Awesome. The announcers highlight Hannan as the player to watch this game. Of course with two freshman in the lineup, our team unity has taken another dive...
First play of the game, Everett finds Hannan in the corner.. he fakes the 3, his man jumps.. he drives past his man and pulls up for a 12 footer which he drills! 2-0.
Second play - after a defensive stop, we push it up the court, Hannan is alone for the fast break.. slam dunk! 4-0.
After a Graves basket, Everett finds Hannan in the corner.. This time he takes and makes the 3! 9-2.
Hannan misses his next 3, but I'm already having visions of dominance for this kid and he's going to make Graves so much better.
Hannan hits his next 3 and he already has 10.
Hannan sets up Everett for a 3 and then another 3. At the 15 minute mark, we are up 20-10!
Our shooting cools off for a bit, but Graves drives into the lane for a foul to end their 6-0 run.
Hannan is tired at the 11 minute mark. We lead 26-16, but I love offense. I decide to put Bowers in at SF and see if I'm wrong about his foot speed, especially since I'm sticking with our zone defense.
Bowers misses his first 3, but drills his 2nd.
Cornette hits an open 16 footer, followed by another Bowers 3. Everett's assist totals are going to skyrocket this year...
With 6 minutes to go in the half, we go to all backups as Waters sees his first court action. We are up 40-26.
Hannan may not have great speed, but he has a great first step. He's blown by his man twice with crossover dribbles! This kid is playing better than our staff thought he'd be able to at this point..
Hannan backs down his man, hits a fadeaway and gets the foul!
This is an inferior team, but I feel like Hannan plus my backups are going to be a good combo for the stretches where I need to rest my starters. We maintain our lead.
Halftime: 53-40, we lead.
Hannan is the player of the half. He has 24 points, 4 boards, 1 assist, and a steal at the half.
Everett has 9 points and 7 assists at the half.
Graves has 6 points, 2 boards, and an assist.
Simon has 9 boards already.
Bowers has 6 points on 2 of 4 shooting.
With 17 minutes to go, Cornette gets a 4th foul. We put Adams into the game at PF.
We are up 68-57 at the 12 minute mark. Hannan needs some rest. I decide to give Collins a few minutes of PT.
He buries a 3 on his first touch. Maybe his range is improving.
With 9:30 to go, we go to all bench players except for Simon. We are up 73-63.
We are only up by 11 with 6 minutes to go, so Hannan comes back into the game.
First touch he drills a 3!
Cornette is consistently hitting open 12-16 footers, particularly around FT line. That is a welcome change from my PF.
They pull within 8 with 2 minutes to go, and then Hannan just blows by his man and lays it in and gets the foul.
With 44 seconds to go, they hit a 3 and pull within 6. 89-83. We get it to Hannan who they intentionally foul. He nails both FT's. 91-83.
We wrap it up with an Everett FT. 92-83 win. The defense was a bit of a letdown, but that offense was fun to run.
Hannan is the player of the game: 37 points, 5 boards, 5 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block. Nice debut for the Frosh. He only turned it over 1 time. He shot 12 of 22, 5 of 11 from the arc, and 8 of 12 from the line.
Everett finished with 16 points, 8 assists, 2 steals, and a board. He shot 5 of 15.
Graves had 10 points, 5 boards, and 4 assists. He shot 4 of 10.
Cornette had 8 points, 8 boards, 2 assists, and a steal. Every point came on a midrange jumper.
Simon had 4 points, 19 boards, 1 assist, and 2 blocks.
Ortiz had 6 points. Bowers had 6 points on 2 of 4 from the arc.
Waters had 4 assists, 2 steals, and a board in 15 minutes. He shot 0 of 3.
Snow was 0 of 5. He didn't have any points, boards, or assists.
Nice first game for this squad. Our next game should be much more challenging. We play against ND in the NIT Preseason Tourney. However, we matchup well with ND whose overall talent rating is only 3 points higher at 83. I'll play that Tuesday.
Edit: Wife and Mother-In-Law just decided to start watching 2nd chick flick. I'll play ND tonight as I want to see what Hannan can do against that defense and I'm not tired yet.