come later.
It’s approximately, 6am Greece time right now and we (Dan Andersen, Victor Easter, and I) are watching the Suns-Lakers playoff game on tv. We are rooming together in a “villa.” The villa consists of a loft, a little living area, and a bathroom. Not exactly huge, but it works for what is necessary.
Today, we are headed to the original Olympic Stadium and going to do some sight seeing. We will head back to Kalamata for our game at 6pm Greek time. We are part of a double header with a semifinal playoff game to follow us immediately after our game. We were told that the Kalamata Basketball Club that we are playing isn’t that good but it should be nice to see some other competition. Hopefully, I was will have updated after the game today and possibly have some video to upload to see some footage of the game.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Here We Come...
Just getting the final touches ready for Greece. Can't wait to get over there. We will be arriving in Greece tomorrow at 1:45pm after a connecting flight through Amsterdam. We should have the internet at the first hotel we are at but I'm not sure about the others. I'll try to keep everything updated as much as I can with the blog, pictures, and videos.
Here is our game schedule when we are over there.
May 26th - vs. Kalamata Basketball Club
May 31st - vs. Maroussi Basketball Club
June 1st - vs.Ilissiakos Academies Basketball Club
June 2nd - vs. Argonaut Basketball Club
Should be a great time.
Here is our game schedule when we are over there.
May 26th - vs. Kalamata Basketball Club
May 31st - vs. Maroussi Basketball Club
June 1st - vs.Ilissiakos Academies Basketball Club
June 2nd - vs. Argonaut Basketball Club
Should be a great time.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Practices 5-6
I'd like to thank my loyal followers, your support has been tremendous in keeping this blog afloat in these tough economic times, all six of you.
Now onto Allen Iverson's favorite piece of basketball, practice. We had our fifth practice on Sunday right before our guys had their finals. It didn't exactly go the way we would've liked but at the same time half of our guys were sitting around on Saturday and Sunday helping out with a basketball tournament that we were hosting. We went for about an hour and a half just to get their legs going and make sure they were prepared for the main reason they actually came to college, school. It certainly is tough this time of the year to practice. It's really nice outside, finals are about to happen, and in the famous words of Noah Aguirre, "I like girls in sundresses."
Yesterday's practice was much better. Our guys were able to focus a little longer after being done with finals. Now it's just basketball. We went through a lot of stuff yesterday. At this point, we are nitpicking a lot with what we want. We have to be able to focus and make the right decisions and learn from our mistakes. Just a little thing like securing a loose ball instead of reaching for it or creating a little better angle to a make a post pass. Those little things could and have a made a difference in winning or losing a game. Ask Butler's guard about slowing up on a breakaway and getting blocked instead of two points. They ended up losing by two. That's life and basketball.
These ten practices have been great for me. I am starting to get a better grasp of our players and what each is capable of in a half court setting. Hopefully, I'll be able to get some "head coaching" experience in one game out in Greece. It would be extremely beneficial for me. We'll see how everything transpires out there. We finally got our opponents and I'll try to update everyone with who and when we are playing within the next couple of days.
Now onto Allen Iverson's favorite piece of basketball, practice. We had our fifth practice on Sunday right before our guys had their finals. It didn't exactly go the way we would've liked but at the same time half of our guys were sitting around on Saturday and Sunday helping out with a basketball tournament that we were hosting. We went for about an hour and a half just to get their legs going and make sure they were prepared for the main reason they actually came to college, school. It certainly is tough this time of the year to practice. It's really nice outside, finals are about to happen, and in the famous words of Noah Aguirre, "I like girls in sundresses."
Yesterday's practice was much better. Our guys were able to focus a little longer after being done with finals. Now it's just basketball. We went through a lot of stuff yesterday. At this point, we are nitpicking a lot with what we want. We have to be able to focus and make the right decisions and learn from our mistakes. Just a little thing like securing a loose ball instead of reaching for it or creating a little better angle to a make a post pass. Those little things could and have a made a difference in winning or losing a game. Ask Butler's guard about slowing up on a breakaway and getting blocked instead of two points. They ended up losing by two. That's life and basketball.
These ten practices have been great for me. I am starting to get a better grasp of our players and what each is capable of in a half court setting. Hopefully, I'll be able to get some "head coaching" experience in one game out in Greece. It would be extremely beneficial for me. We'll see how everything transpires out there. We finally got our opponents and I'll try to update everyone with who and when we are playing within the next couple of days.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Greece Trip Practices 1-4
Right now we are preparing for our upcoming trip to Greece. We are leaving May 24th and we get to play four games there and most importantly are given ten practices by the NCAA beforehand to get the guys in shape and formulate what we want to do. These practices are huge for our guys development for next year. We have ten guys returning and all of them have made significant changes to their body since the season ended.
We started practicing last Friday and needless to say it was sloppy. The NCAA handcuffs division 3 coaches by not letting us work out the guys like they do in d1 and d2. D3 guys are considered "true" student-athletes but those two hours we want to work them out is them playing video games and doing other things college students do. We were on the floor for a little over two hours and got a lot of things done. We changed our defense a little bit due to our personnel. We aren't going to get out the passing lanes like we have in the past. We want to take away penetration and then get back to shooters as much as can.
The talent level comparably speaking to my first year is night and day. We led the conference in scoring with just under 74 points a game. That is still not where we want to be but it's a start. We were second in the conference in field goal percentage defense at around 42%. Hopefully, as this group gets older and stronger our scoring will go up and our defense will get better.
Next year should be interesting because we will be extremely young going against a lot of senior laden teams in our conference. We will have one senior, Carl Hipp. Three juniors, Levi Wenrich, Brandon Rieg, and Matt Farb. We will have all of our freshmen class returning including All Freshmen Team members Noah Aguirre and Jordan Schmidt back. Other members of the rising sophomore class are Andy Voigt, Christian Taber, Victor Easter, and Charlie Choiniere.
As of right now we have six incoming freshmen coming in. Four local guys and two out of state players. We are still waiting to hear from a couple of others. We will wait and see.
We started practicing last Friday and needless to say it was sloppy. The NCAA handcuffs division 3 coaches by not letting us work out the guys like they do in d1 and d2. D3 guys are considered "true" student-athletes but those two hours we want to work them out is them playing video games and doing other things college students do. We were on the floor for a little over two hours and got a lot of things done. We changed our defense a little bit due to our personnel. We aren't going to get out the passing lanes like we have in the past. We want to take away penetration and then get back to shooters as much as can.
The talent level comparably speaking to my first year is night and day. We led the conference in scoring with just under 74 points a game. That is still not where we want to be but it's a start. We were second in the conference in field goal percentage defense at around 42%. Hopefully, as this group gets older and stronger our scoring will go up and our defense will get better.
Next year should be interesting because we will be extremely young going against a lot of senior laden teams in our conference. We will have one senior, Carl Hipp. Three juniors, Levi Wenrich, Brandon Rieg, and Matt Farb. We will have all of our freshmen class returning including All Freshmen Team members Noah Aguirre and Jordan Schmidt back. Other members of the rising sophomore class are Andy Voigt, Christian Taber, Victor Easter, and Charlie Choiniere.
As of right now we have six incoming freshmen coming in. Four local guys and two out of state players. We are still waiting to hear from a couple of others. We will wait and see.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Basketball Season Recruiting
Today I'm going to give you a listing of all the places that I went for games for this past high school season. I'm not going to give you names of the kids because it's a NCAA violation. The Hamline Basketball schedule is mixed in there in bold as well so you can get an idea of how busy we are during our season. If you look through the schedule you will notice that most Sundays are off, but not for the coaches and players. Sunday is usually a prep day for Monday's game, so we almost always have practice. Sunday is also a big day to catch up with recruiting.
Nov. 15 - vs. Elmhurst (IL)
Nov. 17 - vs. Northwestern (MN)
Nov. 29 - vs. Buena Vista (IA)
Dec. 2 - vs. Augsburg
Dec. 3 – Forest Lake
Dec. 4 – St. Cloud Cathedral
Dec. 5 - vs. Macalester
Dec. 7 - @ St. Olaf
Dec. 8 – Forest Lake
Dec. 10 – St. Anthony Village
Dec. 12 - @ Concordia-Moorhead
Dec. 15 – Academy of Holy Angels
Dec. 18 – Janesville Parker, WI
Dec. 21 – Wheeling Holiday Tournament, IL
Dec. 22 – Blaine
Dec. 29 - @ Cal Lutheran Tourney vs. Wheaton
Dec. 30 - @ Cal Lutheran Tourney vs. Cal Lutheran
Jan. 2 - vs. Carleton
Jan. 4 - @ Bethel
Jan. 5 – Forest Lake
Jan. 6 - vs. St. Mary's
Jan. 8 – Shakopee
Jan. 9 - @ Gustavus
Jan. 12 – Minnehaha Academy
Jan. 13 - vs. St. John's
Jan. 15 - St. Cloud Cathedral
Jan. 18 - vs. St. Thomas @ Macalester
Jan. 19 – Minnehaha Academy
Jan. 20 - @ Augsburg
Jan. 21 – Janesville Craig, WI
Jan. 22 – St. Cloud Cathedral
Jan. 23 - @ Macalester
Jan. 25 – Minnehaha Academy
Jan. 26 – Robbinsdale Cooper
Jan. 27 - vs. St. Olaf
Jan. 28 – St. Cloud Cathedral
Jan. 29 – Forest Lake
Jan. 30 - @ Carleton
Feb. 1 - vs. Concordia-Moorhead
Feb. 2 – St. Anges
Feb. 3 - vs. Bethel
Feb. 5 – Breck School
Feb. 6 - vs. Gustavus
Feb. 9 – St. Cloud Cathedral
Feb. 10 - @ St. Mary's
Feb. 16 – Zimmerman
White Bear Lake
Feb. 17 - @ St. John's
Feb. 18 – St. Cloud Cathedral
Feb. 19 – Academy of Holy Angels
Feb. 20 - vs. St. Thomas
Feb. 23 - MIAC Quarterfinal @ Carleton
Feb. 24 – Minnehaha Academy
Feb. 25 – Totino Grace
Feb. 26 – Shakopee
Feb. 27 – St. Anthony Village
Mar. 1 – Hill-Murray
Minnehaha Academy
Mar. 2 - Hastings
Mar. 5 – St. Thomas Academy
Mar. 10 – Holy Angels - Sectionals
Mar. 11 – Forest Lake - Sectionals
Mar. 12 – Hill-Murray - Sectionals
Mar. 13 – Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted - Sectionals
Mar. 16 – Arlington HS - Sectionals
Elk River HS - Sectionals
Mar. 18 – Kohl Center – WIAA States
Mar. 24 – Target Center – MSHSL States
Some practices that I attended were not included. One must remember that this is just my recruiting schedule and not the other coaches.
Nov. 15 - vs. Elmhurst (IL)
Nov. 17 - vs. Northwestern (MN)
Nov. 29 - vs. Buena Vista (IA)
Dec. 2 - vs. Augsburg
Dec. 3 – Forest Lake
Dec. 4 – St. Cloud Cathedral
Dec. 5 - vs. Macalester
Dec. 7 - @ St. Olaf
Dec. 8 – Forest Lake
Dec. 10 – St. Anthony Village
Dec. 12 - @ Concordia-Moorhead
Dec. 15 – Academy of Holy Angels
Dec. 18 – Janesville Parker, WI
Dec. 21 – Wheeling Holiday Tournament, IL
Dec. 22 – Blaine
Dec. 29 - @ Cal Lutheran Tourney vs. Wheaton
Dec. 30 - @ Cal Lutheran Tourney vs. Cal Lutheran
Jan. 2 - vs. Carleton
Jan. 4 - @ Bethel
Jan. 5 – Forest Lake
Jan. 6 - vs. St. Mary's
Jan. 8 – Shakopee
Jan. 9 - @ Gustavus
Jan. 12 – Minnehaha Academy
Jan. 13 - vs. St. John's
Jan. 15 - St. Cloud Cathedral
Jan. 18 - vs. St. Thomas @ Macalester
Jan. 19 – Minnehaha Academy
Jan. 20 - @ Augsburg
Jan. 21 – Janesville Craig, WI
Jan. 22 – St. Cloud Cathedral
Jan. 23 - @ Macalester
Jan. 25 – Minnehaha Academy
Jan. 26 – Robbinsdale Cooper
Jan. 27 - vs. St. Olaf
Jan. 28 – St. Cloud Cathedral
Jan. 29 – Forest Lake
Jan. 30 - @ Carleton
Feb. 1 - vs. Concordia-Moorhead
Feb. 2 – St. Anges
Feb. 3 - vs. Bethel
Feb. 5 – Breck School
Feb. 6 - vs. Gustavus
Feb. 9 – St. Cloud Cathedral
Feb. 10 - @ St. Mary's
Feb. 16 – Zimmerman
White Bear Lake
Feb. 17 - @ St. John's
Feb. 18 – St. Cloud Cathedral
Feb. 19 – Academy of Holy Angels
Feb. 20 - vs. St. Thomas
Feb. 23 - MIAC Quarterfinal @ Carleton
Feb. 24 – Minnehaha Academy
Feb. 25 – Totino Grace
Feb. 26 – Shakopee
Feb. 27 – St. Anthony Village
Mar. 1 – Hill-Murray
Minnehaha Academy
Mar. 2 - Hastings
Mar. 5 – St. Thomas Academy
Mar. 10 – Holy Angels - Sectionals
Mar. 11 – Forest Lake - Sectionals
Mar. 12 – Hill-Murray - Sectionals
Mar. 13 – Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted - Sectionals
Mar. 16 – Arlington HS - Sectionals
Elk River HS - Sectionals
Mar. 18 – Kohl Center – WIAA States
Mar. 24 – Target Center – MSHSL States
Some practices that I attended were not included. One must remember that this is just my recruiting schedule and not the other coaches.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
NABC All-District Team
Nice to see that there are people that actually have a clue. The NABC's All-District Teams came out and Carl Hipp was voted on a Second Team All-District member with fellow MIAC player Aaron Burtzel from St. John's. Tyler Nicolai from St. Thomas was voted First Team.
You can find the list by following this link on the NABC website. (It's a PDF file so it might take a while).
Also, congrats to Coach Mike Maker and his Williams College Ephs making the Final Four. Coach "Makes" worked with me at West Virginia and has been very instrumental in my coaching career.
You can find the list by following this link on the NABC website. (It's a PDF file so it might take a while).
Also, congrats to Coach Mike Maker and his Williams College Ephs making the Final Four. Coach "Makes" worked with me at West Virginia and has been very instrumental in my coaching career.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
D3hoops.com All Region
D3hoops.com All Region teams were announced yesterday. Congrats to all the players on the first, second, and third teams (like the MIAC should do it). West Region teams are here. I'm just going to go out on a limb here (insert sarcasm). A few of these selections are complete jokes. John Fraase from Concordia is a good player and good enough to be All-Conference but isn't an All-Region player let alone a 2nd team, ahead of our conference's MVP, Tyler Nicolai. I don't think Fraase is even the best player on his team let alone a top ten player in the West region.
Are they trying to say that neither Ray Brown or Carl Hipp aren't one of the best 15 players in the West? What a disservice to these kids. On top of that, Aaron Burtzel, second leading vote-getter for MVP of the MIAC isn't on the list either. Come on people, have a clue.
At least they got one thing right on Freshmen (not First year) of the Year Chris Palmer. He was a stud for them and clearly should be awarded.
Are they trying to say that neither Ray Brown or Carl Hipp aren't one of the best 15 players in the West? What a disservice to these kids. On top of that, Aaron Burtzel, second leading vote-getter for MVP of the MIAC isn't on the list either. Come on people, have a clue.
At least they got one thing right on Freshmen (not First year) of the Year Chris Palmer. He was a stud for them and clearly should be awarded.
Friday, March 5, 2010
MIAC Awards
The MIAC awards just came out the other day and was filled with Hamline players. Both Ray Brown and Carl Hipp were All Conference. Carl was also All Defensive Team. Jordan Schmidt and Noah Aguirre were two of the five guys on the All Freshmen Team. You can look at the rest of the awards here.
Based off the votes, both Ray and Carl would be First Team All League but unfortunately, the league basically decides anyone who is nominated for All Conference gets at least Honorable Mention. What a joke that is. There should be a First Team, Second Team, and a Third Team and that's it.
There is also a Sportsmanship Award that goes to one player from each team. In the famous words of Jack Byrnes (Robert DeNiro) in Meet the Fockers, "I didn't know they gave out 9th place ribbons."
Based off the votes, both Ray and Carl would be First Team All League but unfortunately, the league basically decides anyone who is nominated for All Conference gets at least Honorable Mention. What a joke that is. There should be a First Team, Second Team, and a Third Team and that's it.
There is also a Sportsmanship Award that goes to one player from each team. In the famous words of Jack Byrnes (Robert DeNiro) in Meet the Fockers, "I didn't know they gave out 9th place ribbons."
Friday, February 26, 2010
Playoff Basketball @ Carleton
After being listed as the #5 seed in the playoffs, we got to play in the bandbox of a gym they have at Carleton. It could make for a great atmosphere but it certainly doesn't. Huge advantage to Carleton right from the get go. We have played much better at home and I don't think there is any question about that. Another worry we had going into the game was the status of Ray Brown. Ray hyperextended his knee vs. St. Thomas hasn't been close to 100% in practice and we weren't sure how much he could go or go at all.
The game started out pretty good for us at we got the ball inside quite a bit to Carl Hipp. He scored pretty much whenever he wanted and we took control for a long stretch of the first half. The game then slowed to a snail's pace and the game didn't seem to have any flow. Carl got his second foul on a very questionable call and he still isn't to the point where we feel comfortable playing him while in foul trouble. Carleton then starting making a bunch of shots and we quickly were digging ourselves out of a hole and we ended up being down two at the half. Not exactly how we wanted to end the half.
The second half was quite the back and forth battle as neither team could pull away from each other. Carl got his 4th foul with about ten minutes left on a questionable call to say the least. Everything turned in Carleton's favor after that. We started helping a little more than normal on their bigs and they kicked it out for some 'dagger' 3's that we couldn't climb back from. We got back to within four a couple of times but couldn't get over the edge. Another call that didn't go our way was a potential "and 1" from Carl Hipp that the refs waived off because they said it happened before he got the ball. Inexcusable call but the refs and could've been a huge turning point for us, instead we got two free throws. We ended up losing by eight in a tough hard fought loss.
Carl had another monster scoring night with 26 on 10-13 shooting from the field, while going 6-14 from the line. We had no other players in double figures.
I personally want to thank our seniors for their hard work and dedication to turning things around here at Hamline. Thanks Nick, Danny, and Ray.
It seemed like every 50/50 call went their way. I'm not saying that the refs cheated but you are doing the kids a disservice when our kids are playing just as hard as the other team and not getting any respect. The stigma about Hamline is that we aren't any good, that is changing and hopefully the refs will change their misconceptions about our basketball program. We will battle with this until we are better than Gustavus, Carleton, St. John's, and St. Thomas. Nelson and I know it's the good ol' boys network (that we clearly aren't a part of) here in Minnesota but don't screw our kids.
By the way, Carleton beat St. Thomas last night in the Semis of the tournament and will play at Gustavus for the championship on Saturday.
The game started out pretty good for us at we got the ball inside quite a bit to Carl Hipp. He scored pretty much whenever he wanted and we took control for a long stretch of the first half. The game then slowed to a snail's pace and the game didn't seem to have any flow. Carl got his second foul on a very questionable call and he still isn't to the point where we feel comfortable playing him while in foul trouble. Carleton then starting making a bunch of shots and we quickly were digging ourselves out of a hole and we ended up being down two at the half. Not exactly how we wanted to end the half.
The second half was quite the back and forth battle as neither team could pull away from each other. Carl got his 4th foul with about ten minutes left on a questionable call to say the least. Everything turned in Carleton's favor after that. We started helping a little more than normal on their bigs and they kicked it out for some 'dagger' 3's that we couldn't climb back from. We got back to within four a couple of times but couldn't get over the edge. Another call that didn't go our way was a potential "and 1" from Carl Hipp that the refs waived off because they said it happened before he got the ball. Inexcusable call but the refs and could've been a huge turning point for us, instead we got two free throws. We ended up losing by eight in a tough hard fought loss.
Carl had another monster scoring night with 26 on 10-13 shooting from the field, while going 6-14 from the line. We had no other players in double figures.
I personally want to thank our seniors for their hard work and dedication to turning things around here at Hamline. Thanks Nick, Danny, and Ray.
It seemed like every 50/50 call went their way. I'm not saying that the refs cheated but you are doing the kids a disservice when our kids are playing just as hard as the other team and not getting any respect. The stigma about Hamline is that we aren't any good, that is changing and hopefully the refs will change their misconceptions about our basketball program. We will battle with this until we are better than Gustavus, Carleton, St. John's, and St. Thomas. Nelson and I know it's the good ol' boys network (that we clearly aren't a part of) here in Minnesota but don't screw our kids.
By the way, Carleton beat St. Thomas last night in the Semis of the tournament and will play at Gustavus for the championship on Saturday.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
St. John's and St. Thomas
Haven't been posting lately because I've really focused on the last couple of games and our playoff game today vs. Carleton. We didn't exactly end the season the way we would have hoped but that's the nature of the beast in a tough conference.
St. John's
We went up there last Wednesday in what always seems like a tough game. Last year we lost to them by 946 and it doesn't get any easier in Collegeville (yes, that's the name of the town). We started off pretty well from the field and then went into a major funk as St. John's went on a 18-2 to go up 20-11. We just couldn't get anything going offensively and they were making some tough shots. Usually not a good combo.
The second half was more of the same as we couldn't get it going. We got down as many as 15 and just weren't clicking offensively. Then something happened. We went with Brandon Rieg, Jordan Schmidt, Noah Aguirre, Dan Andersen, and Andy Voigt. They cut the margin quickly while moving the basketball like crazy and getting open looks. We have consistently told the team when we move the ball with penetration and passing, no one in the league can cover us. That was clearly the case for that stretch. On top of that, we were getting stops defensively. We ended up getting up two with about 2:30 left. Those guys looked like they were running out of gas and we ended up putting Nick Carroll, Carl Hipp, and Ray Brown back in the game. We couldn't close out the win and lost by three. Another tough loss on the road for us.
We were led by Noah Aguirre's 16 points on 6-12 shooting. Carl had 14 and 11 while Dan Andersen had his first double double of his career with 11 and 11. Jordan Schmidt rounded out the scoring with 12.
St. Thomas
This was probably the biggest game of the last 20+ years for the Pipers. At stake was a playoff home game and a win against St. Thomas, which hasn't happened in a long time. We got off to a rough start. Never a good sign to be down early against a quality basketball team. We kept on fighting and ended up being down by 14 at the half. We turned the ball over way too much and couldn't get ourselves going on defense. Not exactly the way we wanted this game to begin.
The second half was more of the same, as we could never get it closer than eight. We had several chances at getting it closer but couldn't make shots. What we did show was our toughness, we didn't back down at all in the second half. We actually outrebounded them by 14, which is definitely a good sign. The problem was that they got to every loose ball. That's the difference between having strong juniors and seniors compared to freshmen and sophomores. We just didn't want it as much as they did, plain and simple.
Final score, St. Thomas - 80 Hamline - 69. We were led by Carl Hipp's double-double with 20 and 14. Ray Brown finished with 15, all in the first half. Dan Andersen also had double figures on Senior Night.
On another note, here a link to some College Sporting News MIAC Awards that were handed out recently. Congrats to Carl and Ray on a great regular season.
We have Carleton tonight in the first round of the playoffs. It can be seen this link.
St. John's
We went up there last Wednesday in what always seems like a tough game. Last year we lost to them by 946 and it doesn't get any easier in Collegeville (yes, that's the name of the town). We started off pretty well from the field and then went into a major funk as St. John's went on a 18-2 to go up 20-11. We just couldn't get anything going offensively and they were making some tough shots. Usually not a good combo.
The second half was more of the same as we couldn't get it going. We got down as many as 15 and just weren't clicking offensively. Then something happened. We went with Brandon Rieg, Jordan Schmidt, Noah Aguirre, Dan Andersen, and Andy Voigt. They cut the margin quickly while moving the basketball like crazy and getting open looks. We have consistently told the team when we move the ball with penetration and passing, no one in the league can cover us. That was clearly the case for that stretch. On top of that, we were getting stops defensively. We ended up getting up two with about 2:30 left. Those guys looked like they were running out of gas and we ended up putting Nick Carroll, Carl Hipp, and Ray Brown back in the game. We couldn't close out the win and lost by three. Another tough loss on the road for us.
We were led by Noah Aguirre's 16 points on 6-12 shooting. Carl had 14 and 11 while Dan Andersen had his first double double of his career with 11 and 11. Jordan Schmidt rounded out the scoring with 12.
St. Thomas
This was probably the biggest game of the last 20+ years for the Pipers. At stake was a playoff home game and a win against St. Thomas, which hasn't happened in a long time. We got off to a rough start. Never a good sign to be down early against a quality basketball team. We kept on fighting and ended up being down by 14 at the half. We turned the ball over way too much and couldn't get ourselves going on defense. Not exactly the way we wanted this game to begin.
The second half was more of the same, as we could never get it closer than eight. We had several chances at getting it closer but couldn't make shots. What we did show was our toughness, we didn't back down at all in the second half. We actually outrebounded them by 14, which is definitely a good sign. The problem was that they got to every loose ball. That's the difference between having strong juniors and seniors compared to freshmen and sophomores. We just didn't want it as much as they did, plain and simple.
Final score, St. Thomas - 80 Hamline - 69. We were led by Carl Hipp's double-double with 20 and 14. Ray Brown finished with 15, all in the first half. Dan Andersen also had double figures on Senior Night.
On another note, here a link to some College Sporting News MIAC Awards that were handed out recently. Congrats to Carl and Ray on a great regular season.
We have Carleton tonight in the first round of the playoffs. It can be seen this link.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
St. Mary's
We headed on the bus for the two hour trip down to Winona to take on the Cardinals from St. Mary's. We beat them by over 30 the first time and we knew coming in that this one was going to be tough one and it certainly was.
We got off to a decent start and were up by five, five minutes into the half. We made it a 21-17 game with about 13 minutes to play in the half and it went completely downhill from there. They went on a 15-0 run over the next six minutes and didn't look back the rest of the half. We were down 52-36 at the half after our worst offensive performance all second semester and our worst defensive performance of the year. It was very disappointing to watch and it didn't help that many of our guys got into foul trouble.
The second half was more of the same. We couldn't get things rolling for a while. We finally got it within single digits and St. Mary's answered with a 9-0 run of their own and never looked back. The final was an extremely ugly 98-77 loss for the Pipers. They flat out beat us to every facet of the game. We outrebounded them by over 20 the first time we played and they got us by six this time. Clearly, it was an emotionally letdown from our game Saturday against Gustavus. It clearly shows that anyone can beat anyone in our league.
We were led by Ray Brown's 33 point performance. Noah Aguirre played his best game in a while with 14 points with four offensive boards. Carl Hipp rounded out our double figure scorers with 10 in very limited minutes.
SMU was led by Lucas Holland's 22 on 11-12 from the line. Gary Seifert scored more points than he had all year with a career high 17. They also had three other double figure scorers. They shot a solid 50% from the floor and a astounding 32-35 from the line. Props to the Cardinals for their effort.
Even with the loss we still clinched a playoff spot and still have an outside shot at getting the 2 seed or a home game. We are a half game behind both Augsburg (who beat St. John's) and Gustavus (who lost to St. Olaf in OT) for 2nd place. Should be interesting to see what happens this weekend when we have our bye.
We have a week off before we play in Collegeville against St. John's on Senior Night. Hoping to ruin that night for them.
Carl Hipp was named to the D3hoops.com Team of the Week for his performances last week.
We got off to a decent start and were up by five, five minutes into the half. We made it a 21-17 game with about 13 minutes to play in the half and it went completely downhill from there. They went on a 15-0 run over the next six minutes and didn't look back the rest of the half. We were down 52-36 at the half after our worst offensive performance all second semester and our worst defensive performance of the year. It was very disappointing to watch and it didn't help that many of our guys got into foul trouble.
The second half was more of the same. We couldn't get things rolling for a while. We finally got it within single digits and St. Mary's answered with a 9-0 run of their own and never looked back. The final was an extremely ugly 98-77 loss for the Pipers. They flat out beat us to every facet of the game. We outrebounded them by over 20 the first time we played and they got us by six this time. Clearly, it was an emotionally letdown from our game Saturday against Gustavus. It clearly shows that anyone can beat anyone in our league.
We were led by Ray Brown's 33 point performance. Noah Aguirre played his best game in a while with 14 points with four offensive boards. Carl Hipp rounded out our double figure scorers with 10 in very limited minutes.
SMU was led by Lucas Holland's 22 on 11-12 from the line. Gary Seifert scored more points than he had all year with a career high 17. They also had three other double figure scorers. They shot a solid 50% from the floor and a astounding 32-35 from the line. Props to the Cardinals for their effort.
Even with the loss we still clinched a playoff spot and still have an outside shot at getting the 2 seed or a home game. We are a half game behind both Augsburg (who beat St. John's) and Gustavus (who lost to St. Olaf in OT) for 2nd place. Should be interesting to see what happens this weekend when we have our bye.
We have a week off before we play in Collegeville against St. John's on Senior Night. Hoping to ruin that night for them.
Carl Hipp was named to the D3hoops.com Team of the Week for his performances last week.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Gustavus
On Saturday, we took on the Gusties (another bad nickname) at Hutton Arena. This a rematch of the January 9th game in St. Peter where we lost a tough one, 73-66 after being in control for most of the game. It was a battle of the 2nd and 3rd place teams in the conference. It certainly didn't disappoint.
The first half had back and forth action with neither team really getting control. The half was at a rather pedestrian pace which certainly favored GAC (Gustavus Adolphus College for those non-Minnesotans). GAC did not shoot the ball particularly well in the 1st stanza shooting at a 33% clip (9-27). They also got the free throw line a bunch and were 10-14 from there. The Pipes were much better at 52% (12-23) but turned the ball over 11 times. All those turnovers were completely unnecessary because GAC doesn't pressure the ball at all. The score going into the locker rooms was 30-29 in favor of the Gusties. GAC was led by Phil Wirtjes and Ryan McPartland with six points each and shooting combined 6-6 from the line. We were led by Ray Brown's 11 and Carl Hipp's 9 and 7 boards.
The second half started out very well for us as we got the ball inside to Carl and he couldn't be stopped. We quickly got the lead to six four minutes into the half. GAC quickly turned that lead into a tie ball game with their methodical playmaking and clutch shooting from Wirtjes. The last eight minutes of the half were a flat out test of wills. Both teams were locked in defensively and it was clear that neither team wanted to lose this game. GAC was kept in the game by freshman James Hill's shooting. We lost him on the defensive end a couple of times and each time he hit us with daggers. We ended
up force feeding "The Nasty One" Carl Hipp and he delivered every time in the post. He even made a couple of clutch free throws down the stretch to give the Pipers a huge win, 66-63.
There were several great things for us during Saturday's game. One, we got the "W," in a game that had Gustavus written all over it. Two, we beat them on the boards after getting beat by 15 the first time we played them. Three, our crowd was great and was very instrumental in the win. Four, a couple of players from the 40's and 50's were there including NBA Hall of Famer Vern Mikkelsen. It's always great to see our alums there supporting us. And five, Carl Hipp scored his 1,000 career point on clutch free throws down the stretch, congrats to Carl.
Carl led us with his 2nd consecutive 29 point game to go along with 12 boards. Ray Brown also hit the 20 point barrier to go along with 5 boards and 4 huge blocks. Nick Carroll once again gave a great defensive effort. Though, we didn't get another double figure scorer, we did get some great minutes off the bench by Levi Wenrich, Brandon Rieg, and Christian Taber aka Danny Ainge.
We have off until Wednesday when we travel to Winona to play St. Mary's. It's another pivotal game for us at we stand at 15-7 and 11-6 in the conference to stand 1/2 game behind GAC for 2nd place and a bye in the first round of the playoffs.
The first half had back and forth action with neither team really getting control. The half was at a rather pedestrian pace which certainly favored GAC (Gustavus Adolphus College for those non-Minnesotans). GAC did not shoot the ball particularly well in the 1st stanza shooting at a 33% clip (9-27). They also got the free throw line a bunch and were 10-14 from there. The Pipes were much better at 52% (12-23) but turned the ball over 11 times. All those turnovers were completely unnecessary because GAC doesn't pressure the ball at all. The score going into the locker rooms was 30-29 in favor of the Gusties. GAC was led by Phil Wirtjes and Ryan McPartland with six points each and shooting combined 6-6 from the line. We were led by Ray Brown's 11 and Carl Hipp's 9 and 7 boards.
The second half started out very well for us as we got the ball inside to Carl and he couldn't be stopped. We quickly got the lead to six four minutes into the half. GAC quickly turned that lead into a tie ball game with their methodical playmaking and clutch shooting from Wirtjes. The last eight minutes of the half were a flat out test of wills. Both teams were locked in defensively and it was clear that neither team wanted to lose this game. GAC was kept in the game by freshman James Hill's shooting. We lost him on the defensive end a couple of times and each time he hit us with daggers. We ended
up force feeding "The Nasty One" Carl Hipp and he delivered every time in the post. He even made a couple of clutch free throws down the stretch to give the Pipers a huge win, 66-63.There were several great things for us during Saturday's game. One, we got the "W," in a game that had Gustavus written all over it. Two, we beat them on the boards after getting beat by 15 the first time we played them. Three, our crowd was great and was very instrumental in the win. Four, a couple of players from the 40's and 50's were there including NBA Hall of Famer Vern Mikkelsen. It's always great to see our alums there supporting us. And five, Carl Hipp scored his 1,000 career point on clutch free throws down the stretch, congrats to Carl.
Carl led us with his 2nd consecutive 29 point game to go along with 12 boards. Ray Brown also hit the 20 point barrier to go along with 5 boards and 4 huge blocks. Nick Carroll once again gave a great defensive effort. Though, we didn't get another double figure scorer, we did get some great minutes off the bench by Levi Wenrich, Brandon Rieg, and Christian Taber aka Danny Ainge.
We have off until Wednesday when we travel to Winona to play St. Mary's. It's another pivotal game for us at we stand at 15-7 and 11-6 in the conference to stand 1/2 game behind GAC for 2nd place and a bye in the first round of the playoffs.
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