By Steve Dimiceli
Discuss here on YukuDukes
Right to the games tonight. I have some funny stories that I'll save for the message board or another blog entry.
First point, my schedule for tonight was all kinds of wrong. The opener featured Derrick Martin and Jerry Jones. Neither looked as good as they did on Monday. Both hit long shots, Jones for 3 and Martin for 2 with his foot on the line early in the game and I expected both to be hot. Martin had another tough matchup in Dante Taylor tonight. The good news is, he's going to have tough match ups just about every game so he'll get in some work. He did a nice job getting a hand to a lot of rebounds but had a hard time coming down with them. He only really came down strong with one or two. All totaled he had 7 boards to go along with another 4 blocks. Martin is going to drive the old guys nuts, because he's not a box out rebounder. He's another slashing athletic guy like Damian. As a result he's not going to clear out down low and I expect the team to continue to concede a ton of offensive rebounds. He only shot 1 of 6 from the floor after making his first basket. He did face the hoop and try to drive at least once tonight. Contrary to what I thought he did have a couple of turnovers.
Jones did that disappearing thing he does at times, but in his defense, without Gibbs his teammates did not share the ball very well. He made a couple of nice cuts that would've been rewarded in a game situation. He went 2 for 6 from the field and 1 for 4 from three.
Andre Marhold and Sean Johnson played in the second game. I don't think Sean's coach likes him much. He was benched to start the game and didn't get a lot of PT the rest of the way either. He had another tough night going 0 for 5 from the field and 2 for 4 from the FT line. He didn't have the secondary numbers to save him tonight either. He looked visibly discouraged after the game.
Marhold could be described in manner tonight that I've never heard him described before --- on fire. Well relatively speaking anyway. He went 2 for 4 (I think it's wrong) from the field based on what I have and the only two shots he missed, he was fouled. Like Sean he went 2 for 4 from the line. There was a period in the second half where he just really took the ball to the hole aggressively off the dribble. I think maybe three possessions he tried to penetrate and for about 2 or 3 minutes he took the game over. He turned it over during that stretch, but I liked what I saw. However, I don't like how Marhold makes himself smaller when he puts the ball on the floor. He really seems to get lower than he should which makes it difficult for him to bring the ball from his dribble to his shooting hand. It leads to a lot of turnovers or blocked shots.
In the last game, TJ McConnell and Mike Talley played Eric Evans and BJ Montiero. I liked what each of these players did.
Let me just say that without Deandre Kane in the lineup tonight, Team 6 plays the best team game of anyone in this league. It paid off tonight as they bounced back from their previous blow out loss with a pretty big win. Talley had the best night of everyone. He was killer in transition and scored on 4 lay ups off the break. One he knocked down for a basket and a foul and hit the ensuing free throw. Again he looked very strong on the ball. Both he and TJ made some great passes that his team couldn't finish.
TJ had an off night by his Greentree standards. Anthony Meyers from Robert Morris played him very tight. He didn't shoot particularly well on 2 for 6 to go along with 1 for 2 from the line, but he piled up the rebounds and assists (in spite of his teammates) getting 8 boards and 6 helpers.
BJ was excellent in the early going except for his finishing. He went 1 for 9 from the field and 1 for 4 from the line. However, he was aggressive and handled the ball very well. He seemed to have a real spring in the first half but tired in the second. Really, he looked explosive. He also ended with 4 rebounds.
Evans battled Talley tonight and it may have been the best matchup for me of the evening. They were all over each other but at the end of the day I give the win to Talley. Eric went 2 of 8 again including 1 of 4 from three. He also hit a FT. I had him down for one assist, but I suspect the official stats will have him with more.
Once again I will correct with the official stats on the message board.
