Emotional Cougars Can't Get Stops, Lose to Wofford

Final Score: Wofford 68, College of Charleston 59

Top Performers: Trent Wiedeman 18 points, 10 rebounds

                              Karl Cochran 15 points, 7 rebounds

The Cougars came out of the gates with little focus and intensity, but a second half run and subsequent hot shooting wasn't enough to make a dent in Wofford's double digit lead. Things certainly looked grim for the first few minutes of Mark Byington's head coaching career but the last twenty minutes of the game saw a lot more hustle from the Cougars. Players were diving on the floor for the ball and narrowed the rebounding gap a bit, but they just couldn't get a defensive stop when it was really needed.

Minutes before the game, Byington made the announcement that Baru's ankle had not healed enough to risk him playing and the freshman big man was ruled out. Without him in the lineup, the game basically came down to 5-on-2 play. Wofford's starters (who rarely sub out) versus Trent Wiedeman and Antwaine Wiggins. Neither of the them could get anything to fall early and CofC settled for contested jumper after contested jumper. Mostly from three. The offense looked out of sync and Wofford was able to do as they pleased as they cruised to a 28-19 lead going into halftime.

In his presser yesterday, Coach Byington talked about how the kids had been playing with little enthusiasm during the current losing funk. The loss of their coach was only going to make matters worse if they kept it in the front of their minds. Byington talked about how he wanted the guys to leave everything on the floor and just try to have fun. In his words, he wanted to see "guys diving for loose balls" and "high fives" between teammates. He must've said something to remind the kids about this at halftime because they came back onto the floor with a much more positive attitude. They were pushing the pace, going after 50/50 balls and shooting with more confidence. 

The real Achilles heel for this team tonight (and for a lot of the past few weeks) has been defense. No matter what they were doing on offense, Sundberg and Johnson routinely got burned trying to guard the perimeter and Wofford got plenty of open looks. Cochran, who had a big game the last time these two teams met, was hot from beyond the arc and Loesing carved up what the defense gave him.

Few expected us to win this game with what has gone down in the past 24 hours. Had the CofC players showed a lack of effort I would be more upset. The guys showed some emotion in the second half and this patchwork rotation just has to take their lumps. The rest of this season is a learning experience.