November 28, 2009
Winston-Salem State(1-5) at NC A&T(3-2)
WS State finished 1 game out of first place last year, and had the best recruiting class in the league by far 2 years ago, so its no suprise that their roster strength is at the top of the league.
Scouting
PG Brian Fisher – Scored 10ppg last year, averaging about 9 this year so far. A very good 3 point shooter. Only an average ball handler and below average passer for a point guard.
SG Darius Floyd – 70 OVR rating, which will be one of the best in the league. 86 rated 3 point shooter, which may be the best in the league. He leads the league in scoring at 19 ppg so far.
SF Spanky Schmidt – 72 OVR, last year's freshman of the year in the league. Good defender, good scorer, good size and speed for a 3. 7.5 ppg/7.0 rpg.
PF Clayton Tsagarakis – only 6'5 so undersized at the 4 spot, hopefully setting Coleman up for another big day. A good inside scorer, but a very poor post defender.
C Corey Morris – 62 OVR – not rated very highly, but he's 6'11” and takes up space. Hayes is a better player but the size will help them.
Half
| Time
| NC A&T
| WSS
| Notes
|
1
| 13:30
| 22
| 10
| I've just gotten too good with Coleman to see him matched up against a guy 6 inches shorter than him who plays poor defense. NC A&T took off to a 9-0 lead and has extended that up to 12. Coleman has 11 already.
|
1
| 12:15
| 26
| 14
| Backups are in.
|
1
| 6:00
| 32
| 24
| We had pushed out to a 32-16 lead, and WS State has run off 8 straight. I call a timeout and get my starters back in.
|
| HALF
| 44
| 33
| They'd cut the lead down to 4 at one point but we pushed it back up. It's a two man effort for A&T. Coleman has 17 points and 8 rebounds at halftime. Shiloh is the other big suprise. He's got 11 points, which might be a career high for him already. Their star, Floyd, has 9 points so far on 4-12 shooting(1-7 from 3). So far so good!
|
2
| 16:20
| 49
| 46
| UGH. Floyd has 9 already in the 2nd half, and we've turned it over twice in the backcourt, helping to facilitate a big run for Winston-Salem State. We call a time out to settle down.
|
2
| 13:45
| 51
| 53
| Their huge run continues, and we now trail for he first time. Floyd has 23 now, 14 second half points already.
|
2
| 11:45
| 56
| 57
| A Shiloh 3 and an Alston layup get us going again a bit. Our backups are in now though and hoping to slow this game down and get Shepherd and/or Cruz going inside. We're struggling in large part to the fact that they're running a 2-3 zone and we aren't making any jump shots.
|
2
| 6:30
| 59
| 63
| Starters come back in, we're only down 4 but it feels like we're trying to desparately salvage the game at this point.
|
2
| 4:30
| 68
| 69
| We've shaved 3 points off the lead and only trail by 1. Hayes has finally gotten some shots to fall, and has scored our last 5 points.
|
2
| 3:50
| 71
| 71
| They get a field goal, and we come down and Ewing drains a clutch 3 pointer to tie the game up.
|
2
| 2:05
| 77
| 73
| After a missed shot, Hayes gets a dunk in transition to give us the lead. A 18 foot jumper from ewing gives us a 4 point lead. They score to cut it back to 2, then a monster jam in traffic by Coleman pus us back up 4. He's fouled on the dunk, but misses the free throw. We lead by 4.
|
We get a stop and a bucket, they turn it over and we get another bucket and this one is ours!
NC A&T 83
Winston-Salem State 73
I'd rather not be giving up big leads in the 2
nd half, but once they went on their run, we played great ball down the stretch to secure the win. Another monster game from Coleman, this one even bigger than the last two.
Their star, Floyd, finished with 25 points, but we held him to 3-11 from 3.
Alston: 11 points/7 assists
Ewing: 14 points/4 assists
Shiloh: 14 points/3 boards
Coleman: 27 points/18 rebounds (8... EIGHT! Offensive boards)
Hayes: 8 points/3 boards
We're 1-0 in conference play, a solid home win against one of the favorites to win the MEAC.