Hey, we have the opportunity to mix the good with the bad and are we going to run with it today.
Without further ado:
Fresno tops Pacific, which might not seem like much to crow about being the WAC over the Big West but based on the Bulldog season to date and the final score...Bulldogs gather some steam
Bell scores 24 as men's hoops attack clicks in victory against Pacific
Gary Estwick
The Fresno Bee
12/22/07
Bell sprinted until he nearly collided with Johnson, forcing the defender to pick a direction. Johnson chose right, so Bell spun left. Bell absorbed a foul, finished with a layup and gazed into the Save Mart Center announced crowd of 9,728, witness to Fresno State's best offensive effort of the season.
Bell's efforts during a second-half run served as the foundation of Saturday's 75-58 nonconference win.
"That's my game," Bell said of his twisting, turning maneuver.
He finished with 24 points and five assists, proving that the 7-5 Bulldogs, who have struggled to meet preseason expectations, still have enough talent to make a run early next month in the Western Athletic Conference.
Bell, a senior, has carried Fresno State during the first two months of the season as it recovers from the dismissal of Rekalin Sims, Dwight O'Neil's broken right wrist and shooting woes by Hector Hernandez and Bryan Harvey. Bell runs the offense as point guard with shooting restrictions -- he can look for his shot as the shot clock winds down and in transition. Still, he entered the game as Fresno State's leading scorer.
He had plenty of help Saturday.
Eddie Miller scored 15 points, all on 3-pointers. Hernandez and Harvey added 10 apiece, helping the Bulldogs, using their new motion offense, score their highest point total since an 85-80 overtime win Dec. 5 against Division II Cal State-Monterey Bay.
"This is as good as we've played all season against a quality opponent," Fresno State coach Steve Cleveland said. "I do like the development of what we're trying to do with the ball..."
Go here for the rest.
and
Boise State eventually notches a solid road win...
Bronco men rally from 14 down for road win
Reggie Larry scores 22 points in front of friends and family to help Boise State win its fifth consecutive road game.
Idaho Statesman
12/23/07
The Boise State men's basketball team rallied from a double-digit deficit in the second half Saturday night and grabbed a 74-68 win at Albany in New York.
Senior Reggie Larry, playing in front of a busload of his friends and family, scored 22 points and pulled down 12 rebounds to help the Broncos win their fifth consecutive road game of the season.
BSU (8-3) trailed 51-37 with 16 minutes, 30 seconds left in the game, prompting coach Greg Graham to take a timeout. Albany had closed the first half on an 8-3 run and started the second on a 7-0 spurt.
"We just challenged them," Graham said on his postgame radio show. "There was plenty of time left. We didn't do anything special. We just sucked it up and did what we were supposed to do."
Larry, who is from Newark, N.J., scored six consecutive points to pull the Broncos within 62-61. Then, sophomore point guard Anthony Thomas took over, hitting a long 3-pointer to give BSU its first lead since 21-20 midway through the first half.
After Albany scored, Thomas hit three straight baskets that allowed BSU to overtake the Great Danes (5-6), who had been perfect at home this season and had won 20 of their previous 22 games at SEFCU Arena.
"That was a very, very good road win," Graham said. "Our guys believed and hung tough. I'm proud of them..."
Go here for the rest.
and
NMSU plays Louisville tough on the road...
Aggies fall at Louisville, now 5-9
Jason Groves
Las Cruces Sun-News
12/23/2007
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Sometimes when you don't plan for something, it works out.
New Mexico State University entered Saturday's non-conference game at Louisville shorthanded, but the Aggies didn't play like it.
Trailing by 14 and 12 in the second half against Louisville, the Aggies fought back to within three late in the second half before falling short, 70-65, on Saturday at Freedom Hall.
Playing without senior center Hatila Passos and junior guard Paris Carter, who were both suspended on Friday for violation of team rules, the Aggies only played eight, going with a small lineup for long stretches.
The Aggies fell to 5-9 overall and 0-7 away from the Pan American Center, but NMSU head coach Marvin Menzies said he has some positive things to take into the Christmas holiday.
"Sometimes when you get adversity like that, the flip side is you get guys playing a little tougher and harder - a little more aggressive," said Menzies, who returned to Freedom Hall after spending the last two years as an assistant coach under Louisville head coach Rick Pitino. "I'm just proud of the guys that showed up and played well. I don't have a crystal ball to know what would have happened if they (Passos and Carter) had been here."
The Aggies have struggled answering runs on the road thus far, but in the toughest of environments, NMSU never let down. "I thought they played a very good game," said Pitino, whose team moved to 7-3 on the season. "They played like a wounded tiger and did a very good job."
Leading 12 at halftime, the Cardinals built 12 and 14-point leads in the second half, but unlike other road games this season, the Aggies answered...
Go here for the rest.
and
Nevada takes the measure of Northern Iowa on the road...
Pack basketball: Nevada snares win over Northern Iowa
Steve Sneddon
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
December 23, 2007
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — The Nevada basketball did a lot of bending, but didn’t break when it mattered most.
After leading by 14 points twice, the Wolf Pack had to withstand a furious Northern Iowa charge at the end to hold on for a 55-52 victory in front of 4,883 fans at McLeod Center on Saturday afternoon. Fog, show and ice helped make it a difficult trip for the Pack. A late 17-5 Panther run — before Marcelus Kemp hit two free throws with one second left for a three-point victory — was just one more thing to overcome.
“We’re growing up slowly,” Nevada coach Mark Fox said. “We still make a lot of young plays during the games that we haven’t seen in a few years. But they don’t get through their adolescence overnight. I thought under the circumstances, they responded. We need games like this even though they’re hard to watch for us.”
The Pack had looked solidly in control when Kemp hit a free throw to extend the lead to 13 points at 48-35 with six minutes and 50 seconds left in the game. Eric Coleman, a 6-foot-6 center who comes off the bench after being a starter his first three seasons, scored 10 of his 18 points in the final 5:17. Coleman scored on a reverse layup to cut the deficit to 53-52 with 1:04 remaining.
But after both teams called timeouts with 25 seconds left, the Panthers were unable to get the ball inside to Coleman again and Kemp blocked Travis Brown’s jumper. Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson tried to call a timeout three times in the final sequence, but couldn’t get the officials’ attention. After getting the ball back, Brown took another jumper before Kemp got the rebound and was fouled by Coleman with one second to go.
“Any road win will help us,” Kemp said. “I think any win is good for our confidence. We’ll take the win in stride and keep doing what we’ve been doing.”
The win was the fifth in a row for the Pack, which will take a 7-4 record into its game at No. 1-ranked North Carolina on Thursday night. Northern Iowa dropped to 8-3...
Go here for the rest.
and
Idaho gets a moral victory -- if such an entity exists -- in playing Arizona State very tough...
Idaho falls short at Arizona State, 76-65
Courtesy: Idaho Athletic Media Relations
12/22/2007
TEMPE, Ariz. – The 3-pointers kept them in it, but fouls and unforced turnovers left them short as the Vandals fell 76-65 at Arizona State Saturday.
Idaho (3-8) hit 13 3-pointers in the contest, but was outscored by 11 points at the free throw line and committed nine unforced turnovers as Arizona State (9-2) won its fifth-straight game.
Overall, it was a positive step for Idaho as the team wrapped up its non-conference schedule against an opponent which is 7-0 at home this season, which includes a victory over No. 17 Xavier.
“We are not happy with our record, but our team is really starting to fight and compete,” Idaho coach George Pfeifer said. “If we would have been in this type of game in this type of environment a month ago we would have been blown away.”
Idaho was led by Mike Hall’s 18 points on 4-of-8 shooting from behind the arc. After scoring just 17 points through the first eight games, Hall has exploded for 31 points in the last two contests. He also was 4-of-4 at the free throw line and finished with two assists, steals, and rebounds.
Terrence Simmons scored nine points in his first start of the season and was 3-of-3 from beyond the 3-point arc in the first half. He also led the team with five rebounds. Mike Kale and Jordan Brooks also added nine points each.
As a team, Idaho shot a better percentage than its opponents as it hit 21-of-42 (.500) shots and finished 13-of-23 (.565) from beyond the arc. The Vandals shot better from the free throw line at 10-of-14 (.714), but their 24 fouls contributed to 27 free throw attempts for the Sun Devils. Arizona State hit 24 of those 27 attempts.
Jeff Pendergraph was the thorn in Idaho’s side as he scored a career-high 27 points on 7-of-9 shooting. He also hit 13-of-14 free throws and grabbed 10 rebounds.
“We got soft on the perimeter, which really put the pressure on the post players because they could move the basketball where they wanted it,” Pfeifer said. “We got some fouls called underneath and (Pendergraph) made almost as many free throws as we attempted.”
Idaho gained an early 5-2 lead before an 8-0 run from Arizona State put the Vandals behind 13-5 at the 12:40 mark. The Sun Devils stretched the lead to 11 points on two occasions, but the Vandals were able to hang around with their 3-point shooting. Nine of Idaho’s 11 field goals in the first half were from beyond the arc and the Vandals trailed just 34-32 at halftime.
The 3-point bonanza continued into the second half as Idaho recorded a span of 27-of-28 points from beyond the 3-point line and missed just one attempt during the stretch. The ninth 3-pointer pulled Idaho within 39-38 with 17:57 remaining in the contest, but Arizona State used an 8-0 to pull ahead 47-38. A 6-0 run pulled the Vandals to within two points, but the Sun Devils were able to keep them at bay. Hall hit his fourth 3-pointer with 2:47 remaining to bring Idaho to within 67-63, but Arizona State answered with a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession. Kale brought Idaho within five with a lay in with two minutes remaining, but Arizona State hit all six of its free throws in the final two minutes for the 11-point victory.
“We gave up some transition baskets which we knew were going to be really key tonight,” Pfeifer said. “This is a team that zones to death and we were able to come back and get some big stops with our own zone defense. We put in a bunch of zone offenses for this game and we were a little tentative to use them in the beginning of the game. As the game started to move along we began to do some good things with it.”
and
Hawaii continues to hurt...even at home
Georgia holds off 'Bows' rally, 67-59
Dayton Morinaga
Honolulu Advertiser
December 23, 2007
In a game of naughty and nice, the University of Hawai'i men's basketball team lost to Georgia, 67-59, in the 44th annual Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic yesterday.
The Rainbow Warriors fell behind in the first half without starting point guard Matt Gibson, who was suspended for disciplinary reasons. They then rallied with him in the second half to cut a 21-point deficit down to five in the closing minutes.
Ultimately, the 'Bows were left gift-less during a forgettable week.
Hawai'i went 0-3 in the eight-team tournament to drop to 3-7 overall. It was the seventh time in the 44-year history of the Classic that Hawai'i finished in last place, and the first time it happened since 1995.
A crowd of 1,722 at the Stan Sheriff Center watched yesterday's 11 a.m. game.
Georgia improved to 7-3 and finished in seventh place.
"We showed that we're resilient to the end, and that we're going to compete and we're going to fight," senior tri-captain Bobby Nash said. "That second half, it was a totally different ball club."
Head coach Bob Nash said Gibson was suspended for the first half because: "We have a certain standard in our locker room that we have to adhere to, and that standard was broken."
Hawai'i outscored the Bulldogs, 40-30, in the second half. Gibson played all 20 minutes of the second half and finished with a game-high 16 points...
Go here for the rest.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment