Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Mt. St. Mary's/American Game Post

Feel free to post your thoughts on the game in the comments section. I'm watching the game online tonight - so no live blog - but I'll post my thoughts throughout right here.

Go Mount!

Still about 10 minutes away from tipoff....my video stream is coming through well. I'm a little apprehensive about tonight's game. I don't like the fact that AU played a second game. I think that might have helped them get their footing. Also didn't like the fact that Oklahoma didn't play overly well in a win over Louisiana-Monroe last night.

The American announcers talking about the team having trouble with scoring, and the youth on the team and not being able to finish games. It would be nice for the Mount to jump out to an early lead. And I think that defense will have to be a key to that.

The Mount leading 26-22 but it was sloppy during that stretch. Under four to play in the first half. Tayvon Jackson seemed to help the Mount with its interior defense. Kristijan Krajina got his first collegiate points with a three-pointer. Still a lot of open jumpers not going for the Mount right now. I think they need to turn up the tempo offensively.
18-12 at the under 12. The Mount got threes during that segment from Will Holland and Jean Cajou. Jean now leads the offense with 5 points. Trice checked in and scored a nice bucket in transition.
One note on the feed, its available at aueagles.com for a one-game price of $5.95. I think it wanted Apple QuickTime to be installed. But it was a painless process for me.

The Mount leads 10-7 with 14:40 left in the first half. Shawn Atupem four early points. The Mount has gotten at least three buckets on second chance opportunities. Outside jumpers not going right now - and American has shown a lot of zone. I think the Mount is clearly the better team here. The next segment could be a chance to extend the lead.

It's a five-point lead with 7:56 left in the first half. American looked a lot better during that segment. Beidler just picked up his second foul. Mount needs to find a way to slow down 6-11 sophomore Riley Graft for the Eagles. He has nine points. Cajou leads the Mount with seven.

Mount St. Mary's leads 35-32 at the break, courtesy of a three-pointer from Pierre Brown at the horn. The Mount has struggled with its interior defense, as Riley Graft and Lumpkins are both in double figures with 11. Kelly Beidler picked up his second foul midway through the half and didn't play the rest of the half. The Mount could use him. Offensively, the Mount has looked good at times but hasn't made enough of its open jumpers. In addition, the Mounties have missed the front end of several one-on-one opportunities. There seemed like there were times when the Mount could have earned some seperation on the scoreboard, but couldn't knock down the jumpers. It seemed like a mediocre half for the Mount. But yet they have a 3-point road lead, so you have to be happy with that.

Cajou and Atupem each have seven in a balanced attack for the Mount. Trying to add them up....Brown has the three, Goode has four, Beidler has four, Krajina has three, Trice has two, Holland has five. That is by memory, so it might be wrong. But it is pretty close.

A 7-0 run to start the second half 10-0 including that Brown three at the end of the first has made it 42-32. Atupem scored twice inside and Beidler just hit a three in transition.

46-35 now in favor of the Mount with 15:55 to play. The lead got as large as 14 before a Munoz three for AU. The Mount scored two transition buckets, a Goode layin and a Goode behind the back pass to Beidler for another layin. I think Beidler only had three in the first half and Holland had six. So Beidler now has eight, and Atupem leads the team with 11.

Kelly has made three trifectas in the second half - and has 14 now. The Mount did a nice job of sharing the basketball to get Kels that look. Its 55-40 now. Trice also made a three for the Mounties. Much better work by the Mount to start this half.

The Mount leads 59-44 awaiting a Goode free throw at the Under 12. #1 is now in double digits. more defensive intensity for the Mount at the start of this half has led to a lot of this.

A little flurry from American has drawn them within 65-52. A couple offensive rebounds have helped the Eagles and some rushed shots by the Mount hasn't helped things offensively. Milan Brown called a timeout to remind his team there are still a few more minutes needed to complete the job.

American has cut the lead to ten. They are making this a game. Or at least trying to. Time to get Beidler back in there.

The lead is still ten at the under three. Atupem just had a good bucket inside after American cut it to 10. The Mount is trying to take the air out of the basketball and make this a shorter game. But they haven't executed very well. And it has allowed the Eagles to get within a shout.

American has sliced this to 70-62. The Mount has not done a very good job here at the end. Sloppy at times, and way too many missed free throws. There are about 45 seconds left.

Over at the Bender Arena. The Mount has won for the second straight trip to American. A convincing 73-62 win for the Mounties.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:44 PM

    Saw the game at Bender. AU not a good team, Mount talent should have produced 25+ point win, but we will certainly take the win. Your observations are right on. I was discussing with the AD and a few others during the game. All agree the defense is not where it needs to be - until the last few minutes, too many uncontested spin moves from the 3 scorers on AU. Jeremy took over the second half, with great efforts from Shawn, Kelly and Jean. Nice to see Kris score. Too sloppy near the end; the team at least didn't try to stall for the last 6 minutes, but the offensive attempts broke down too often. A few monster blocks from Kelly, Danny and others helped. Mount is a good team and will get better.

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  2. Anonymous10:54 PM

    To add to the prior article and comment - Mount trying to shoot itself in the foot missing the front end of 1+1 at least 4 times.

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  3. Anonymous4:26 PM

    1. Mount got a great lift from a no brainer 3 from Pierre just at the first half buzzer, then with the ball to start the second half, they again lit it up for the first several minutes. This was their big run for the game.
    2. Mount has a lot of good shooters; not sure they want to take that many threes every game ???

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