The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

This article has color to it. It paints a picture. It's much different than the other crap we read from TN.

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UAB 86, MARQUETTE 63
Second half storm helps Blazers rip Golden Eagles
By CARY ESTES
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD
MILWAUKEE — It was a simple question, yet one that seemingly had no answer.
Who was guarding Marquette guard Joe Chapman?

In the first half of UAB's game against Marquette on Wednesday night, the Blazers had no response to that query, and no solution for Chapman, who sank five 3-pointers and scored 19 points in giving the Golden Eagles a one-point halftime lead.

So at intermission, UAB coach Mike Anderson wanted to know who on his team was willing to get in Chapman's face. After several seconds of silence, junior point guard Carldell Squeaky Johnson said he was up to the task.

And with that, the Blazers got fired up, Chapman got shut down, and UAB emerged with a runaway 86-63 victory over the Golden Eagles.

Chapman, who left the game with just over seven minutes to play with a knee injury, failed to score in the first seven minutes of the second half. By the time he finally did, the Blazers had built a 12-point lead.

"He shouldn't have got off like that in the first half," Johnson said of Chapman. "At halftime Coach said, 'Who wants to accept the challenge?' I was ready to shut him down in the second half.

"A lot of times you have to take it personally, when the man you're assigned to guard is making a lot of shots. You have to bear down and say, I got him."

It didn't seem like anybody had Chapman in the first half. With Marquette point guard Travis Diener out with a foot injury, the Blazers began the game determined to rattle whoever was handling the ball, which often was Marcus Jackson.

That plan didn't work, however, as Jackson had five assists in the first half and the Golden Eagles sank 61 percent of their shots from the field, including 53.3 percent of their 3-point attempts.

"We were focusing on double-teaming whoever was the point guard, and it backfired on us, because they kept getting open shots," said UAB junior forward Demario Eddins, who had a game-high 23 points and nine rebounds. "We couldn't find (Chapman). He got lost.

"At halftime, Coach asked who was guarding him, and nobody said anything. So Squeak said he was guarding him. And Squeak came out and just stopped him."

That he did. With Johnson covering him like mustard on a bratwurst, Chapman missed his first three shots from the field. That set the tone for a dismal shooting half for the Golden Eagles, who sank only 29.6 percent of their shots.

"They came out and jumped on us and got some easy buckets, and we didn't respond," said Marquette forward Steve Novak, who scored 16 points but was only 6-of-15 from the field.

The Blazers opened the second half with a 13-2 run in less than five minutes, which was exactly the type of response Anderson was looking for from his team.

"We did a better job of keeping the ball in front of us," Anderson said. "We were beside them a lot in the first half. We weren't getting to the shooters. We did a better job in the second half of covering those guys and getting to places.

"As the game goes on, you have to make adjustments. If (the players) aren't making them on their own, I have to bring it to their attention. I guess I brought it to their attention at halftime."

Something obviously worked. Not only was Chapman not a factor, but offensively the Blazers sank 57.7 percent of their shots and had no turnovers in the second half. In the process, they doubled up Marquette 48-24.

"We played almost the perfect half," Anderson said. "Defensively we were in a lot of different places. We were reading off one another, which is what good teams do.

"(Chapman) had such a great half, you wondered if he could keep it up. We did a better job of finding him in the second half, and he didn't get those same looks. Plus, the wear and tear was really a factor. It might not hit you in that first half, but the last 10 minutes, you could see Marquette was pretty winded."

The victory was only the second for the Blazers in their past nine trips to Marquette. More importantly, it kept UAB only one game behind Louisville in the Conference USA standings, with the Cardinals coming to Bartow Arena on Saturday.

All of which led Eddins to declare with a wide smile ... "I'm loving this team right now."

I'm impressed. Estes took a significant factor in the game (the tale of two halves for Chapman) and made the effort to find out what happened.

Great story.

Eddins is awesome

Good job, Cary Estes... no surprise, though

Cary Estes has written great articles on UAB all season. This is nothing new from him. If you buy a Birmingham newspaper, make it the Post Herald.

STL,

I'm sharing your post -- especially your short review of the story -- with my reporting class tomorrow. I spend so much time convincing these kids their stories need to set a scene, and yet few of them try. This story shows why. I think I'll show them TN's story, too, so they can see the difference in black and white (well, green and white on here).

I've also decided to assign grades to every TN and CE story written for the rest of the season, grading it as if it were turned into me for a grade in my news reporting and writing class.

For the coverage of the Marquette game, TN gets a D, and CE gets an A.

That's great. They should pin this post and let you have a thread of grades for all of the articles.

I imagine someone (who shall remain nameless) would not receive a passing grade for your course.

He would have several incompletes for some games. The Oklahoma STate game comes to mind.

By the way, Eddins quote at the end of the article "I'm lovin' this team right now" would make an awesome poster for the game Saturday, with attribution to him.

Kirksville would probably just assign an "F" for failing to submit the required assignment.

LJBlazerFan Wrote:Kirksville would probably just assign an "F" for failing to submit the required assignment.

Damn straight. At most newspapers, not doing the assignment gets you fired. In my class, not doing the assignment gets an F.

I wonder if TN ever took a journalism class, much less passed one....

You go, Kirksville.

I'm serious about the grades...you could have the date, then "Estes: A" and "Norris: D."

Maybe Schard or Attalla will hook us up with that.

Is this a timed test? Torrane had to write his article in a matter of minutes while Cary had hours. Both guys can do good work when given the time to do it right.

I don't think the focus of the article (Norris focusing on Diener's absence and Estes focusing on the two halves of Chapman) is affected by time.

I am changing my subscription today from Snews to Post-Herald. Not sure why it took me this long?

Time can always be a factor with any story, especially sports deadlines. However, if you read the two stories, they use a lot of the same quotes. Carey still had a long way to travel back to Birmingham, and he, like TN, probably filed from Marquette.

However, a good sports writer -- even on a tight deadline -- can write a story with detail. That's what halftime is for to a good writer -- to start the story and begin considering the angles of approach. TN didn't do that, as far as I can tell, with this story.

BlazerRob Wrote:Is this a timed test? Torrane had to write his article in a matter of minutes while Cary had hours. Both guys can do good work when given the time to do it right.

torraine's predecessor, Wayne Martin also had the same time limits Norris had, and he put out excellent work.

Amen to that. The News' coverages has gotten progressively worse since the powers that be thought Martin was "too close" to the program and moved him off the beat.

Estes usually has a metaphor/simile that is suited to the occasion such as "With Johnson covering him like mustard on a bratwurst". I like to see what off the wall reference he will come up in his articles.

And Wayne Martin didn't have a laptop or home PC from which he could submit articles. A good sporting event beat writer gets his 1st half highlights written at half time and has 90% of the article done before the final stat sheet comes out.