Although they were down 15 at half. They lost 62-60. Had a look at the buzzer to tie/win.
Hoffman is a very good coach, IMO. I love to hate him, but I respect him.

During the ASun and SoCon years we have seen him cone in with small lineups, big men focus, guard-oriented teams, etc. He whittles together competitive teams and he makes great adjustments. They had a bad couple of years, tragedy of player death, but were still dangerous. Too soon to tell, but they may be in the hunt in what is looking to be a deep SoCon.

Thanks for the nice words on Coach Hoffman. It was a great fight and Mercer has a 3 pointer at the buzzer that missed. I was eyeing this game to compare to ETSU's performance. Obviously it's very early in the season, but I'm encouraged by how the team is looking. It's a whole new team dynamic so this season is gonna have some rough patches. I'm just hoping they can somehow catch fire this year, and really set it up for next season when the West Virginia transfer is eligible.

We know that ETSU, UNCG, and Wofford are going to be strong. Good luck against Winthrop.

Was shifting between several games, so I didn't get a really good look. Mercer did well to come back after looking pretty bad in the first half. Hoffman really shuffled the deck and experimented, going from small ball much of the time to trying to play a lot with double post 6-10 Baffuto and and 6-11 Aimaq on the floor at the same time, esp. at the end of the first half. The small ball keyed the comeback. But Mercer seemed to benefit a lot from the Panthers coasting and taking their foot off the gas in the second half after blowing out to a 15 point halftime lead. Once you turn it off, it can be hard to turn it back on.

Furman has been really streaky, looking unbeatable one minute, and pretty bad the next. But they are really learning how to win when it counts. Mounce is a totally different player this year, with a ton of confidence, using his athleticism well and knocking down mid range shots for 26 points last night. Thin 6-8 Rs-Fr Gurley is still raw and learning, but also doing better than I expected with 12. And Rafferty is even better than last year. I figured that they would need the front court to step up to make up for the loss of lots of guard strength (Sibley, Davis, Fowler). And Mounce, Gurley and Rafferty have done just that. The 'Dins have made the shift from guard based to front court based. One caveat - except for Laster, the 0-3 Gardner-Webb team is seriously undersized, yet still outrebounded them 35-34.

And I couldn't stay away from Illinois versus Georgetown. Tons of great young athleticism on display. With guys like Feliz and Dosunmo, the Bucs will face a heck of a challenge in Champagne-Urbana. Absolutely love the super confident, enthusiastic Mac McClung. Could not believe how the 6-2 kid from tiny Gate City went toe to toe with some of the best young players in the country, and was an athletic match for any of them. Made some dumb freshman mistakes which cost them - took too many 3's that he can't make. But overall - wow! He belongs in the big time and Coach Ewing loves him.

One of the big surprises in the SoCon so far is 3-0 Samford, where 7-0 240 USF transfer Reuben Guerrero and 6-5 200 Alabama transfer Brandon Austin have made them a team to be reckoned with. The absence of Justin Coleman and Chris Cunningham has opened things up for Junior Josh Sharkey to take over at guard, and he has done just that, with 17.3 points, 9 assists and 4 steals per game over the first 3 games. Those 3 guys, along with the addition of 'junkyard dog' freshman 6-8 200 Robert Allen (5.3 rebounds and 8.7 points) and JUCO scorer Myles Gordon, have totally remade the Bulldogs. It's early, but it looks like they will be competitors in the SoCon sooner rather than later.

(11-14-2018 08:11 AM)swvabucsfan Wrote:  And I couldn't stay away from Illinois versus Georgetown. Tons of great young athleticism on display. With guys like Feliz and Dosunmo, the Bucs will face a heck of a challenge in Champagne-Urbana. Absolutely love the super confident, enthusiastic Mac McClung. Could not believe how the 6-2 kid from tiny Gate City went toe to toe with some of the best young players in the country, and was an athletic match for any of them. Made some dumb freshman mistakes which cost them - took too many 3's that he can't make. But overall - wow! He belongs in the big time and Coach Ewing loves him.

I watched this game, and was gonna post about it, too. I watched almost all of it, and it was *thoroughly* entertaining. Big-time atmosphere, with I think 16 ties and 9 lead changes. Indeed, the Bucs will have their hands full - and then some. Dosunmo, a freshman and high school player-of-the-year in Illinois last year, has mad skills *and* poise. And Feliz was first team JUCO All-American last year, like our guys. Their bigs are athletic and typical Big 10 quality. Yet another freshman, Giorgi Bezhanishvili (out of Austria), is one of those, and doesn't look, or act like, a newcomer. He's 6'9", but has range like UNCG's bigs do. He will likely hurt us.
I don't know what the projections were for the Illini this year, but they didn't look the least bit shabby. I'd rate them maybe slightly stronger than Creighton, via the eye test.

And yes, McClung is the real deal - other than his 3-ball shooting, which he *can* do, but clearly hasn't found it yet this year. Bluntly, the Illini couldn't guard him. He could beat every player they tried on him off the dribble. Most of the time they would defend him with back-side help, but he had some really delicious deals. Like in their first game, he had a highlight-reel backwards-over-the-head dunk after a steal (which gave the Hoyas their final lead which they kept). Even more impressive is their *other* freshman guard (who I believe I commented on in that McClung thread), James Akinjo, who can deal *and* shoot. He could easily be on the Big East all-Freshman team. Further...…...yet another freshman, slasher Josh LeBlanc looked good, too. Defensively, I'd say McClung was at worst adequate. I only saw him get beat badly once, and that was by Dosunmo, so not shocking there. And he got turned over at least twice, once when they double-teamed him. Both announcers were going gaga over the Hoyas' freshmen, including McClung.

I hate saying "I told you so", but in this case it's so obvious already. It's WAY too early to judge his career there, but to those who said he wasn't fast enough (including at least one hereon who said he wasn't fast enough to play for ETSU)……….well, you're just plain wrong.

Georgetown vs. Illiois highlights

(11-14-2018 08:11 AM)swvabucsfan Wrote:  Furman has been really streaky, looking unbeatable one minute, and pretty bad the next. But they are really learning how to win when it counts. Mounce is a totally different player this year, with a ton of confidence, using his athleticism well and knocking down mid range shots for 26 points last night. Thin 6-8 Rs-Fr Gurley is still raw and learning, but also doing better than I expected with 12. And Rafferty is even better than last year. I figured that they would need the front court to step up to make up for the loss of lots of guard strength (Sibley, Davis, Fowler). And Mounce, Gurley and Rafferty have done just that. The 'Dins have made the shift from guard based to front court based. One caveat - except for Laster, the 0-3 Gardner-Webb team is seriously undersized, yet still outrebounded them 35-34.

Andrew Brown missed the Gardner-Webb game with an injury and will be out for at least two weeks. Could be longer. It seems to be a high ankle sprain but the doctors weren't certain. That means a young team will be even younger. Only one senior and one junior played for Furman in that game.
Tonight (Thursday) Noah Gurley was held out because of his own injury (another ankle). Precautionary move mainly, they said he could have played if needed. Furman won by 107-67 over North Greenville so it seems he wasn't needed. Jordan Lyons tied an NCAA record with 15 made three point shots. He scored 54 points on 15-34 from behind the line and 9-12 FTs. The record was set in the 90s by Keith Veney of Marshall and tied yesterday by a player at Robert Morris. Lyons had several chances for 16 but was fouled twice and had two shots rim out. The previous Furman record was 8. Lyons hit 9 in the first half to break that record.
Jalen Williams got his first playing time of the season tonight with 6 pts and 8 rebounds and 6'7" freshman forward Jalen Slawson looked good in his second game with 7 rebounds and 3 steals.

Jordan Lyons tied an NCAA record with 15 made three point shots. He scored 54 points on 15-34 from behind the line and 9-12 FTs. The record was set in the 90s by Keith Veney of Marshall and tied yesterday by a player at Robert Morris. Lyons had several chances for 16 but was fouled twice and had two shots rim out. The previous Furman record was 8. Lyons hit 9 in the first half to break that record.
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"Jordan Lyons tied an NCAA record with 15 made three point shots. He scored 54 points on 15-34 from behind the line and 9-12 FTs. The record was set in the 90s by Keith Veney of Marshall and tied yesterday by a player at Robert Morris. Lyons had several chances for 16 but was fouled twice and had two shots rim out. The previous Furman record was 8. Lyons hit 9 in the first half to break that record."


Does that count as the record when it's against a North Greenville? Either way, that's stupid impressive.

Lyons *owned* the zone

Ok...……..so for extra credit, dear readers...…………..figure out how many Frank Selvy (from up the road in Corbin) would have had in *that* game had there been a 3-Pt. line.

It's possible that all of this happened organically within the game. However, if I were the fan of a team for which a single player had taken over half of the total of shots in a game, I would be somewhat concerned. The spectacle of potential record breaking performances aside, I might wonder what on earth the coaching staff was playing at. If you are going to play an apparently meaningless game against what you consider an inferior opponent, wouldn't that serve better as a means to work on a larger game plan, allowing little used players a chance to play in order to prepare yourself for the coming season. I'll grant you that you can't stop a player from shooting and maybe it seemed at the time like just a lot of fun, but it all seems a bit delusional and self-defeating in the long run.

(11-16-2018 11:08 AM)BigIslandBuc Wrote:  It's possible that all of this happened organically within the game....

Re-read (or maybe read, if you didn't take the trouble) my linked story entitled "Lyons *owned* the zone". To wit:

"(Starting forward) Matt Rafferty came to me and said, ‘Coach, you’ve got to leave him out there. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.’ Everybody wanted to see him get it.”