The Sports Arsenal

Since my last post on The Citadel’s basketball team, the Bulldogs have played four games. One of them was a victory (!), which broke a 12-game losing streak. Alas, The Citadel has dropped two games since then.

This isn’t going to be a long post. I just have a few brief comments on the recent action.

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Davidson 70, The Citadel 38

Okay, so Davidson is good and the Bulldogs are something less than good. Also, this game was at Davidson. Still, there is no excuse for any D-1 team not based in Lincoln Parish to average less than 0.6 points per possession for an entire game, as The Citadel did in this contest. 64 possessions, 38 points. Yeesh.

Davidson didn’t even shoot particularly well, and still won going away (and then some) thanks to 26 Bulldog turnovers, which when combined with 31% FG (3-11 from 3) resulted in an offensive debacle. The less said about this game, the better.

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The Citadel 70, Georgia Southern 55

Georgia Southern is the most SoConnish of all SoCon hoops squads, as this game came immediately after the Eagles had beaten Davidson and the College of Charleston in back-to-back contests. GSU whipped the Wildcats by 13 points and held the Cougars to 34% FG, but could not stop The Citadel’s offense.

The Bulldogs followed up a 0.59 ppp performance with a 1.23 ppp effort against the Eagles (70 points on 57 possessions). The Citadel scored more than twice as many points per possession against GSU as it did against Davidson. That may be the biggest differential in consecutive D-1 games for any team in the country this season.

Mike Groselle and Matt Van Scyoc combined for 35 points on only 19 shots, and there were several other efficient individual offensive performances.

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College of Charleston 69, The Citadel 54

The Bulldogs did not shoot the ball very well (37% FG, 22% 3FG), and when combined with being badly outrebounded (48-29), The Citadel didn’t stand much of a chance. Chuck Driesell mentioned the rebounding; I want to mention the foul disparity.

With less than three and a half minutes remaining in the game, Mike Groselle had the same number of fouls as the College of Charleston’s entire roster: 4. I’m not sure what to make of that.

Now for a commentary on a commentary…

Gene Sapakoff, writing in The Post and Courier:

Town tournament, anyone?

Simple format: Four teams, two days, two games per team.

The College of Charleston, The Citadel and Charleston Southern are locked in every year. S.C. State makes for a fine fourth, or rotate that spot with other state schools.

I vote no.

The Citadel is already committed to one in-season non-exempt tournament every year (the All-Military Classic). Playing in two of them would likely be problematic when trying to put together a manageable schedule. We’ve already seen how less-than-ideal scheduling can have a negative impact on a season (the all-road December slate).

Besides, The Citadel should be aiming for an exempt tournament (like the Charleston Classic), not one that just takes up two more games on the schedule. It seems pointless to hamstring the program for the benefit of a “local” tournament that may not appeal all that much to the locals anyway.

The Citadel can play the CofC and/or Charleston Southern every year if (and when) it wants to do so. It doesn’t need a tournament setting, with the resulting scheduling problems, to do that.

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Elon 70, The Citadel 66

This game annoyed me.

I was annoyed that The Citadel could never tie or take the lead. I was annoyed that the Bulldogs missed a layup that would have tied the game midway through the second half, which was immediately followed by an Elon three-pointer. I was annoyed by Elon’s offense, which consisted of a lot of screens (some of which were legal) to set up three-point shots (32 of the Phoenix’s 59 field goal attempts were from beyond the arc).

I was annoyed by costly unforced turnovers, particularly late in the game. One of those turnovers was a pass where the ball eventually made its way to me. That was a problem, because I was in the stands and not on the roster. (Incidentally, our basketball of choice is ‘The Rock’.)

Most of all, though, I was annoyed by the Cub Scouts.

Yes, the Cub Scouts. There was a promotion for scouts and their families for this game. To be fair, most of them spent the afternoon goofing around with each other, eating large quantities of cotton candy.

During the second half, however, four little miscreants decided it would be fun to stand in the corner rafters and shriek at Bulldog players as they attempted free throws. I should say that it’s possible two of them were not scouts, as they weren’t in uniform (two of them were).

I thought about walking up there and suggesting that they could do something else with their time, but it was obvious nobody was going to get through to them, particularly the apparent ringleader — heavy-set, wearing a white t-shirt and sporting a Harpo Marx hairdo. At least Harpo had the grace to shut up in public.

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“We’re frustrated that we’re not closing out games that we have a chance [to win].” — Chuck Driesell

The Bulldogs have been close in several of their losses (Elon, CofC at McAlister, Samford, Chattanooga). However, there is a big difference between being close and finishing the job, and that’s the step the team must now take. The Bulldogs face a stretch of winnable games: Wofford, at Furman, at UTC, at Samford, Georgia Southern.

Sure, some of those are on the road, but The Citadel’s win in Statesboro shows that the Bulldogs are more than capable of winning league games away from home.

I will be very disappointed if the Bulldogs don’t put something positive together over the next two weeks. It’s time to start winning.

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Filed under: Basketball, The Citadel | Tagged: Chuck Driesell, Davidson, Elon, Georgia Southern, Matt Van Scyoc, Mike Groselle, SoCon, The Citadel |