ECU @ UCF: Post-game Review (W 74-71)

Last night was Senior Knight, and anyone watching the game could tell. Our eldest members of the team, Jermaine and Kenrick, were clearly the leaders both emotionally and in the stat books. Jermaine played his best defensive game I've seen all year; perfect timing with the Charlotte Bobcats scout that was in attendance. I took down at least half of the notes that Mr. Scott Howard wrote down, and I'll list those at the end. Jermaine stuck with his man far better than I have ever seen him do, coming off screens well and getting a hand up on just about every shot. He shot much better from the field in the second half, and finally started to drive the open lane instead of looking for threes.

Will Weathers greatly impressed me as well with some lockdown defense on Brock Young that no one else seemed to provide without being called for a foul. I loved his vision as well, especially when he was able to see the lane and be confident enough to take it to the hole. PJ Gaynor also showed some ability off the bench tonight, knocking down a couple of inside shots and layups.

Zondervan came up with an incredibly heads-up game saving play with 3 seconds left. As Sam Hinnant (the Pirates leading scorer and hot hand all night) drove to the lane, he drew AJ Tyler as a defender, but didn't seem to notice Z slip into his lane and plant his feet to take a charge. Simultaneously Kenny and the crowd were electric. A perfect ending to a great Senior Knight, and a great beginning to what promises to be a riveting post-season tournament.

Notes from Scott Howard:

Excellent body
Outstanding confident athlete
Moves well without the ball
Very good rotation on jumper
Oustanding stepback move
Nice change of pace dribble
Involved others early in the game
Aggressive offensive rebounder
Uses body well to seperate from defender
On defense, closes out
Good defensive feet
Can stay with a driver

This guy had some of the smallest handwriting I've ever seen on his shot charts, but thankfully he had his laptop and constantly wrote notes on that large enough that I could read them. He also added center Chad Wynn from ECU to his potential draft prospects, and took down a few notes about him that I was unable to see. Wynn is only a sophomore, so I have to assume he was just preparing for future drafts.

Tulsa @ UCF: Post-game Review (W 74-72)

Matt's game notes:

I’m not sure what it is about Tulsa University, but when they come to town, both teams come to play hard. This game just cemented itself in my top two games of all time, only behind the triple overtime thriller against Tulsa at home last year. Let me start this off with a big props to Jermaine Taylor: To anyone who accused Jermaine of being “not clutch”, he ran off 13 straight points last night to bring us back to an 8 point deficit. He banged down three 3 pointers to get the crowd back on their feet, and hit all of his free throws during the 13 point run. There were PLENTY of NBA scouts there tonight to see his performance, but I’ll get back to that later.

There is one man I would never want to play basketball against, simply because of his passion and effort level in the game. Kenrick Zondervan is downright scary when he gets his head on right and his adrenaline pumping. He played incredibly well last night and did his job almost flawlessly. He got the ball inside and backed his man down for some nice layups off the glass. He had a couple of travelling calls on him, but he made up for it later. The best part of his performance last night, and probably the biggest factor on our win, was his ability to get Jerome Jordan in foul trouble early. Jerome had two fouls by the 15 minute mark in the first half and played very sparingly until the 2^nd half. Z finished the game with 18 points, just short of his season high 19 against ECU.

NBA Scouts: There were quite a few scouts in attendance last night to see both Jerome Jordan and our own Jermaine Taylor. At the media table in front of us there were three men we were able to confirm as scouts: One from the Los Angeles Lakers, one from the Detroit Pistons, and one from the Orlando Magic (the same scout from last time). As some of you know, most of the scouts from the NBA are friendly with each other and have met each other before, like most sports talent scouts. In addition to these three, there were 4 more men who sat next to and between them, all talking and seemingly taking notes. They also left the game all at the same time. Putting all of this together, we can only assume that the additional 4 men were scouts as well.

Some of the things we were able to get off the notes:

· On JT: Doesn’t always get back on defense immediately after a rebound

· On JT: Started slow, but is catching fire late

· On JT: His shot release is too low (which he later erased once Jermaine started hitting his 3s)

· On Jerome: Doesn’t do much to stop the pass inside.

Southern Miss @ UCF: Post-game Review

Matt's Thoughts on the game:
The Knights played very well in a convincing win tonight over conference foe Southern Miss. Jermaine Taylor led us in scoring as always, I saw a different Jermaine Taylor tonight than I have ever seen before. Southern Miss shut him down inside both from the post and off of drives. Although he had quite a few open looks from 3, he was only 3-10 on the night. He cooled off noticeably going into halftime after missing 2 or 3 of them in a row, and the most important part of the night, he made the adjustment! Jermaine started taking mid-range jumpers and nailed them every time. This is the kind of adjustment I’ve been looking for from him for the last two years. We’ve known he can shoot the 3 and slam the ball, but could he consistently make jumpers inside the arc? Yes he can, and yes he did. He was blocked twice on dunks and seemed to get flustered for about 5 minutes while trying to do too much to prove himself. After he calmed down, he came back to hitting 15 foot jumpers with ease.

Zondervan had another great offensive game, and I cannot stress enough how much I love his passion and hustle. He’s receiving passes in the paint much better lately, and it shows. He finished his layups well tonight, and he seems to be hitting his stride. I saw quite a few great passes tonight; especially the one to Z right after the Golden Eagles missed a shot. We took down the rebound and quickly moved it up the court, ending with a quick slicing pass under the basket to Kenny for the easy bucket. His hustle made the play perfect. He sprinted the length of the court to get in position quickly and executed perfectly.

The three point shooting the Golden Eagles displayed tonight was completely unexpected on my part. They shot 10% higher tonight than they have on the season, a clear improvement. We did get into some foul trouble tonight with Zondervan and Rompza racking up 3 fouls each just after halftime, but our depth is proving to be our strength. When Rompza comes out, Taylor Young and Will Weathers come in and play just as well. When Z gets in a bit of trouble, AJ Tyler comes in with some beautiful sky hooks.

I was very impressed tonight, and we proved we can play near the top of this conference. We need to keep this momentum rolling through this home-stand and beyond.

Another NBA Scout?: On a side note, word inside the arena was that an Orlando Magic scout came to watch the game while taking notes from section 107. More NBA news for Mr. Jermaine Taylor is always good for both the school and Jermaine himself.

Southern Miss @ UCF: Preview

Matt's pre-game notes:

After taking down Rice for their first conference win, the Knights come home tomorrow for a game against the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles. Southern Miss enters the contest with an 11-6 record, and a 2-1 in conference record, beating Tulane and a decent Houston team while losing to an underrated Tulsa team.

The Golden Eagles have a solid team overall. From what I can tell, there are a few things we need to look out for:

Guard Jeremy Wise, #3. He’s the team’s leading scorer at 17 PPG and he shoots almost 30% from 3. A versatile player, he lacks great height. To counter him, we’re going to need Jermaine Taylor to do what he does best: score. His 3pt% isn’t anything near amazing, so Tony Davis and Kenny Z are going to have to continue their dominance inside and make it tough for him to drive to the hoop. They don’t necessarily have to avoid fouls as much with AJ Tyler playing well inside lately as well. We have the depth to allow a couple of fouls to discourage their inside game.

Guard Craig Craft, #23. He’s the teams best 3 point shooter by miles, and has played in every game this season, starting in 9 of them. He hits almost 40% of his 3 pointers, a very solid number. We have to keep an eye on him whenever he’s beyond the arc. We may want to stick Rompza on him so we have someone on him at all times.

There are a couple of notes we should take advantage of with the Golden Eagles as well:

They have a huge lack of depth. Their starters account for 88% of their points, and we need to take advantage of this. We need to run a fast paced offense while moving the ball quickly down the court. We have far more depth than they do, and while we can sub in bench players to give our starters rest and still score, they aren’t going to be able to. We need to run, run, run, and run some more. Either they’re going to run with us and get tired, or let us run and have advantages in numbers down the floor after defensive rebounds.

Their other weakness is their inside play. Of their top 7 scorers, 6 are guards, and the one other is a forward. Interestingly enough their 6’3” guard Courtney Beasley is their leading rebounder by nearly 30 on the season. Davis, Zondervan, and Tyler should all crash the boards and make their putbacks. If we can’t take advantage of a weak inside game tomorrow, we may have issues.