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.
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