Polls: Well, THAT didn’t last long. Alabama fell to fourth after getting thrashed 92-66 by Mississippi on Saturday. Tennessee took over the top spot after doubling Auburn (98-49) and more than TRIPLING Vanderbilt (128-41; 55-10 at halftime). Still-unbeaten Oklahoma (18-0) moved up from No. 4 to No. 3.
Recruiting: We’ve got ’em; let’s meet ’em:
Liam Paisley (SG, 6’5”, 160, Zurich, Switzerland; Proviso East HS, Maywood, IL)
A scorer. Good size for the position. Good ballhandler as well; adds immediate depth to thin backcourt. Could play right away as incoming freshman, backing up at both guard spots if need be. Frankly, we could use him now.
PF Jared Street (6’8”, 188, Chicago; Sheridan, Wyo., JC)
JUCO transfer. Decent rebounder. Smart player. Shows flashes offensively. Will probably be in mix at SF, but will have to bulk up to play PF year after next.
SF Sean Keyes (6’7”, 206, LaPorte, IN)
Good athlete. Not much of an offensive game, but H.S. team wasn’t anything to write home about unless you wanted a good laugh.
RV’s Chris Simpson ended up at Florida State. To do what, I don’t know.
Awards:
Horizon League Player of the Week: SF #31 Chris Paulding, 6’3” senior, Loyola-Chicago (26 ppg, 5.5 rpg)
Horizon League Freshman of the Week: PG #12 Chris Merton, 6’3” freshman, Wisconsin-Green Bay (18 ppg, 6 apg)
National Player of the Week: SG #11 Lionel Owens, 6’3” senior, Florida (29.5 ppg)
National Freshman of the Week: PF #22 Aaron Williamson, 6’6” freshman, Samford (42 ppg, 15 rpg)
Game 18 Report
Cleveland State (11-7, 3-3) at Illinois-Chicago (9-8, 2-3)
Thursday, January 23, 2003
The Vikings are as undermanned as we are — regular small forward Joey King is an academic casualty, as is backup center Andre Rahn. Also, reserve guard Rashad Yarbrough is out with a torn quad.
Turnovers (the bane of our existence) and our inability to make a shot put us down 6-0, then 8-3 after five minutes. Correa moved over to the point and got us back into it almost by himself — Williams helped out a little bit as well. Some good work in the paint kept us going to the free throw line, and we were only down three with eight minutes left in the half.
We took our first lead at 21-20 on a Correa dunk (!) off of a fast break with 6:42 left. He hit a jumper on the next possession to cap off a 10-2 run and force the Vikings to call time. Their response was to start playing our game and concentrate on inside shots after taking eight threes in the early going. Result: Cooper and White ended up with two fouls each, and we couldn’t pull away, allowing them to tie the game at 29 with about 2:30 left in the half. Two possessions later, two Wagner free throws would end the scoring for the first half. 31-29, Flames.
Correa had a game-high 11 at the half. Williams and Jones added six apiece. Marc Minton and Joe Wilson each had seven for the Vikings.
We started the second half with another 10-2 burst, highlighted by threes from Jones and Cooper and about four steals in the first three and a half minutes of play. The Vikings kept taking and missing three-pointers, their only offense coming on putbacks and free throws. Cooper and White quickly got to four fouls and were benched, forcing Correa to handle the brunt of the work running the offense. Some successful fast breaks helped extend our lead to 47-36 at the eight-minute mark of the second half, and we overcame some sloppy play on our part and some inspired play on Cleveland St.’s part to keep our lead at around 10 points heading into the home stretch.
We started to pull away on the strength of Jones and Williams’ play, extending our lead to 60-46 with 4:27 left. Cooper had been back on the floor for a few minutes before this, even with four fouls, as Correa was starting to suck wind. At this point, White returned as well. Back-to-back threes by Correa gave him 21 for the game and sealed it with just under three minutes left. White fouled out, and Mardis replaced him. He had a chance to score his first collegiate point, but he missed the front end of a one-and-one. No matter. We won, 69-53.
Correa had a big game for us with 22 points. Jones had 13, and Williams added 12. Freshman swingman Terence Keith led the Vikings with 10 off the bench. No other Viking scored more than eight points. That’s what happens when you shoot 30.8 percent from the field.
Game 19 Report
Illinois-Chicago (10-8, 3-3) at Detroit (11-7, 3-3)
Friday, January 24, 2003
Detroit (Detroit Mercy if you wanna go old school) features the conference’s leading scorer:
SG #11 Oliver Sanders (6’4”, 186, sophomore, St. Joseph’s H.S., South Bend, IN)
16.6 ppg (leads team and conference), 0 steals, 2.98 GPA
Sanders had 22 in their 90-76 win over Wisconsin-Milwaukee last night. Detroit’s two big men, PF Martin Sanchez and C David Mason, both average double-doubles. Cycling forward in the “next game matchup” feature, I notice that they’re favored in this game, but we’re favored in the game on our home court. Interesting…
First possession, Sanchez was fouled, came down hard on his foot, and had to leave the game. Hopefully we wouldn’t get a repeat of the last time something like this happened. Sanders didn’t waste any time getting involved, draining a three the first time he touched the ball. But we were able to exploit Sanchez’s absence early on, getting some good looks inside which allowed us to work an inside-outside game. We were also able to control the boards and get some putbacks and fast break opportunities, and went on an 11-4 run to take a 19-11 lead after almost seven minutes (a lead that would be appreciably larger if we could make some damn free throws).
Detroit started getting closer as we stopped making shots, and they eventually took a 25-24 lead on a three by Sanders. Suddenly, Paris Larue, Sanchez’s replacement, had 15 points after an exchange of threes left them with a 33-29 lead. The lead grew as our ineptitude continued, and you know things are going badly when you can see the opposition is fouling you on purpose because they know you won’t score from the free throw line. Then Cooper fouls Sanders on a three-pointer at the halftime buzzer, and he hits all three foul shots, giving him 18 points already. 51-37 at the half.
We’re 5 of 12 at the line. They’re 17 of 19. That’s all you really need to know. Well, that and they’d switched to a 1-3-1, which has bottled up our forwards and kept them off the glass.
We started to chip away ever so slightly at the lead, closing to within seven at one point. It seemed to stick at 10 for the longest time, but the good news was that Sanders hadn’t scored in about eight minutes. Muhammad hit another one of his trademarked threes with nine minutes to go to get us to within six at 65-59. Another one two minutes later made it a 67-62 game! Detroit had been mostly laying bricks during this stretch, and we were doing this with mainly reserves.
A dumb foul by White on a three-point attempt led to two of three from the line and a 69-62 lead with over five minutes left to play. But he made up for it somewhat by hitting a jumper at the 5:00 mark to make it 69-66, then he came down and made another basket to make it a one-point game. WOW. Detroit got a bucket at their end and led 71-69 with 3:41 left.
Sanders finally got back on the board with a putback tip-in on the next possession. With 2:06 left, Detroit commits its 10th foul, putting us in the double bonus, not that that would help us the way we’ve been shooting free throws tonight. Time was called with 1:53 left and trailing 75-73 to finally get Cooper back on the floor. But more missed free throws and bumbling ballhandling doomed us at the end, and we eventually fell, 79-74.
Sanders lived up to his billing with a game-high 26. LaRue, after a horrible start filling in for Sanchez (who’s out a month after aggravating a stress fracture in his foot; PG Adonis Harris also bruised his shoulder in the game), finished with 17. Williams led the Flames with 14, while White and Jones each added 11. But the most telling stat was our 13 of 27 “performance” at the free throw line. It’d be a joke if anyone was laughing.
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