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| Wiggins was super clutch down the stretch, from the FT stripe no less |
Top Performers: Nori Johnson 27 points, 5-7 3P%
Trent Wiedeman 14 points, 13 rebounds
Chris Evans 16 points, 13 rebounds
What a back-and-forth game that was. Cougars started off by looking like a high school JV team going against the grown men of Kent State in their house. The Golden Flashes started the game by hemorrhaging the Cougars into a 17-5 deficit behind some very impressive hustle on the offensive boards (23-7 advantage for the game, yuck). Fortunately for CofC, Kent State was without one of their best players in senior forward Justin Greene. Greene, who leads the team in points and rebounds, was a late scratch due to an ankle injury.
For the first few minutes it didn't look like Greene's injury would matter for KSU. Even though they were missing shots from behind the arc, the Flashes were crashing the glass and routinely getting 2nd, 3rd, and 4th shots at the basket. Offensively, the Cougars were getting looks but not making the shots the defense was giving them. Things seemed bleak, and you could sense the impending doom in the CofC chat room.
Then, like a flash of a mental epiphany, the Cougars finally started to get their stuff together. Actually, more than that it was probably the switch to zone defense. Byington started running a 2-3 zone with a little bit of full court pressure thrown in for good measure. Kent State suddenly looked like a very different team attacking a new defense. They turned the ball over at half court a few times and their outside shooting continued to suffer. The zone D was what helped the Cougs go up on Louisville, but Pitino eventually figured out that you can beat it by passing to your big man at the elbow and allowing him to shoot the uncontested 5 foot jumper. KSU came close to that a few times, but their bigs kept turning down the open shot to pass the ball back to the perimeter. The Golden Flashes outside shooting was so putrid that they started the game going 0-18; not connecting until late in the second half. The combination of the zone closing out on shooters plus the lack of spacing they already had with Greene's absence was one of the things that really did KSU in for the middle portion of the game.
With the defense forcing bad shots and plenty of turnovers, the Cougars offense was able to run at full speed and find their shooting touch. Nori Johnson carried most of the scoring load, going five-of-seven from deep on his way to 27 points. Not only that, but Jordan Scott even got a few threes to drop and had one really nice and-1 on the break that took all the air out of the M.A.C Center. And even Matt Sundberg was...ehh...he gets a pass on being abused on defense for making 2 of 3 threes. Finally, Trent once again had a monster game. He manhandled the boards on his way to another double-double and changed up his offensive repertoire a bit. There was much less backing down opponents from 10 feet out and shooting hook shots and much more cutting to the basket for easy layups.
The Cougars fought all the way back from that early deficit, took a 19 point lead just after halftime and put their effort into auto-pilot. Everybody got a little bit sloppy with their passing, a little less precise on defense and a little complacent with putting points on the board. Slowly but surely the Golden Flashes began chipping away until they really caught fire after one shot. Once Kent State hit their first three of the night with 75% of the game complete, the crowd started going wild. Even though they were still down 13 at this point, that 11-1 home field advantage mentality started creeping back. That shot opened up the flood gates for 5 more threes during a stretch where the game got a lot more competitive.
The Cougars went on a 7-minute, no field goal, 10 turnover run that allowed the Golden Flashes to completely get back in the game. KSU cut our lead to 2 on a few different occasions but to everyone's surprise, the Cougars took care of protecting this lead from the free throw line. CofC, who is one of the worst shooting teams in the country from the charity stripe, actually made enough down the stretch to keep the game just out of reach. And this was with Lawrence fouled out of the game! Antwaine ran the point and took the brunt of the intentional fouls down the stretch but sank almost all of them (by the way, thank God none of those officials were counting time on Wiggin's shooting routine, they could've called 10 seconds on any of those).
In the end, the Cougars got a big win and a huge confidence-booster with just two regular season games to go in the season. The Golden Flashes have a shot at winning a conference that is more competitive than our own and we were only the second team all season to defeat them at home. By winning this game after losing to a much worse UNCG team, the Cougars once again displayed their wild inconsistency. But if the Cougars can have some momentum going into Asheville, maybe we can sustain a stretch of good basketball over a four game period.
P.S. Anthony Stitt returns on Monday. Woohoo!
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