For the second year in a row, I am sitting courtside on Thanksgiving Weekend at the Provident Pride of Maryland Tournament. Nothing like seeing eight games of basketball in two day! It is a heck of a way to get the basketball motor running.
Now, the first round games were played on Tuesday with Salisbury beating Goucher, St. Mary’s beating McDaniel, Johns Hopkins beating Frostburg, and Washington beat Stevenson. So, here are the four games for today:
Goucher vs. Frostburg
McDaniel vs. Stevenson
Johns Hopkins vs. Salisbury
Washington vs. St. Mary’s
Here are a few observations from the first two games so far today:
Frostburg beats Goucher 64-56:
I have been around the Goucher program since I entered college and in the last few years have never seen the team shoot free-throws as badly as they are. Now, that wasn’t their biggest problem today. They shot .610 from the charity line for the game, but they shot .268 from the field and only lost by eight!!! But a few things that could have helped: Goucher was at the line 41 times, hitting 25 of those attempts. Just ten more would have made a major difference and the team would have shot above .700. And of the 56 shots they took for the game, they only hit 15! 15!!! This team has a lot of players putting up bad shots and making questionable decisions. They need to come together as a unit and stop playing street-style basketball on both ends of the court and they could be a tough team.
Frostburg looks liek they could be tough and they certainly game Hopkins a good game on Tuesday, but I wondered how much Goucher made Frostburg look good versus the Bobcats actually playing well. They take on McDaniel on Sunday, that could be a good barameter.
McDaniel beat Stevenson 75-66:
Stevenson is a streaky team. They made runs in the game on Tuesday against Washington and had the lead several times in the first half. However, they found them selves down 20+ in the second half and despite a run late in the game, were just too far down to make a serious challenge. If they can play consistent basketball for an entire 40 minutes, or even 35, they will finally find that first win of the season and maybe play a serious spoiler in the CAC.
McDaniel is not the same team as last year. They miss Brett Foelber and while they have good players, it doesn’t look like they are on the same page, just yet. They are certainly athletic and play very tough defense, but they make some simple mistakes on offense sometimes and seem to get flat. They will have to be on their toes against another athletic team in Frostburg tomorrow.
Johns Hopkins vs. Salisbury is about to tip off… I will recap my thoughts after their game.
Hopkins beat Salisbury 54-47:
Ugly game! 37 total turnovers – 20 of them for Hopkins. Both teams just didn’t play well. Hopkins was missing its best inside player with Andrew Farber-Miller (grandfather died), so they struggled a bit. Adam Baumgartner did score 14, but he was the only player for Hopkins double-digits for the night.
Salisbury is an odd team. They certainly have the potential, but like Goucher, it sometimes looks a bit disconjointed. They took 11 shots more than JHU and hit 2 less. They also didn’t look to penentrate, one of the reasons they only went to the line nine times. And their inside presence is large in size but small in contributions. Ryan Hourihan only had 8 points… Chris McGrew (6’9″ transfer from CUA) had just 2 and in two games never seems to be able to keep up with the play of the game. The team leader was Matt DeLizio with 10 points off the bench. Salisbury once again is probably going to live and die by their guard play. Against Goucher it gave them the win; against Hopkins it was good enough to beat the Blue Jays.
St. Mary’s and Washington have tipped off. This may be the two surprising teams in the tournament. SMC is coming off a very surprising finishg to 2007-2008, including their big win over Guilford. I would have thought they would fall off losing as much talent as they did (Tyson Lesesne and Mike Smelkinson), but they are off to very good start and are many coaches pick to win this tournament.
Washington probably got one of the best recruiting classes in the region. They are certainly loaded with freshmen (10), but have three seniors that are helping lead a team back from some very tough seasons.
I am very much looking forward to this game.