It’s that time for the weekly Time-Out awards, given by me to those athletes who have been sub-par on and off the field in the world of sports. Let’s start by giving out the first Time-Out in response to something near and dear to my wallet.
Like many this time of year, I made a monetary investment into an NCAA tournament pool, hopefully for my picks to bring my investment back with some extra cash. The Georgetown Hoyas men’s basketball team receives a Time-Out for possibly turning my investment into a donation. Georgetown was the definite favorite in their game with Ohio University Bobcats, which they lost by the score of 97-83.
Georgetown deserves this Time-Out for three reasons. First, Ohio, which only made the tourney because it got hot and somehow won the MAC tourney, hasn’t won a NCAA tournament game since 1983. Second, Georgetown had such a great performance in the Big East Tournament, you would think they would have a better showing in the Big Dance. And last but not least, they cost many people, including myself, a chance to win some cash.
The next Time-Out goes to Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington, who tested positive for cocaine for last season. In a press conference on Wednesday, Washington said, “I did wrong, and I take responsibility for that, and I’m sorry.”
Although Washington did openly admit to his mistake, I still have to give him a Time-Out because as the leader of a team, you can’t allow yourself to get in a situation like this. Washington is in charge of making important on the field decisions for his ball club. How can the Rangers trust him to do that when he can’t make important off the field decisions for himself?
Every golfer on the PGA Tour not named Tiger Woods is the recipient of this week’s final Time-Out. Woods announced he will end his hiatus from golf April 8 at the Masters. Shortly after, Las Vegas odds makers deemed him the 3-1 favorite to win the Masters.
I don’t think there are any golf courses at the sex rehab clinic Woods has been at, so he hasn’t had much time to practice. Somehow he is still the favorite. I think Woods is the greatest ever to play the game of golf, but maybe the crop of golfers he is playing against are just not very good. Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and the rest of the tour might not be the favorite to win the Masters, but they definitely win this Time-Out award.
That closes another edition of the Time-Out awards for this week. Athletes, coaches, and front office personnel: put your best foot forward and don’t make me give you a Time-Out.
Good morning sports fans, time for another exciting Wednesday, and you know what that means (or you may not, because this is only the second installment of this particular blog…) THE WEDNESDAY WORD! So, let’s get at it.
Normally, I start out by talking about theSIUE men’s basketball team, but spare that for later on. Let’s talk about the ladies first, because they are actually worth talking about.
Much of what I have to say was talked about in great lengths on this very blog by my colleague and residential women’s basketball beat master Aren Dow last week, but I cannot help but re-emphasize what he had to say in my own words. Their performance Tuesday night and within the Ohio Valley Conference where they are 3-1 gives additional incentive.
This team is feisty. No game is over until 40 minutes of basketball have been played. If the SIUE men’s team is down 10 points with 10 minutes left in the second half, chances are they are going to lose the game by 30 points, and I will get very angry and throw things across the room.
With the women, not so fast, Charlie.
Tuesday was not one of those nights like Witchita State,Valpo or UT Martin. The scoreboard read close throughout, and in the end, the team with more determination and desire for a win was going to get it. It was not one of those games decided by sheer skill, but rather one where mental basketball would win out. SIUE did everything right to get their sixth victory of the season.
Ashley Bey provided the senior leadership with 12 points, 6 assists, 5 steals and 5 rebounds.
Melia Duncan provided the sharpshooting from both inside and outside the three-point circle, scoring 18 points (7-12 from the field, 3-5 from three), nearly matching her career high of 20 set not-so-long-ago in the South Dakota game. The girl can straight up ball.
Raven Berry gave SEMO fits inside the paint and ended her night in double figures with 12.
All in all, the Cougars showed why they will be serious OVC contenders in the coming years, and when the going got tough, they were able to hold a death-grip on their lead until the final buzzer sounded.
The Cougars were out-rebounded, but it didn’t seem to matter because they were on the ball like hawks the entire game. With their opponents ironically donning the name Redhawks, SIUE forced 24 turnovers and capitalized off of them for 26 points. The turnovers gave SIUE 12 more opportunities for field-goals, and while the shooting percentage was relatively low, (40 percent) they were able to make up the difference with their solid defensive presence leading to easy buckets in transition on the other end.
So, all in all, a great effort for the women, I will make my way out to more of your games in the future because your performance has sold me.
I feel as if the next section in this post deserves it’s own blog post, but it is Wednesday, so I cluster it all together, so STOP. Clear your head and get ready to read about the SIUE men’s basketball team from an objective, non-sugar coated, non “Oh, it’s a transition year” bullcrap approach.
I will start with the following: Cougar basketball has been in my life for a long time, going back to when I was a kid, which makes this team even that much more important to me. I cannot say enough of how proud I am of SIUE going forward and making the decision to play D-I ball the first year of my education here. If we didn’t go D-I, I would have transferred out a long time ago, and would not be having as much fun with my job as I am now.
Those are facts. Facts that make tearing this team apart come out of keyboard strikes in the name of love, and with hope.
SIUE men’s basketball is at a young time in it’s adult life, and there are hurdles not even Kayla Browncould jump. Fact is established, enter emotional tangent.
My grandparents were season ticket holders for the longest time during the Division II era, until Cassens and Sons stopped giving their employees a ridiculous amount of free tickets. I saw IPFW’s last visit to SIUE as members of the Great Lakes Valley Conference. I was there for the Jack Margenthaler days and seven win D-II seasons. I remember the beginning of the Marty Simmons era, along with the turnaround, the elite eight and the call to Evansville. I remember Wendy Hedberg before her volleyball assisting days, leading the women’s team to the NCAA tournament, and Misi Clark cementing her place in the SIUE record books, much like Ashley Bey has been doing lately. In the day, the women were the story, and some similarities are emerging here on an entirely different level.
It pains me as much as anything to watch this team lose, because I was an SIUE fan long before I was a student.
Flashforward to the present.
When you think of Southeast Missouri State basketball, what comes to mind? Is it those NCAA rules they broke in 2009, or that pristine 2-26 record last season to accompany their 339th position in the RPI? Perhaps it was the Cougars 70-69 overtime victory capped by Aamir McCleary’s buzzer beating layup last season.
The first two hold true. SEMO still sucks. They are a 7-15 team. They are improved, but it is still a fact. Anthony Allyson, Sam Pearson and Cameron Butler have grown up a little as juniors, to help SEMO win a few games, and freshmen guard Derek Thompson has put together a good season, but SEMO is still SEMO, while SIUE has went the opposite direction. Tuesday’s 68-49 loss in Cape exemplified this to almost the same degree as the women’s victory did to legitimize their recent success.
The Cougars are not losing, they are getting blown out. A 19 point-loss in college basketball is characterized as a blowout nationally, but here at SIUE we have grown accustomed to 30, 40, even 50 point losses over the past two seasons to make 19 not seem sobad.
A19 point loss is a 19 point loss, and that, my friends, is a blowout.
Tuesday wasn’t SIUE reaching rock bottom in the OVC: that deed occurred in the form of a 16-point loss to 3-17 UT Martin, a team which almostlost to D-III Westminster. Everyone in the conference seems to be taking part in SIUE’s introductory roast.
We were all optimistic about this year. Hell, I wrote on here we would win 11 games, largely due to a number of teams on the schedule coming out of the OVC, Summit League, Atlantic Sun and Independents with low RPI’s. I never factored us all of a sudden, becoming one of them – if not worse than them, but it is happening, it can be saved – but it is happening.
The level of concern comes into play when finding a solution to our misfortunes. I am sure the coaching staff is not in the dark about the problems shaping up. They are the most knowledgeable people in the world when it comes to their team and their players, and should be able to find ways to correct things.
Sometimes it’s simple. We can’t rebound?Box out and fight for the basketball. We shoot too many three-point shots without the shooters to do so consistently? Don’t shoot 25 of them a game. We don’t have the big guys to feed at the post? Get a little more movement in the offense, set screens and find the open man, and maybe create opportunities for the big guys on back-door cuts. We need a firecracker in the lineup? Play LeShaun Murphy.
It’s hard for the fans not to get frustrated to a large extent with this team, because we want to win now. Like I have said before, the players are trying their asses off, but there is only so much they can do with the skills they posses. You have to have the athletes to get the job done, and right now, to put it blatantly, we don’t.
Did Princeton complain about being the little guy in the Ivy League in the 1930’s? No. They perfected their own offense: one that has evolved over generations and would work perfectly at SIUE. The kicker is, it worked.
Needless to say, As far as SIUE basketball goes, here are my feelings: in musical form.
Somewhere, in my ramble there was a basketball game played to trigger all this built up emotion. Let’s talk about that!
The officiating, as I noticed watching the game on pixelvision and as Alex Helton reiterated as we vented frustrations on the Red Storm Facebook Group following the game played largely into the hands of the host Redhawks.
Mark Yelovich was called for a technical foul early in the first half, one purely fueled by emotion, something this team is desperately lacking. When I think of a technical foul, I think of Bob Knight throwing chairs, not a player pissed off at themselves for missing shots they usually drain. Players are going to clap their hands and yell “$#!+” or “$*#%” in situations like that. This is not middle school basketball, and just because it’s the OVC doesn’t mean everyone has to be a Southern gentleman. It happens.
The referee who whistled Yelovich for the technical, Kevin Mathis, is actually the king of technical fouls. Some D-I refs go a year without calling one. Mathis has called 13 violations this season alone in 29 games, and he has had 32 players foul out under his watchful eye. Since 1996, Mathis has issued 165 technicals.
Mathis’ call put the wheels in motion, and set the game up in SEMO’s hands. It was just a 7-3 game at the time, and although SIUE managed to keep the game close into the 20’s, it clearly set the tone for what was soon to come. Forrester benched Yelovich for a lengthy time, and the bench tired out. Once Yelovich stepped back onto the floor, he was pressing. Yelovich wanted to take the game into his own hands, and as the best player on the floor he has the right to do that. He took shots when he had the opportunity to pass and create open looks. For my money though, I’ll take Yelovich on a fade-away jumper any day.
The technical call had the eyes of the officiating crew squarely situated on number 33 in red. Yelovich earned his second foul with 9:02 left on the clock, and another trip to the pine. In a minute’s span in the second half he received three and four. Number five came when the Cougars desperately needed him on the floor trying to recapture momentum on the offensive end, where he dished the ball off while contested beneath the basket to avoid drawing a charge, and was whistled for it anyways.
A number of off-the-ball offensive foul calls on the Cougars also played into the hands of SEMO, and despite both teams drawing an equal 23 fouls in the game, SEMO earned the more important whistles.
As harsh as I have been, the Cougars have managed to correct a few issues and come away with some positives.
They out-rebounded SEMO 34-32. This coming after doing the same to Murray State (44-31) in a big loss earlier in the week. SIUE even had nine on the offensive end, so it appears the boards are starting to be a little kinder to the Cougars.
It all came down to exactly what happened against Murray, and why the Princeton offense, again would be helpful to this team. SIUE had six assists the entire game and shot 30 percent. Those are the only two telling stats in the boxscore. The 20 turnovers played a huge factor, but the Cougars forced 15.
No fast break points and a huge disparity inside the paint were factors, but that was namely because the Cougars operated at a mythological pace and took too many bad shots from the outside, going 4-20 from beyond the arc, with Cody Rincker going 3-7 and Anthony Mitchell 1-1 to make up the other. Not everyone is Cody Rincker from that territory.
Speaking of Rincker, he turned in a career game, with 13 points, and made all four of his free-throws, the first he has attempted all season. Yelovich was the only other player in double figures with 10.
So, what does SIUE take from this game?
They need McCleary healthy. His presence after going down with a hip injury against Murray State was sorely missed, as was Yelovich’s, spending the majority of the game benched with foul trouble. They need to take good shots, and not shots for the sake of taking shots. They need to take better care of the basketball. In hindsight, the things that went wrong were minor mistakes, but those are what separates great teams from good teams, and good teams from bad teams.
A 30 percent night from the field will not get it done no matter how many rebounds you pull down, no matter how many minutes your best player plays. Adjustments can, and will be made.
We will get through this together, Cougar Nation. I promise.
Time for some random tidbits to close out this exhaustive essay:
The NCAA Is apparently talking about upgrading it’s Division I tournament from the 65 team format we all know and love to include 96 teams. Nothing is imminent at the moment, but it all rests on the NCAA’s contract with CBS Sports, and it’s contract with the NIT. Money is a huge player in the decision-making process here.
There are more teams competing at the D-I level now than ever before, in fact, there are 347 of them, including the newest foresome SIUE, South Dakota, North Dakota and Seattle. You can argue with more teams comes a bigger need to install more teams into the NCAA but it shouldn’t work like that.
A quarter of the teams in the country should not be dancing. It would make the first round a meaningless carousel of erasing mid-majors, and weakening the importance of a bid. Arizona,Kentucky or Georgia finish 18-14 in a year and don’t get a bid? Too bad. They don’t deserve it anyways. Best case scenario for the NCAA’s is to eliminate an at-large bid and stop singling out lower tier conference winners in the play-in game atrocity, or make a day out of it and add 3 more games so teams can fight for those 16 seeds. 31 more teams pushes it all too far.
ESPN is starting to anger me more than ever before. I love sports analysis as much as the next guy, but they could do a documentary on Dwight Freeney’s leg or Kobe Bryant fighting adversity and resiliently taking down the Lakers scoring record… Oh, and for the record: the Lakers lost. Who beat them? An OVC alum! So congrats to Lester Hudson, formerly a UT Martin Skyhawk with the Memphis Grizzlies for attempting, yet failing to shut the worldwide leader up.
Speaking of Freeney, there’s this thing Sunday, I don’t know if you have heard about it, but it’s called the Super Bowl. Who ya got? I’ve got the Saints.
After starting out 2-15 for the season, the SIUE women’s squad has come out with victory in three of their last five games, including their lone win on the road. The Cougars most recently bested future Ohio Valley Conference foe UT Martin, bringing their imaginary conference record to 2-1.
I unfortunately missed the game because of a little thing called class, but caught a few highlights on Channel 10 to see the Cougars in action. They looked the same as they have all year – resilient and determined. No matter what kind of funk this team gets into, they never give up. Whatever Coach Amanda Levens is selling to her players, it’s working. And recently, it’s producing wins.
Here’s a list of the deficits they’ve closed (or almost closed) in the second half this season
Valparaiso – down 19, closed to within six (1:11 left)
Wichita State – down 21, closed to within five (0:34 left)
Northern Kentucky – down 7, won by three
Eastern Kentucky – down 21, closed to within three (0:57 left)
UT Martin – down 8, won by three
The two words encompassing the resiliency of the Cougars – Ashley Bey. She will take the game into her hands when she needs to, whether to sacrifice her body to draw a foul, up her outstanding defense and/or find the open shooter. You can tell the team feeds off her energy as well. Ashley doesn’t seem like a strong vocal leader, but her play does enough to rally the rest of the team around her.
Bey only has a few games left as a Cougar, but she is making every one count. Her stat line in the UT Martin is plain ridiculous – eight points, nine rebounds, seven steals and six assists. When UT Martin crept to a three point lead with five minutes left, it was Bey who had two consecutive steals and assists to permanently give SIUE the lead.
The team’s recent success, I think, it mainly due to the team improving as a whole. Besides Bey, Sydney Stahlberg and Whitney Champlin, every other player is a freshman or sophomore. Besides Bey, Melia Duncan, Madison Meade and Kate Affourtit, everyone on the team was brand new playing for SIUE.
In the first few games of the season, SIUE ran the high-low from Bey to Raven Berry seemingly every other play. It was for good reason, that was how they scored much of their points. This team has evolved since then, Duncan has a killer three-pointer when she finds her shot and Michaela Herrod is a valuable post presence.
Tangent on Duncan – Levens talked after the South Dakota game about how Duncan doesn’t know how good she really is. Which you can see. Melia will put up 20 and say afterwards, “I guess I had a good game.” She is very humble about her game. She’ll make the extra pass sometimes, even if she is open. The game against South Dakota showed her potential – 7-10 shooting and 3-4 behind the arc (the lone three-pointer was a last-ditch shot as the shot clock ran out). The ceiling is awfully high…
Of course, it doesn’t hurt SIUE to play teams similar to them either. Winning on the road against Wisconsin, Northwestern and Wichita State just isn’t realistic, playing teams in OVC gives a better gauge of where this team is.
Right now, it doesn’t look too bad.
They’ve lost some close games and gave up a few leads, but as I said before they can pull the same trick. All three of their games against OVC schools have been extremely close – all have been decided by five points or less. Is it any coincidence all three games were won by the home team? Probably not.
Where we are, I like seeing that.
I get a sense, even though we are in our transitional phase, we aren’t playing like it. SIUE is competing at a level where we can compete with any other school in the conference. They’ve beat four D-I teams, which is already three more than last year. That’s all you can ask for from this team. In time, the Wisconsin’s and Northwestern’s will become more of a match-up.
The rest of the schedule (besides Miami (FL) and the Robert Morris exhibition), is a great schedule for the Cougars to end with some noise. Every school is either in the OVC next year or an independent school like we are at the moment.
To win three or four more games would be absolutely fantastic. We have the toughest OVC team at home in Eastern Illinois, all other OVC schools are on the road. The Cougars have come within five points to winning a D-I game on the road this season, and to win one or two would show the progress made this year.
The two-hour drive to Southeast Missouri State (their next game – Tuesday at 5:30) is actually the shortest drive to any other school in the OVC. (I think Eastern Illinois loses by 11 miles or so). Make the trip if you can, and cheer on the young, talented team. You won’t be disappointed.
The SIUE Cougars return home tonight after a respectable showing against Purdue on national television a week ago (I thought it was respectable enough) to take on the University of Missouri at Kansas City Kangaroos. (Who according to a source are staying at the Marriot in Union Station for this game,) hard to imagine they spent Christmas there after their game a week ago at Saint Louis University, but that’s where they are. Probably liked it too much.
The Roo’s have played a rather pedestrian schedule. SIUE is their fourth oponent they will have played inelligible for the NCAA Tournament, the others being North Dakota, (W: 70-63) Houston Baptist (W: 102-87) and Central Arkansas, (W: 78-67) as well as two wins over Division two schools (Lincoln (Mo.) and Truman State.) UND, HBU and UCA are all bottom-50 RPI teams, and none of their wins really stick out.
All in all, UMKC is a very beatable team for the Cougars, who have moved up 21 spots in the RPI to 308 at 2-10 while UMKC enters at 4-5 and number 261.
Last time out, the Roo’s gave a much-improved Saint Louis University Billikins team a battle at Chaifetz Arena, going into the break tied at 25 before losing by seven. Trey McKinney scored 18 and had six rebounds to lead the team in an attempt to pull a major upset against SLU, a team which started the year hot outside of Atlantic Ten play with impressive victories over Nebraska, SIU Carbondale and Belmont.
Exactly a year ago, the Cougars beat the Kangaroos 77-71 at Kemper Arena behind a 24 point effort off the bench by Aaron Garriott, who is no longer with the team. As far as how tonight’s projected starters faired points-wise in that game to get an idea of what we may see tonight: Yelovich (9) Bundalo (14) McCleary (6) Jones (2) Bowles (2).
Last year’s UMKC squad went 7-24, and just 3-15 in the Summit, so they are looking to be a little bit improved this time around, and I expect they will be. SIUE’s record may not indicate it, but all signs point to an also-better squad than last season. Remember, SIUE was a couple of breaks from victories against Lipscomb, IPFW and Ball State.
It’s not horseshoes, and it’s not handgrenades, but there is no NCAA tournament at the end of the road, so almost gets an honorable mention today.
What should the Cougars be looking for tonight? Thankfully not Dane Brumagin, the senior forward who led the Roos with 34 points in last season’s game.
They have a trio of guys averaging in double-figures, Jay Coisnard is their biggest offensive weapon (14.2 ppg) with Latrese Mushatt (11.8 ppg) and Jones (11.1 ppg) following up.
The Kangaroos are not the most inept rebounding team, their highest glass cleaner averages just over 5 a game, the team just under 30 (29.9 RPG)
So a fairly even battle, Cougars have played the tougher schedule out of the two teams, and with this one at home it is going to be a real trap game for the Kangaroos. My money is on SIUE to move to 3-10 on the season, keep in mind UMKC may possibly be looking ahead to their game Wednsesday at Missouri.
Game time is at 7:00, hope to see a packed Vadalabene Center, I will be attending as a fan instead of a journalist for this one, first time I have been able to do that for a while, so I am looking forward to it and being biased.
After six straight losses for the Cougars, SIUE squeezed out two narrow victories to take home a shiny silver trophy declaring they were the HyVee Classic Tournament Winners.
Yeah, I don’t believe it either.
But it’s true. Men’s basketball (2-6) stunned mid-major Drake and then knocked off UT-Arlington who were 4-2 coming into Saturday’s match. Not exactly premier teams, but definitely a higher quality than Lipscomb and IPFW, who the Cougars lost to at home.
I – and I’m assuming the team – took a huge sigh of relief Friday. It’s one thing to have a losing record, it’s another to not have a win. It kills confidence, kills fan support and kills any positive mentality. There is nothing to draw upon or look back to for reassurance.
A huge problem I saw early on is that the Cougars come out flat to start the game and just cannot recover. Maybe those butterflies have passed as the season has gone on, maybe the freshman aren’t as intimidated, who knows. I do know it was good to get a win Friday. It is incredibly outstanding to win the tournament. You have to think the whole mentality of this team has changed.
They overcame a huge hurdle in both games at Drake – closing out the game. In their last two games, they lost a double digit lead in the second half against Lipscomb and then crumbled against IPFW by surrendering six points in the final minute. SIUE hung with Drake and UT-Arlington for forty minutes.
SIUE still has the same problem they have all year, they don’t have an inside presence offensively or defensively. 6’6″ Denykco Bowles has as many rebounds as 6’10” Nikola Bundalo, 23, in less minutes. Our 6’1″ point guard – McCleary – is averaging the second most rebounds on the team. Between Bundalo, Mavrak and Schneider, they are averaging a combined 6.2 rebounds in 36 minutes.
That is why we’ve struggled this season.
During the Drake tournament, Yelovich and McCleary crashed the boards and miraculously led the Cougars to rebounding margins of 39-28 and 39-32 in the tournament. It was the first time all season SIUE came out ahead in rebounding.
You know what also helps? Shooting 50 percent.
This team needs to have a great shooting effort from Yelovich to win. If he falters, the team falters. McCleary and Murphy are great role players right now, but Yelovich is the key to the game every time. It’s the sad truth. So, no pressure Mark, just try to be perfect every time you hit the hardwood. Once they find a way to win without Yelovich will be a good day for the Cougars. I just can’t see that happening anytime soon.
The Cougars do have a chance to get on a run here. Lipscomb, who is beatable, is next and Middle Tennessee State could be win number four.
SIUE is an intriguing team. They are young and haven’t had much experience playing together, but perhaps they have turned a corner.
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