A Sea Of Red

I'm exhausted.

at least I wasn't the jinx tonite.

we won a "MUST-WIN" game for sure.

To comment on my earlier post, the NCAA Division 1 records for points in a half is 98 by Long Island in a game against Medgar Evers on 11/26/1997

Men's Basketball
Big South Overall
Team Record Pct Home Away Neutral Streak Record Pct Home Away Neutral Streak
Winthrop 7-0 1.000 3-0 4-0 0-0 W7 17-4 .810 8-0 8-3 1-1 W7
High Point 6-1 .857 3-1 3-0 0-0 L1 15-6 .714 11-1 3-4 1-1 L1
Coastal Carolina 4-3 .571 2-1 2-2 0-0 L2 11-9 .550 9-2 2-7 0-0 L2
VMI 3-4 .429 2-2 1-2 0-0 L1 10-13 .435 7-3 2-7 1-3 L1
UNC Asheville 3-4 .429 2-2 1-2 0-0 W1 7-14 .333 5-4 2-10 0-0 W1
Liberty 3-4 .429 2-1 1-3 0-0 W2 9-12 .429 8-2 1-8 0-2 W2
Radford 2-5 .286 2-2 0-3 0-0 L3 7-15 .318 5-3 1-8 1-4 L3
Charleston Southern 0-7 .000 0-3 0-4 0-0 L7 5-16 .238 5-3 0-11 0-2 L13


We are back in the mix. #5 I believe

RD stating we "just need to keep getting better and better"

uh. yes.

we do

he is also hoping others pick up losses.

also:

double/doubles for ACE and LB

very nice.

and how 'bout that DUNK by Brew!

need to root for VMI to beat Coastal next Sat.

pretty much half the league tied for 4th at this point.

not where we wanted to be, but at least we won tonite when we absolutely HAD to.

and we looked very good for 3/4 of this one.

I'm sure tomorrow I'll have a healthier outlook on the effort- a shame it had to get as close as it did.

Tuesday's game is huge. We need that one!!!

WWJFD wrote:need to root for VMI to beat Coastal next Sat.

they just may

I wouldn't doubt that at all.

Everyone playing each other tight in conf again this year

the tourney is gonna be a heartstopper. I forsee Marshall turning his trademark purple.

PAmedic wrote:

WWJFD wrote:need to root for VMI to beat Coastal next Sat.

they just may

I wouldn't doubt that at all.

Everyone playing each other tight in conf again this year

the tourney is gonna be a heartstopper. I forsee Marshall turning his trademark purple.

He did tonight after Antwan Harris got whistled for his fourth foul.

would've liked to heard/watched that game.

kinda forgot about it, but we got late updates. too close for comfort, I'm sure. (for you guys)

anybody ever figure out what the heck happened to the video feed at about 9:30 EST?

tell me we got pre-empted by the "Over the Hill Gang" or some crap like that

I don't usually go on long winded posts but here are my thoughts:

I watched a lot of the game via the webcast (since I was doing a radio show) but I was able to catch about the last quarter of the game live and all I can say is the boys stepped up when they absolutely had to. When VMI cut the lead to two in the late going, instead of folding and letting VMI get over the top, we kept playing hard and made the plays we needed to. Yes we turned teh ball over 25 times which was bad. YES we allowed VMI to get back in the game when we were up by almost 20 points. BUT...instead of folding, these guys locked down, played good defense and hit their free throws. I tip my hat to these guys tonight. VMI fired bullet they had in their gun, and we sttod in and were able to win. When the guys headed to the locker room, I was on the floor giving each and every one of them a high five for the way they played tonight. You should be proud of what these boys did...I know I sure am

BJWilliams wrote: I watched a lot of the game via the webcast (since I was doing a radio show) but I was able to catch about the last quarter of the game live

i didn't know there were quarters in college basketball now

we won the freakin game people! we could have totally caved in, but we did what he had to do. brew was very solid going 12-14 from the floor and had a nasty dunk, alex played very well, larry is larry and smitty was a serious factor too. justin or BJ should be running the point. damien just does not do it for me. i think we should play up-tempo. the guys seemed relaxed out there and looked like they were having fun. the crowd was great too. let's hope for a good crowd on tuesday.

Incredible game tonight. It was great watching from the student section. The last minute and a half everyone was standing. I wish it could have been like that whole game. There were a bunch of people there tonight. Good times.

And that blimp was a disaster in the women's game.

From Chris' laptop:

LU men win a wild one against VMI

By Chris Lang
Lynchburg News & Advance
January 28, 2007

Liberty guard Anthony Smith was taking a huge chance when he streaked to the right corner, arms outstretched, trying to get any piece of Travis Holmes' 3-point attempt.

But he'd be taking an even bigger chance had he left the VMI sophomore open. The Keydets thrive off wide-open 3-pointers, and Smith wasn't about to let Holmes have one. Not with his team's 24-point lead cut to a mere three in the closing seconds Saturday night.

Smith hit the ball and Holmes fell to the ground, trying in vain to draw a foul that would give him a chance to tie the game at the free throw line. Instead, Larry Blair pulled down the rebound and went to the line himself, canning two free throws to seal Liberty's wild 122-117 victory at Vines Center.

"I was trying to contest it," said Smith, who scored 17 points and had six assists along with the game-saving block. "I might have been taking a risk. I might have fouled him a little bit there, but they didn't call it. I just didn't want him to have a clear shot at the hoop, because they were shooting it in."

The block came in front of the VMI bench. Two possessions before that, Blair was called for a foul on a Chavis Holmes 3-pointer. Chavis drained all three free throws.

"It's the guy we want shooting it," VMI coach Duggar Baucom said. "But, yeah, he got hammered. But we've got to play through that. We shouldn't have been in that position, though."

The Flames led 68-44 a minute into the second half and were up 113-100 with 2:04 left after Dwight Brewington, who scored a career-high 30 points, hit a layup.

VMI never found its defensive footing in the first half as the Flames (9-12, 3-4 Big South) jumped to a 65-42 lead. Liberty did an outstanding job of breaking VMI's full-court trap, creating 3-on-2 mismatches and scoring easy layups and mid-range jumpers.

"Obviously, the second half didn't go as well as we'd like it to, but I'm not going to take away from what they did in the first half," Liberty coach Randy Dunton said. "That was tremendous basketball by our group. They spaced the floor and they dominated that half. Fatigue hurt us a little bit in the second half. But you've got to learn how to play through it."

Liberty hit the 100-point mark with 5:56 left when B.J. Jenkins hit the first of two free throws. He made the second to push the Flames' lead to 17, but the game was far from secure.

Double-digit leads mean nothing against the Keydets (10-13, 3-4). Case in point: VMI shaved a 24-point lead to 11 in a span of 4:11 early in the second half, and it scored 15 points in the final 1:52 and nearly came all the way back. Dusty Pflugner's layup with 22 seconds left pulled the Keydets within 119-117. After a quick foul, Blair, the Big South's top free throw shooter, missed the first and made the second free throw, giving the Keydets the chance to tie.

"We're pretty good at what we do when we do it," Baucom said. "But tonight for the first half, for the first time in five games, we just didn't come out ready to play."

Twelve Vines Center records fell and each team placed five players in double figures.

Blair scored 30 points to go with 10 rebounds and five assists, and will become the third member of the Big South's 2,000-point club with two points against UNC Asheville on Tuesday. Brewington used his quickness and athleticism to blow past the VMI defense and got most of his points on layups and dunks. He hit 12 of 14 field goals, including a spectacular one-handed dunk in the first half that elicited a roar from the 4,585 in attendance - Liberty's biggest home crowd since 6,281 saw the Flames play Radford on February 19, 2005.

"Golly, they're athletic," Baucom said. "Everybody we play has more athletic players than we do. We don't match up with anybody athletically or size-wise. Our biggest guy is 6-foot-7, and we only have one of him. I thought Liberty's women's team was bigger than us, really."

Alex McLean had 22 points and 13 rebounds and B.J. Jenkins came off the bench to score 11.

Reggie Williams set a Vines Center mark for points by an opponent, scoring 40 points on 14 of 21 shooting. It was his 10th game this season in which he scored 35 or more points. He carried VMI through the first half, when the Holmes twins - who are Blair's cousins - struggled.

Chavis finished with 19 and Travis had 15, but they combined to shoot 9 of 31, including 5 of 19 from 3-point range.

http://newsadvance.com/servlet/Satellit ... th=!sports

We won, which is great.


Damien does not need to play point guard. I know Coach wants BJ at the 2, but he needs to be our point guard right now.


We need to run. We are more talented than every team in the Big South except for Winthrop (I've heard that from non-LU people) and we should be able to "out-athletic" the rest of these teams.


I'm still not sold on the rotation but hey, it worked for tonight.


We won. We have two straight wins. Coach seems to be get at least a bit of control back over the team which is very good.


The Vines was crowded, but the crowd sucked. The only time they ever did anything was during t-shirt tosses or the last two minutes of the game. The rest of the game they just sat there talking to each other.


The football video in the second half got me insanely excited for football season. Coach Rocco got a standing ovation and a "Roc-co" chant which he very much deserved. Whoever was in charge of that video, please, for the love of Rocco, put it on YouTube.


The students will turn out in good numbers on Tuesday night once the rumor of Kenny George gets out. It'll spread like wild fire and everyone will come to see him.

i'm going just to see the dude!
that video got me ready for football too. i've already beeen thinking about it, and that was the icing on the cake. i can't wait until it starts.

PAmedic wrote:our ball handling freaks me out.

Hubbard- horrendous

BJ- young guy mistakes- almost deadly

Baker- gonna be great? hopefully, but not tonite. missed a lot of easy ones.

Tyler was 1-3 from the field (1-2 from 3) so he may have missed 1 easy one, and h had 7 boards, i think thats a good game, not great, but hes young too now... Dwight looked like a Stud tonight and he missed 2 shots and so did TB hahaha I think he played a good game though, those were all big rebounds

From the Roanoke fishwrap:

Flames squeak by rallying VMI
The Keydets cut a 24-point lead down to two, but Liberty has the answers late to win it.
By Ray Cox
381-1672

LYNCHBURG -- There are a lot more clean windshields around town today.

Ticket holders to the Liberty's Big South Conference basketball with VMI were promised a free bottle of windshield washer fluid should the teams combine for 100 points.

Vines Center patrons could have cashed in by halftime.

Participants in Keydets basketball games continued to put up cartoon numbers as the Flames held off their Saturday evening guests 122-117 in a game that developed unexpectedly into a thriller late.

Liberty turned out to have a knack for the hyper-speed game favored by the Keydets of the current era, no player more so than school all-time leading Division I scorer Larry Blair. The 6-foot senior guard dumped in 30 to leave him two short of 2,000 for his career.

"He's a good player," VMI coach Duggar Baucom said. "He made some acrobatic moves."

here is the whole story from the roanoke wrap:

Flames squeak by rallying VMI
The Keydets cut a 24-point lead down to two, but Liberty has the answers late to win it.
By Ray Cox
381-1672

LYNCHBURG -- There are a lot more clean windshields around town today.

Ticket holders to the Liberty's Big South Conference basketball with VMI were promised a free bottle of windshield washer fluid should the teams combine for 100 points.

Vines Center patrons could have cashed in by halftime.

Participants in Keydets basketball games continued to put up cartoon numbers as the Flames held off their Saturday evening guests 122-117 in a game that developed unexpectedly into a thriller late.

Liberty turned out to have a knack for the hyper-speed game favored by the Keydets of the current era, no player more so than school all-time leading Division I scorer Larry Blair. The 6-foot senior guard dumped in 30 to leave him two short of 2,000 for his career.

"He's a good player," VMI coach Duggar Baucom said. "He made some acrobatic moves."

The Keydets made some moves of their own in scoring 50 points during one 11 12-minute stretch of the second half.

VMI (10-13, 3-4) had a three-game winning streak snapped and fell into a three-way tie for fourth place in the league standings with UNC Asheville and Liberty (9-12, 3-4).

The Keydets had a one-time 24-point deficit down to two with 30.8 seconds to go, but couldn't complete the comeback.

"We were at three and had the ball, too," Baucom said.

Reggie Williams was right at the heart of the rally. For the 11th time this year, Williams, the second-leading scorer in Division I coming in, scored 30 or more points, this time a game-high 40, 21 of that in the second half.


VMI (10-13)

Bell 3-5 1-2 7, Williams 14-21 9-15 40, Lonon 0-0 0-1 0, C.Holmes 5-19 4-6 17, T.Holmes 4-12 5-8 15, Robinson 4-11 3-3 14, Murrer 7-12 0-0 16, Castleberry 1-3 0-0 2, Pflugner 3-3 0-0 6. Totals 41-86 22-35 117.

LIBERTY (9-12)

McLean 9-13 4-9 22, Porter 0-2 0-0 0, Smith 6-8 4-6 17, Hubbard 1-2 0-2 2, Blair 10-21 9-13 30, Holland 2-2 0-0 5, Jenkins 4-7 2-2 11, Baker 1-3 2-2 5, Brewington 12-14 6-9 30. Totals 45-72 27-43 122.

Halftime--Liberty 65-42. 3-Point Goals--VMI 13-41 (Williams 3-7, Robinson 3-10, C.Holmes 3-13, Murrer 2-5, T.Holmes 2-6), Liberty 5-11 (Holland 1-1, Baker 1-2, Smith 1-2, Jenkins 1-2, Blair 1-4). Fouled Out--Bell, Brewington, Castleberry, Murrer, Porter. Rebounds--VMI 39 (Williams 10), Liberty 54 (McLean 13). Assists--VMI 22 (T.Holmes 6), Liberty 33 (Porter 7). Total Fouls--VMI 31, Liberty 29. A--4,585.