Lawrence, Cougars Blow Past App State

Oh Captain, My Captain

Final Score: College of Charleston 74, Appalachian State 62
Top Performers: Andrew Lawrence 24 points, 7 assists, 3 steals
                              Trent Wiedeman 14 points, 5 rebounds, 3 blocks

Maybe the Cougars are turning a corner. 48 hours after losing to Elon in double-overtime, Coach Byington's group of young men got a substantial victory on the road against App State. Despite being out-rebounded 46-32 and a combined 3-point shooting of 9% by Matt Sundberg and Antwaine Wiggins, the Cougars still left Boone with a 12-point victory.

The team was lead by two solid performances by the aforementioned "Top Performers". Andrew Lawrence made up for the poor shooting wings by going lights out from deep in the first half. He made five straight 3's in the first half and finished the game with a very efficient stat line. Wiedeman didn't have an Elon type performance going against I-Like-Isaac-Butts-And-I-Cannot-Lie but he came out hot as well and scored the first 6 CofC points. He got beat on the glass a couple times but App State's big men are one of the more formidable groups in the conference.

Rounding out the score sheet were some nice chip-in performances by Adjehi Baru and Nori Johnson. Baru led the Cougs with 9 rebounds despite some foul trouble and Nori was able to get back to double-digit scoring with an 11 point game on 4-6 shooting. Neither of them had a turnover either.

The problems we've been talking about are still there. We're still getting beat on the glass too much (especially giving up offensive possessions) and only time will tell if we can show any consistency in effort and focus. On the bright side, the Cougars are learning to at least negate some of these shortcomings by hustling on defense and moving the ball more regularly on offense. Lawrence had a nice quote about how Byington is trying to instill an offensive scheme that matches the players we have right now. For better or worse our situation has dictated this 7 man unit. Early on we folded trying to fit square pegs into round holes but maybe the guys are starting to figure out their roles a little better. Now we just need to figure out how to win on Thursdays.