What I Learned at the Charleston Classic

Writing the title to this post reminds me of all those vague and elaborate essays I wrote on the first day of school entitled "What I Did Over Summer Vacation". Except I guess this is kind of the opposite; I'm returning from school. Unlike those grade school essays I can assure you that I accomplished quite a bit at the 5th Annual Charleston Classic.

Even though the Cougars didn't perform up to expectations (what SoCon basketball team is?), the trip was well worth the high-level brand of basketball I was fortunate enough to watch. Colorado was your eventual champion, defeating Dayton, Baylor and Murray State along the way, but other All-Tournament performers like Isaiah Canaan and Pierre Jackson provided entertainment all weekend. There was a lot to take in so we're switching to power outline format:

• Trent Wiedeman will miss/be limited for an important stretch of OOC games
• When Trent pulled up suddenly while jogging down the court, there was a collective wince from the crowd at TD Arena. As if not having our other All-SoCon performer wasn't bad enough during that Auburn game, the fates decided to make things a bit tougher on the Cougars. We can all speculate as to how long "indefinite" means until we hear more from the the school, but an ankle injury to our best inside player will hurt in the short term. 
• There's just one conference game between now and January 5th. That out-of-conference stretch includes games at Baylor on Friday and against Louisville in Charleston two weeks from today. It's already evident that the offense moves through Trent and he's one half of our interior defense. If he misses significant time, the Cougars become very thin and small all of the sudden. Willis and Adjehi did a great job Sunday but Wojcik is going to have to do a lot of tinkering to get the most out of his lineup against the BIG Cards and Bears.
• Theo Johnson and Matt Sundberg can contribute in spurts
• Out of everything that went down this weekend, the most pleasant surprises (especially in light of Trent's injury) were the performances by our bench forwards. Theo especially, who looked lost in his first game against Towson, really came on and can contribute with his defense and occasional three-point shooting. Johnson amassed 8 blocks over the weekend and looked more comfortable at the free throw line. He's a great one-one-one defender and Wojcik's decision to substitute the freshman in for defensive plays down the stretch against BC proved to be a wise one.
• Sunny D will always have his liabilities on defense but he was a huge factor in the Auburn game. The craziest part was that it wasn't even his shooting that made the difference. Matt got a couple of big offensive rebounds, played around the basket and had a steal in just 10 minutes. Time will tell but I think the coaching change might actually be good for Matt. Offensively he's not being asked to exclusively spot-up on the arc which accounts for the rebounds. On defense, when the Cougars double-team, Matt can use his length on the perimeter and gets more help bodying up the post players. 
• Andrew Lawrence also makes a big difference
• Senior, leading-scorer, team captain. Hurts the team when he's not playing. I think him missing the middle game with a stomach virus was a reminder to fans and the team how important Andrew is to achieving our goals this season. 
• Adjehi Baru may have had his breakout game
• Adjehi puts a ton of pressure on himself. He works incredibly hard and he's really bought in to playing defense and rebounding at a superior level. Through three games, Baru was struggling offensively. Especially in the St Johns game where no one could make a shot, Adjehi was routinely missing shots from inside 6 feet. With Trent out against Boston College, our center played a complete game. He was on the floor for 38 minutes, played his usual excellent defense, made his shots and "did the dirty work to get Willis his 11 rebounds" (Wojcik's words not mine). On Thursday an NBA scout asked me why Baru wasn't shooting as much when he had such a nice stroke last year. My guess was it's a confidence thing, deferring to the scorers to finish a well-executed offensive possession. Whatever the reason, seeing him make shots and smile was encouraging heading into this tough stretch of games.
• The offense is struggling, rebounding and defense are great: Coach is well-aware of this
• Wojcik mentioned in this week's podcast (watch it here) that the offense is still too predictable and the guys need to do more than just swing the ball around the perimeter or dump it into the post. That includes more penetration, more inside-out ball movement and more motion by the guys. Coach is confident that these things will come. In the meantime the defense and the rebounding are vastly improved. The Cougars have outrebounded every team they have played so far and, with the exception of St Johns, they have held their opponents to a lower shooting percentage than themselves. Even the free throw shooting got better! My guess is it was the visit from Rick Barry. 
• So far the SoCon is performing at near record lows this season
• The Southern Conference is on track to rank 28th out 33 conferences in RPI this year. The middle-of-the-road teams are struggling against their peers (The SoCon as a whole is 5-28 against D1 opponents at the time I'm writing this), the good teams are faltering (Davidson lost to Milwaukee) and the teams can't close out games. Even the most avid conference realignment fans couldn't have called a start this dreadful.
• In order to defeat Baylor this week, the Cougars only need to stop Isaiah Austin, Pierre Jackson, Cory Jefferson, AJ Walton and Brady Heslip...

• Any one of those guys can star against an opponent. You've got the Big 12 Pre Season Player of the Year, a surefire NBA Draft lottery pick, a versatile forward, a lockdown defender and a sharpshooter. Jackson, Jefferson and Heslip each had a big day in the Charleston Classic and that's not even including the sort of game-breaking plays a three-point shooting 7-footer like Isaiah Austin can inflict 
• St Johns, Boston College and Auburn will be better this year. 
• Big East teams will have trouble with the wealth of athleticism and length on St Johns roster. Boston College's collection of five starting freshman from 2011 are a year more experienced and Ryan Anderson is a player. Auburn will upset a few SEC teams.
• Murray State won't have another magical year, but Isaiah Canaan will lead them to the top of the OVC again

• Ed Daniel and Dexter Fields also impressed me this weekend but for my money Canaan is the best point guard in the country.
• Dayton fans travel better than any other mid-major program I know of
• The Flyer faithful replace the George Mason Patriots as the largest fanbase to follow their team to Charleston. They filled the arena for all three Dayton games and had enough leftovers to help supplement some solid crowds at the other games. I've heard for a long time that Dayton is one of the premier basketball towns in the country and this tournament proved that their fans are mad outside the month of March. Murray State gets an honorable mention
• The strength of next year's Charleston Classic will largely depend on who the final two teams are
• ESPN has already announced six of the eight teams in the 2013 Charleston Classic: Clemson, Georgia, Nevada, Alabama-Birmingham, New Mexico and Temple. That's a solid, if not a bit underwhelming field for next year. One of the teams will likely be out of the host Southern Conference and who knows who the other could be. Cremins and the rest of the Classic board talked about the credibility of bringing in a Top 25 team like Baylor for this year's tournament. Hopefully the organizers can bring in another. 
• The King Kresse Charleston Classic Superlatives
• Best Trash Talker - Baylor's AJ Walton who continually chirped stuff like ALL BY YO SELF to whoever he was guarding. I think TD Arena eventually caught on because they would go silent whenever Walton was on defense
• Grittiest Performance - Frankie Sullivan's injury on Thursday is still fresh in my head. He hit the scorers table SO hard that a lot of us in the audience were expecting the medic team to trot onto the court with the stretcher. Luckily (I guess), Sullivan broke the tumble with his elbow first. A gash that nearly caused Coach Barbee to lose his dinner and 25 stitches later, Sullivan torched us for 20 points...in just the 2nd half.
• Worst way to close out a game and still win - Against Baylor; Colorado shot 4-18 from the free throw line, missed their final six shots, gave up a pinpoint, full court, Grant to Laettner football pass that landed in the hands of the person it was destined for, who got the shot off...and the Buffs still won. 
• Best Hair - Murray State's Ed Daniel - the refs couldn't miss an afro that big drop to the floor. Daniel got a lot of positive calls thrown his direction when him and his hair were on defense
• Best Name - St John's Sir'Dominic Pointer is... THE RUNNER UP because his twin sister is named Miz'Unique Pointer. 
• Best dunk that didn't count - Andre Roberson had a filthy slam over the defender in the championship game that would've have been a SportsCenter and #POSTERIZED highlight had it not been called an offensive foul. Blake Griffin knows how that goes.