Polls: WE HAVE A NEW NUMBER ONE. It’s 15-0 Alabama, who beat LSU and Mississippi State last week. Florida lost to both Georgia and South Carolina to drop to third. Oklahoma, the only other unbeaten team left at 16-0, jumped from No. 8 to No. 4. Maryland and Syracuse tumbled from fifth and fourth to 18th and 20th, respectively.
Recruiting: Meet the newest Flame:
PF Jared Street (6’8”, 188, Chicago; Sheridan, Wyo., JC)
We’re not quite sure where he fits in on our front line yet, but he’ll need to add weight for sure. Assistant coach Alonzo Bloom called coach Mills on Sunday and said there was someone a lot of schools had overlooked who could help solve our looming problem at small forward, and we gave the young man our final scholarship offer:
SF Sean Keyes (6’7”, 206, LaPorte, IN)
Awards:
Horizon League Player of the Week: PF #31 Martin Sanchez, 6’10” senior, Detroit (21.5 ppg, 10.5 rpg)
Horizon League Freshman of the Week: SF #24 Andy Hayes, 6’4” freshman, Wright State (17 ppg) And all was right with the world. Cooper was second in the voting.
National Player of the Week: PF Eugene Ellis, 6’7” senior, Bethune-Cookman (29 ppg, 14.5 rpg)
National Freshman of the Week: SF David Newby, 6’3” freshman, Charlotte (29 ppg, 20 rpg, 4 spg) 41 and 22 in an overtime win over Marquette.
Injuries: A little bit of good news — Miller’s recovering ahead of schedule and could be back in four weeks. However, it looks like Scott’s season is definitely over.
Game 17 Report
Illinois-Chicago (9-7, 2-2) at Wisconsin-Milwaukee (4-12, 0-4)
Saturday, January 18, 2003
The Horizon League has nine teams, which means there’s gonna be one week in conference play where a team only has one game. This is our week.
This also kicks off a strange four-week stretch during which we play the same three teams twice: this game, vs. Cleveland State and at Detroit next week, then at Cleveland State and home against these guys the following week, then Detroit comes in the week after that. So it’s the bottom-feeders mixed in with the preseason conference favorites. It’s probably our hardest stretch of the season.
For those of you who’ve forgotten, this is the team with the player from the Indiana School for the Blind on it. Freshman Greg Morrill has appeared in four games, played seven minutes total, took two shots and missed them both, and turned the ball over once. And yes, he is only legally blind. Maybe not even, but close. About 86% is what I heard.
Our initial problem as the Panthers took an early lead was stopping junior center Cory Felix. He got behind the defense for a dunk to start the game, hit a 16-footer a little later, and got his third basket on a layup in traffic. So a defensive switch was made, and we put White on him, leaving the shorter Williams free to defend off the post. Our second problem was a familiar one — our inability to take care of the ball. The Panthers got five steals in the first seven minutes of the game. To only be down 14-10 seemed almost miraculous. Our third problem was Correa picking up three fouls before the half was half over.
Fortunately, Fields was playing well off the bench, tying the score at 16 with the half nearly half finished on a jumper. The Panthers re-took the lead from the line before yet another “trademark” three-pointer by Muhammad tied it up again at 20 two minutes later. Jones actually played point guard for about a minute and a half to give Cooper a breather. Wagner gave us our first lead with a jumper, then Williams extended it with another jumper (What’s with all our big guys taking jump shots? Ah, well. At least they’re making them) and Jones drained a three that forced the Panthers to call time out. Is 13-6 really a “run”? I dunno, but we’ll take the 29-24 lead that went along with it. Three straight baskets by Damian Jackson put an end to the euphoria, however. Wagner got us the lead back with a putback, but the Panthers would score the last four points of the half and lead 35-31.
The second half didn’t start well for us, as we couldn’t stop the Panthers at all. They scored on their first six possessions to extend their lead to 49-40 at one point, and point guard Ian Okotie was becoming a fourth problem, as he’d come on in the later stages of the first half and stayed hot into the second. Poor free throw shooting on our part would likely be the fifth problem. The Panthers went back inside, to Felix and Jason Burch, and ran the lead to 62-50 before time was called. That was with 9:16 left. Two and a half minutes later, it was 69-55.
Nothing we tried defensively was working. Cooper got frustrated and committed a flagrant foul on Okotie, which left Mills steaming. We started chipping away at their lead, but we were losing time, and it soon became “give some fouls and make some threes” time. Two minutes left, down 76-68. Okotie missed the front end of a one-and-one, and Jones came down and hit a three. But Cooper fouled out on the next possession, and we got three shots at their end and missed all three, sealing our embarrassing fate.
An 11-point loss (82-71) to the worst team in the conference. Ick. Okotie had a double-double with 20 points and 10 assists to lead all five Panther starters in double figures. Williams led us with 17 while Jones added 15. Cooper had eight assists but only two points, and White only got one rebound the entire second half. We also turned the ball over 15 times to their seven.
Happy holidays to my five readers. See you this weekend.
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