A Sea Of Red

The game is delayed due to a lighting issue. Starting in about 5 minutes.
SCAR is joining Nick on the radio call again.
Charleston is 3-0 and beat FAU 119-116 in double OT Friday.

29-29 at the half. Outstanding defense against a team that is averaging 98 ppg. Good first half by Cleveland, who has 11 points on 4-6 from the field and 3-4 from the line. Charleston's Ante Brzovic, leading the nation in scoring with 33 ppg, has just 8 on 3-7 shooting.

Up 41-31 with 12:45 to play. Charleston just scored it's first points of the half. Porter went out with 3 fouls, and we went with a HUGE lineup with Metheny the only player under 6'6". Cleveland has 18 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 4 blocks. (He does also have 5 TOs)

We have completely stifled Charleston's high powered offense in the second half and lead 54-35 with 6:30 to play.

Final score:
Liberty 68
COC 47

This has to rank as one of the most impressive performances on the road we have ever had.

olldflame wrote: ↑November 17th, 2024, 6:49 pm Up 41-31 with 12:45 to play. Charleston just scored it's first points of the half. Porter went out with 3 fouls, and we went with a HUGE lineup with Metheny the only player under 6'6". Cleveland has 18 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 4 blocks. (He does also have 5 TOs)

That lineup brought words from one of the broadcasters that you wouldn't have heard last year: "Liberty is just too long and athletic for Charleston right now!"

Reminder that although it was part of a 3 team event, this was Charleston's home court, so if they have as good a year as projected this will be a quality road win. The most shocking thing about the win is that less than 48 hours earlier Charleston scored 119 points in a 2OT win over FAU, with Brzovic putting up 39. Against us those numbers were 47 and 10. I really believe this is the first time since his return that Ritchie has had the athletes to play the packline the way UVA does it. Can't wait to see how it plays out in C-USA. The main problem we had there last year was difficulty dealing with the length of some opponents. From a sheer size standpoint, I don't think anyone in our conference can even match what we played against the last 2 games.

As I said elsewhere, the length and athleticism will show up on both sides of the court (offense and defense). For our defensive scheme though, we may notice a higher benefit on defense as evidenced by this game. Aquino/Cleveland/Ihnen were excellent defending the paint. We didn’t okay pack line D in the 2nd half, we played rejection line defense. It was an incredible effort. It was also nice to see Ihnen knock down some shots from behind the arc. That will be a huge benefit if he can be consistent from there.

Going into the half I was a little concerned with some of the easy layups we missed, plus our performance at the charity stripe. That still needs to be addressed, but if you’re going to play defense the way we did, you can overcome ALOT.