This wasn't just a win, it was an ass-kicking. Yeah, they cut it to 9 or so, but the game was never in doubt and we simply manhandled a very good team tonight. We outrebounded one of the best rebounding teams in the B1G by 18, 46-28! And we held them to 38% shooting, including 26% from three, which Coach Pike said was a priority after they lit us up from deep in Champaign - great coaching game plan and great execution to do that.
I'd say a huge part of our success was due to the maturation of Cliff Omoruyi, who played Kofi mostly straight up (with double downs at times) and held his own: CO with 15/13/2 blocks vs. Kofi with 20/10 - that's a huge "win" for RU, as it allowed the rest of our defenders to deny and close out on their shooters, such that most of their treys were contested and they missed a ton of them. Great team defense to do that with 9 steals, including another 4 for DPOY Caleb McConnell.
And our offense was pretty damn good too shooting 48%, including a decent 33% from downtown. The starters with 16 (RHJ), 15 (CO), 13 (PM), 11 (CC) and 7 (GB) and PM had 7 assists, while Geo had 5 - talk about sharing the ball. And Reiber and Hyatt gave very good minutes and scored a few, while Miller and Agee didn't hurt us out there (surprised Mag didn't play more though). Again, great team win and let's not forget us - the fans were off the charts tonight with a sustained cacophony of noise that clearly energized our guys and made communications difficult for them. Was not particularly happy with the reffing in the 2nd half, though, especially when it got to a 10-3 disparity that kept them in the ball game - what the hell does Harper need to do to get a call when he's driving?
As Katz just said, not only are we in at this point, but we're now a serious contender for the B1G title - who'da thunk that 2 weeks ago? Assuming Ron will be ok with the finger issue (maybe a week off needed? let's hope not more) and assuming we keep playing well it's going to be fun last 5 games. Glad I made our trip to visit my dad in FL for mid-March, leaving things open for going to the NCAAs later in March...
I'd say a huge part of our success was due to the maturation of Cliff Omoruyi, who played Kofi mostly straight up (with double downs at times) and held his own: CO with 15/13/2 blocks vs. Kofi with 20/10 - that's a huge "win" for RU, as it allowed the rest of our defenders to deny and close out on their shooters, such that most of their treys were contested and they missed a ton of them. Great team defense to do that with 9 steals, including another 4 for DPOY Caleb McConnell.
And our offense was pretty damn good too shooting 48%, including a decent 33% from downtown. The starters with 16 (RHJ), 15 (CO), 13 (PM), 11 (CC) and 7 (GB) and PM had 7 assists, while Geo had 5 - talk about sharing the ball. And Reiber and Hyatt gave very good minutes and scored a few, while Miller and Agee didn't hurt us out there (surprised Mag didn't play more though). Again, great team win and let's not forget us - the fans were off the charts tonight with a sustained cacophony of noise that clearly energized our guys and made communications difficult for them. Was not particularly happy with the reffing in the 2nd half, though, especially when it got to a 10-3 disparity that kept them in the ball game - what the hell does Harper need to do to get a call when he's driving?
As Katz just said, not only are we in at this point, but we're now a serious contender for the B1G title - who'da thunk that 2 weeks ago? Assuming Ron will be ok with the finger issue (maybe a week off needed? let's hope not more) and assuming we keep playing well it's going to be fun last 5 games. Glad I made our trip to visit my dad in FL for mid-March, leaving things open for going to the NCAAs later in March...
