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.
Monday, November 29, 2010
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."
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