Game 13 Report
Youngstown St. (4-8) at Illinois-Chicago (7-5)
Wednesday, January 1, 2003
There's something just... wrong about that date. Nevertheless, the Horizon League season started on New Year's Day with three games.
The start of this game was spent mostly trying to figure out the best substitution pattern for Cooper and Correa. As the only two guard-like players left, they both started, and since Correa is (was?) Cooper's backup, one of them would have to be on the floor at all times. Mills has also slowed down the tempo so the guys won't get fatigued as easily. It was decided that if either man struggled early, he would sit, and Jones would slide to the shooting guard spot. That man for this game was Cooper, but it was more a case of him not really getting to do anything with the ball. Up 9-8 early, we were surprised at how quickly the Penguins went to their bench - Sean Miller's a decent forward, but there's nowhere in the starting lineup to put him with Coursey, Richardson, and one of the Martin Sanchezes.
Youngstown's Pat King got off to an awful start, missing three straight shots before scoring on an alley-oop. Jones did yeoman's work for us, collecting five rebounds before going to the bench with 11:14 left in the first half. White, as usual, was in foul trouble. (It's 'cause he's STUPID, see.) Out of the timeout, Mike Dersch came in and promptly gave the Penguins a 13-12 lead with a three, then went back to the bench as if nothing had happened. Odd.
Here's an example of the dire straits we're in personnel-wise: with nine minutes to play in the first half of a tie game, Will Wagner checked in. You know, just got off academic suspension, the guy who, in Mills' angry words, "is barely good enough to play D-I ball"? Yeah, him. But God bless him, he scored on a putback dunk. Correa checked back in and hit a three at the 6:21 mark to cap off a 10-3 run and force the Penguins to call time, down 24-18. We continued to roll, and a jumper by Fields gave us a 37-24 lead at halftime.
Correa led us with 13 at the half. Nobody else on our team had more than five. King got hot for Youngstown, taking 10 into the locker room, but the Penguins' big two were struggling mightily - Richardson's 1-for-7 from the floor and Coursey had only taken one shot. We owned them on the boards so far, 20-8.
Correa and Jones started the second half in our backcourt - get used to seeing some odd combinations back there to start the second half. White just cannot stay in the damn game as he picked up two more fouls within the first four minutes of the half. He's making this harder than it already is. Although we weren't too worried, being up 45-29 and all. The Penguins then switched to a production of "Spot-Up Jumper Theater" to try to get closer. Point guard Otis Moran hit three threes as every shot they took was of the 15-foot and out variety. With 11:53 left, they'd just about halved our lead to 53-44.
Balanced scoring kept us in front. Jones, Cooper, and Greer all contributed as we held our ground for almost eight minutes, trading baskets and getting a break or two to hold a 65-55 lead with just over four minutes left in the game. White returned and was fouled, but missed both free throws. Williams was there to swoop in and get the rebound, and he was fouled, making one of two. 66-57, 3:11 left.
Our free throw shooting down the stretch left a lot to be desired save for Cooper. Fortunately, Youngstown couldn't get the ball all the way down the court when they had it. Richardson fouled out with 1:14 to go and only two points to his credit. The end came and went, and when it was over, we'd won our conference opener, 72-64.
Correa led us with 15 points. Williams had 12, and Cooper added 10. Jones just missed a double-double with nine points and nine rebounds. We got a shockingly productive 14 minutes out of Wagner in his first meaningful action of the season. The rebounding edge was 36-24 in our favor. For the Penguins, Moran scored all of his game-high 19 points in the second half and had eight assists. Sanchez pumped in 13, while King finished with 10. But the big story for them was Richardson getting only two points on 1-for-7 shooting, and Coursey playing only 13 minutes and being shut out. "That won't happen again," Mills said when told of those numbers post-game. "That's a good team whose two best players had a bad night. This is a very good win for us."
Game 14 Report:
Illinois-Chicago (8-5, 1-0) at Wright State (4-9, 1-0)
Saturday, January 4, 2003
Wright State. And you know what (or who) THAT means. Sure, Horizon League superfrosh Andy Hayes is the team's leading scorer, but he was held in check by Wisconsin-Milwaukee Thursday night, scoring only four points. But shooting guard Lloyd Petteway dropped 29 on the Panthers, and two bench players - Mike Jenkins and Bobby Augustus - gave the Raiders 19 apiece in a 99-59 win. Let's meet Lloyd:
SG #12 Lloyd Petteway (6'3", 189, senior, Gage Park H.S., Chicago)
10.3 ppg, 5.8 apg (leads team), .367 3-pt pct., 2.50 GPA
We came out in a 3-2 zone and promptly gave up two threes to start the contest. Dubious. And so much for slowing things down - there were only four shots missed in the first five minutes of play, and it was already 14-13. It took us almost that long to get a rebound. Correa came back with a three to give us our first lead, and he already had seven points after that. After some putzing around on both sides, Correa drained another three to force the Raiders to call time with 13:20 to play.
"Looks like we can run with these guys," Mills says in the huddle. With frequent substitutions the norm these days anyway, Coach has no problem shuffling guys in and out to keep them fresh, even if they've got a hot hand. Wright State came back with six unanswered points to take the lead before we got it back.
At 8:30 and up by one, something very bad happened. Cooper picked up his second foul. Correa replaced him as Mills and the assistants realized they hadn't considered this - what if both guards were to get into foul trouble? Another problem that's just as immediate was the fact that we were getting manhandled on the glass. The game was nip and tuck for the next stretch, with a Jenkins three giving Wright St. a 40-37 lead with three minutes to play in the half. Correa needed a breather badly, so Mills reluctantly put Cooper back in, two fouls and all. "You can NOT mess this up," Coach told the freshman.
So next trip down he got called for a charge.
Back to the bench. Four straight Raider points had Mills wanting a TO. Jones returned to the floor, but nobody wanted the ball at the end of the first half (seriously - the half ended with four missed shots, three out-of-bounds, and a travel) and the Raiders went into halftime with a 44-39 lead. Once again, Correa was our halftime leader with 13 points. Petteway, Colin Jefferson and Kendrick Hunter had eight apiece for Wright State, who doubled our rebounding total, 18-9, over the first half, which was why they were winning.
Jones came out firing in the second half, scoring five points to give him 10 and bring the Flames within four. Other than that, the beginning of the second half was the opposite of the first, that is, nobody could make a shot. So the Raiders went back to their advantage, their inside game, and built a six-point lead that way. Then, bad things. Augustus for two. Turnover. Hunter for two. Petteway for three. Marvel for three. Shot clock violation. With nine minutes left, Wright State had built a 63-50 lead.
Three more minutes went by, and a Cooper three-pointer made it 68-58. After three more minutes, it's 72-62 and Jones was back in. Time to open the launch doors. No points were scored in the next minute. Boy, could we use Clyde and/or Kiwane right now. We had a foul to give and gave it, but we couldn't make any meaningful baskets down the stretch and lost, 76-65.
That early rebounding deficit was just too much to overcome. I don't think we got any second-chance baskets until a three by Jones near the anticlimactic end. He ended up with a team-high 15 points for us. Correa had 13, and Williams 11. For Wright State, Petteway led the way with 17. Hunter had 14 and eight rebounds, while center Jefferson had 10 and seven. Hayes finished with 11. Point guard Paul Marvel had 10 points and nine assists. That's all five starters in double figures. Something we're seeing also is that with Jones being forced to play a lot of SG, the output from the SF position has fallen off. Wagner's actually taking minutes away from Fields, who's done nothing all week.
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