Yesterday afternoon we took the Cardinals from St. Mary's (they use to be the Redman, way cooler nickname until everyone became politically correct). They have three prolific scorers (Chris Palmer, Will Wright, and Lukas Holland) that are always a tough matchup. You can check out Lukas Holland HERE in his music debut (I actually like it). Hopefully, he focuses on his music instead of hoops. We knew we had to figure out a way to take one or two of them out and force someone else beat us.
We got off to a pretty good start with a couple of layups by Carl inside and a couple of other good attacks inside. After this we got really stagnant on offense and just stood around. It didn't help that Will Wright (one of the three prolific scorers from above) made a shot from his backside, literally. The ball came to him after he fell and he made a shot from his butt. We were certainly hoping that this wasn't going to be "one of those days" like St. Olaf.
Everytime we had a little answer for the Cardinals they responded with an offensive rebound or a loose ball that led to a score. We didn't seem to have an answer or the energy to keep up with them. Needless to say, we didn't exactly stop Will Wright as he finished the half with 14 points including 2-3 from 3 (less than 30% on the year from there). Both Holland and Palmer had seven as well. We were down 42-35 at the half.
We got right back into the back at the start of the half with a couple of easy buckets. After playing back and forth for a little bit, we went on a 15-0 run over a five minutes span and really stepped on their throat. We just put them away and you could see it in their play and their mindset. We ended up outscoring them 50-24 in the second half to really make a statement. We put together 20 minutes of quality basketball on both ends of the floor. First time all year we've done that.
Their three big guns shot a combined 15-39, including 6-13 from 3 (4-5 for Wright)while the rest of their team was a combined 7-23. Wright finished with 22, Palmer with 19, and Holland with 9. We didn't exactly shut them down but we took them out of their stuff that normally gets them shots and that is certainly one of our philosophies. If you can take away certain teams' sets then you can completely take them out of the game because that is the only way they can score, and we did that.
Carl had a big day while playing close to (surprise, surprise) 30 minutes. He had 23 points and 16 rebounds. Mike had 16 points with 14 coming in the second half, really giving us a spark. Noah had another solid game with 11 points, 5 boards, and 5 assists. We only had eight turnovers, which I think is a season low, hopefully a step in the right direction.
Tomorrow we take on the Tommies from St. Thomas (let's get a little more creative Minnesota) in a huge game for us. UST has had three straight relatively close games in their last three. Hopefully the fans will be out in full force. Game time is 7:30 central time.
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Here is a great quote that would perfectly describe him. "Great men are often hated and envied by their peers. It is usually not until they are gone that their greatness is recognized."
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