Couch Musings (1-12-05)
I am seriously thinking that I will need to buy two more television sets at some point and place them all in my living room with their own cable boxes. Trying to flip between the Arkansas-Alabama, Missouri-Oklahoma State, and the end of the Villanova-Providence games, was quite a feat. At least when Louisville played like the Globetrotters against Southern Mississippi doing their best Washington Nationals impression, it left me free to watch the Ohio State-Wisconsin game in its entirety. Musings for last night:
- If you are a coach trying to show young kids the importance of making free throws, or even how to make free throws, there were a number of exhibitions put on last night. The best game for them to watch would have been the Missouri-Oklahoma State game. The two teams combined to go 44 of 49 from the free throw line for an unbelievable 90%. This included Joey Graham making all 13 of his attempts and his twin brother Stephen only missing 1 of his 8 attempts. Linas Kleiza, a 66% free throw shooter, matched Joey G's feat by also hitting all 13 of his from the charity stripe. His performance almost willed Missouri to a win in this game but the Graham brothers and John Lucas were too much for the Tigers who didn't get double digit scoring from any other player.
- Tuesday night should have been called the night of the Second Option. Missouri didn't have one and went down. Providence also struggled to find one beyond Ryan Gomes and lost to a Villanova team missing their best player, Curtis Sumpter. In his place, the next best players all stepped up to fill the hole. Allen Ray scored 27 and Jason Fraser, who was averaging a little over 6 points in his previous 10 games, went off for 25 points and also grabbed 13 rebounds, 10 on the offensive end. The big games turned in by Ray and Fraser were key to the Wildcats victory, along with a tenacious pressure defense which pushed the Friars into 29 turnovers.
- Second options might also be called unsung players. One of those plays for Wake Forest. We hear a lot of about Chris Paul and the impact that the sophomore has had on the team. We hear a lot about the disappointment that Vytas Danelius was last year after a great sophomore year. But through all of that one man goes unseen and unsung, Justin Gray. Gray led the Demon Deacons in scoring last season at 17 points a game. While he was a first team all conference selection last year, he didn't get the press that everyone else in the ACC normally does. Maybe he was a little upset at this as, this year, he is back on top at 17.7 points per game. This was helped by his big performance against Maryland on Tuesday. Gray went off for 25 points including 6 of 9 from three point range. Despite Maryland shooting almost 50% from the field, Wake Forest easily cruised to victory by 15. It might have something to do with Maryland shooting only 1 for 14 from beyond the arc. Or it might have something to do with Maryland being terrible getting rebounds. Wake Forest was able to bring down 22 offensive rebounds and no one on Maryland's team had double digit numbers in that area. If Maryland doesn't do better at grabbing boards, they will be in trouble. In the last two games, both of which Maryland was embarrassed in, they have been outrebounded 100-64. Even in their lone conference win against Florida State, they were beat on the glass, 56-44. This was not the way that the Terps wanted to start in the ACC.
- Will the real West Virginia please stand up? If it wasn't bad enough getting their first loss in the Big East opener against Villanova in blow out style, imagine how they feel after last night. Playing Marshall in the battle for the Mountain State in Charleston, you would have thought that West Virginia would have easily handled the two win Herd. Instead, the Herd took down the Mountaineers for their second embarrassing defeat in two weeks and Marshall's third win of the season. Couple this with a close win against a St. John's team which wasn't expected to win very many conference games and you are looking at a team about to crumble to dust after a 10-0 start. West Virginia's next test comes against undefeated Boston College on Sunday.
