So last night was a big STFU from the Drakies to all of the naysayers out there that think this will be a boring year. Josh Young led Drake with 34 points and also added 6 boards as Drake took down MoHead State 86-70. Josh shot 10-17 from the field, but more remarkably, he was 7-11 from behind the arc. The 34 points shattered his previous career high (he scored 25 at Butler last year). Bill Eaddy came off the bench to pour in 17 points in 22 minutes, and Bucky Cox quietly added a solid 10 and 6. Overall, as a team, Drake shot 51.0% from the field and an sizzling 55.6% from three point range. It’s hazy but for some reason I recall late in the second half that Josh Young was even 1-3 on punting the ball, Sean Landetta style, from 35 feet – having one soar through the air and hit nothing but the bottom, that’s how great the shooting was going for us. For MoHead, Maze Stallworth dropped a team high 26 points and snagged a game high 8 rebounds. When Drake went on their run in the second half, Stallworth was pretty much the guy that kept MoHead in the game, shooting 7-16 from the three for the game.
Most importantly, we saw one heck of an exciting half from Drake basketball. While it surely wasn’t against the most top notch of competition (Morehead State finished 233 in the RPI last year and is already in the 300s this year), you have to be kidding yourself if you don’t think fifteen threes (and twenty-five combined between the two teams) is fun to watch. In a flash, we went from a slow, awkward offensive unit to a long range sniping unit – led by some great shooting. Ball movement was much improved, shooting was much improved, offense was much improved.
The most exciting part of the game was the fact that for about a twenty minute stretch, Josh Young looked like a man amongst boys. It’s not meant as an insult to any of our guys or to any of MoHeads guys – there just was honestly nobody on the court playing anywhere near the level Josh was for a good stretch of the game. I had flashbacks to the Dave Chappelle show with the “Charlie Murphy story” about playing Prince in basketball. Everything Josh threw up I just wanted to yell “Good” and stare into Charlie Murphy’s face, just like Prince did when he was dominating Charlie Murphy and his friends. I guess the least we could do is offer MoHead State some pancakes before they leave town…
There still sure are things to work on (we gave up some easy baskets on defense, did not score enough points in the, and we can’t rely on 34 from Young every game [or can we?!?!?]), but we sure had a step forward from the first game and the potential is there. Phelps pretty much said the same in the post game interview on Mediacom.
And that brings me to a brand new segment of the blog, Play Him!!!
- Bill Eaddy. Bill has always been somewhat of a thankless player on the team, getting little clock, doing the things that you need guys to do (jump in for loose balls, take a charge, grab a timely board, etc…). He really broke out last night with a huge game. While I think it’s unreasonable to expect double digit scoring from Bill consistently, I do think it fair to realize that he can do one thing pretty well (shoot the three) and a bunch of things okay (rebound, play reasonably solid defense, pass the basketball, etc…). He’s not another Josh Young, he’s not Bucky Cox, but is it that unrealistic to think he can fill in for Korver while Templeton gets more comfortable on the offensive end of the floor? As far as I’m concerned, Templeton is supposed to be the better player -- and he definitely showed some flashes in the pre-season. But until he settles down and plays consistently during the season, why wouldn’t you play Bill 25-30 minutes each game? We need another guy who can stretch defenses and open up penetration for Stanley or space for Bucky/Heems… Bill can do that. Play Him!!!
- Josh Parker. While Stanley’s numbers were strong last night (9 points, 7 assistisses), Josh’s were just as efficient (7 points, 4 assistisses) when you consider that he played 13 minutes to Stanley’s 31. Overall, I think it’s just easy to see that Josh Parker adds an element Stanley does not have. He looks like a more confident shooter and has an extra gear to get around players that Stanley hasn’t showed against D1 competition. I’ve said this a number of times, but he reminds me of a shorter Leonard Houston in that he’s extremely athletic and you have to respect his drive – if he can take the step Leonard did and get the ability to consistently shoot the three, I think you have someone in a similar mold. Regardless, Play Him!!!
Besides random bitching, I do have to give props to Coach Phelps for really getting the guys out and running and opening it up. I like how the confidence sure seemed to turn around in the game and it seems like he got this team to take a step forward. While we can’t expect fifteen threes every single night, I think we are definitely seeing the potential of this team. There's going to be some growing pains, it might take time, but this team is absolutely dangerous when they are hitting on all cylinders.
Get fired up for South Dakota State, preview to coming up tomorrow or Saturday…
first off, im reading the play him section and hearing you write play him with Stephen A Smith emphasis, please correct me if I'm wrong.
ReplyDeletesecondly, my cousin goes to MoHead, and I will be making her make me pancakes, cause she put up a big 0-fer losing in football, basketball, and backyard 4th of july rimbey BBQ bocci ball, and a performance that bad doesnt even deserve a small stack.
finally, i wanted to say that maze stallworth kept running into dead ends trying to find his way to the hoop on wednesday, i didnt watch the game so i dont know if thats true, i just really wanted to use that awesome pun i thought of since it involves finding a way to something and the only player on a team we play this year with the name Maze
Yeah it's supposed to be in an angry, bitching tone. Come to think of it, Stephen A Smith is the perfect example of a voice you should imagine of while you read that section...
ReplyDelete