Cougs Edge Bucs in Another Sloppy One

Trent's BIG rebound and Wiggins' dunk sealed this game late

Final Score: College of Charleston 70, Charleston Southern 68
Top Performers: Antwaine Wiggins 18 points, 11 rebounds
                              Trent Wiedeman 4 points, 10 rebounds in 22 minutes

Another nail-biter finish for CofC fans and another squandered double digit lead by the Cougars but once again, a win is a win. Charleston Southern committed just five turnovers, made some great hustle plays and shot lights out from three. The Cougars didn't really seem to get up for this game and looked sloppy for most of the contest. This was a one basket victory for two reasons: turnovers and poor free throw shooting.

Andrew Lawrence and Anthony Stitt played very uncharacteristically and combined to cough up the ball a total of ten times. And that was only half of the teams total for the evening. Charleston Southern is a great defensive team (including Kelvin Martin, who is a beast) and they were able to put enough man-to-man pressure on our point guards to get the type of easy fast break buckets we saw against Tennessee.

The Cougars as a team were pathetic from the charity stripe. Shooting 50% when you're given 26 opportunities is the type of performance that will come back to bite you in the ass one day. Adjehi Baru struggled the most (2-8) and his freshman teammate Anthony Stitt didn't fare too great either (5-8). Sometimes with these young players it seems to be a mental thing. You miss the first few and you let it get into your head and it causes you to get out of rhythm. Our conference opponents are sure to hack Baru a lot and judging by the way Stitt drives to the basket with reckless abandon; he'll need to take advantage of the free points opportunity.

This game was firmly in hand before our play got really sloppy in the final ten minutes. I would say from Baru's goal tending call on was probably the worst of it. Turnovers, the lid over the basket whenever we shot free throws and giving up those second chance shots under the basket for CSU.

We were lucky to win this game without any mental focus. The sad reality is that the Big South is the superior conference and the fact that CSU will be a top team helps our RPI and SOS. We all know about what awaits us in Louisville on Tuesday. Cougars need to bring their A game for a full 40 minutes if we want to have a shot.

More random tidbits and thoughts:

• It may have been just a sliver of daylight, but we actually had a brief Jordan Scott sighting. He was more aggressive than he has been lately and even though his shots weren't falling (the fouled dunk, the open jumper from 5 feet out) he had good looks. He thrives off his own confidence. When we get him going early he adds another weapon to our team.
• The officiating was once again rather questionable. Not that it was at all biased, but when players are rolling over each other on the ground, catching elbows in a pack of bodies under the basket and I can hear the hand slaps on TV, something's gotta change.
• Sundberg and the defensive rotations. It looks like he knows where he needs to be, he's just so slow and doesn't anticipate the switch
• Wiggins did more slashing and a little less dribbling. That play where he went through 4 defenders, got fouled and sunk the finger roll is what I want to see from him every game. Great rebounding too by the senior.