Game 8: Colgate

[LU65Participant]

Game Notes

LU’s

http://www.lehighsports.com/custompages/Game%20Notes/Men's%20Basketball/2015-16/19%20-%20Lehigh%20vs.%20Colgate%20Notes%20012716.pdf

KenPom

CU (10-9, 6-2) and ranked 209th
@
LU (5-13, 3-4) and ranked 244th
LU wins by 2 (72-70)

Colgate avenged an earlier loss to Holy Cross with a win up in Hamilton this past Sunday. The 6-2 Raiders appear to be for real and will ride into Stabler winners of their last four. Colgate has put away their PL opponents by 7 or more in their W’s and fell by 3 or less in their losses. If that weren’t enough, they are the only team to date to hand league–leading Bucknell a loss. And, that was out in Lewisburg! Our A-game will be needed if we expect to even-up our record at 4-4.

Perhaps the biggest challenge we face tomorrow night will be containing Colgate’s senior pg, #1 Austin Tillotson. Check-out his most recent 4-game stats below. In parentheses I have shown the equivalent numbers for Kahron Ross. It’ll be a battle worth watching.

MPG: 36 (31)
PPG: 18 (7.8)
FG%: .519 (.400)
3FG%: .473 (.125)
A/TO: 2.3 (2.3)
Steals/G: 3.7 (1.2)

If you’d like to know what some Bucknell fans think of Tillotson, go to their message board.

http://boards.basketball-u.com/showtopic.php?tid/18601/tp/2/

Another match-up of interest will be Tim and Company going toe-to-toe with CU’s 6’8” freshman center/forward Malcolm Regisford. The Raider’s first year man was recently named the PL Rookie of the Week after posting a two-game total of 30 points and 17 rebounds. The freshman has started every game for the Raiders and, like Tim, is no stranger to taking a PF or two (48 for Tim and 49 for Regisford). Both have left a game or two early this year, as well.

Tempted to look ahead, I turned the page and saw that our next four games -2 at home and 2 on the road – were against teams sporting a combined 9-21 PL record. In fact, we already own wins against two of the teams (BU and AU). Seemingly, if ever we were to get back into the PL race and lay claim to a top 4 spot in the standings come March 1, the time is now. It must begin with a win at home tomorrow night and be followed up by a solid showing (3-1, 4-0) against the next four opponents on the schedule. Making a move up the ladder over the final six games, may be difficult as it features contests at Bucknell, Navy, Colgate and Army.

Look forward to seeing fellow Board members at the game. Stop by Section 4/Row EE/Seat 1.

[travismParticipant]

I’ll be there. Same section. Same row. At the end

[LU65Participant]

This is a game you could see that Coach Reed wasn’t going to lose without a fight. He was into it from the opening whistle, not letting the slightest player mistake go unnoticed, or for that matter untold. As the offender went to the bench – much the same as he does game-in/game-out – he lectured the player (star or sub) and used the offense as a teaching moment. It was great to see and even greater to see the players’ response. It was also fun and, in my opinion, fully warranted to see the Coach go after the refs and earn himself a “Bench Warning.”

A sight for sore eyes

Seeing Numbers 13, 42 and 55, dressed in grey sweats – uniform numbers sewn on their pant legs – fist pumping, cheering along their teammates, and listening to their coaches’ instructions – as we took down Colgate. You had to wonder might have been and now think what might very well be in the 2016-17 season that lies ahead. Welcome back Matt Holba, Brandon Alston, and Caleb Sedore.

In case you missed them, here are the Post Game Comments:

Colgate Head Coach Matt Langel

“Winning on the road in the league is difficult. Lehigh is a talented team with a few very experienced players who stepped up and made plays and shots for their team when they needed it most. Austin Price was terrific tonight so we certainly tip our cap to him and his team. I thought that we got good shots on the offensive end but just didn’t make as many as we needed. We missed from the free throw line, which would have helped negate a few of their runs. We also struggled to come up with a few critical loose ball plays that led to points for Lehigh. Without Malcolm (Regisford) and Dana (Batt) in foul trouble, we had to play small lfor long stretches, which is difficult to do against Lehigh and Tim Kempton. We will certainly learn from the game and get the group ready to go for Saturday against American.”

Lehigh Head Coach Brett Reed

“I thought it was a good effort win,” said Lehigh head coach Brett Reed. “Especially towards the beginning of the game, we were pretty sharp in some of our shows on the ball. Colgate is very, very dangerous because they have (Austin) Tillotson, who is a very good player. He can shoot the ball, drive it, he’s quick and can finish. He finds his teammates. Then they have guys who will pick and pop, which we tried to neutralize. We turned them from a team who normally shoots a ton of threes and we held them down to three threes in the first half.”
“The other thing we had going for us was our shooting,” said Reed. “Jesse made shots in the first half and Austin bailed us out in the second half when our offense wasn’t terrific.”
“Right now, at least in league play, we’ve alternated wins and losses,” said Reed. “One of the challenges I had for our guys in the team room was asking if that was going to repeat. Are they content and satisfied because we won a game? We need to continue charging forward and staying focused on the results we’re looking for. Hopefully that carries over. Tonight was a good win against a team that has played well.”

I’ll let the Box Score do all the talking, other than to say it was great finally catching up with travism at the half and encourage others on the Board to meet.

[TMHParticipant]

Ashamed to say, I just made it to my first game of the season, although I know of 3-4 on the horizon I will be attending. I actually went to the doubleheader. They were almost the same game.
I liked what I saw except for the fact that TK looked pretty pedestrian. Perhaps I just wanted to see him put this team on his back. AP was awesome and clutch. He made a lot of 3s but his game has rounded out nicely. Now, we just need more consistency. There was a lot of energy tonight. The team played hard on defense, moved the ball around quite well. There was a lot of hustle to loose balls. I hadn’t noticed that before but perhaps they don’t translate well on a computer screen.
Agree with LU65, it was nice seeing the injured on the bench and into it. I hadn’t expected to see MH still on crutches and the big boot though. For some reason I thought they did the re-break back in October.
Big week for Lehigh. We beat Lafayette in men’s and women’s track, men’s and women’s swimming and women’s basketball.

[vanParticipant]

great win, but don’t see how this team will be successful with our bench, at least one of the starters is going to have to have an out of body experience every game for us to win

[RichHParticipant]

First game,I was not a nervous wreck the las 10 minutes. Biggest takeaway for me was Doc. He really pushed the squad.

[travismParticipant]

It was nice meeting you as well LU65. It seems to be a trend. When price is on. We win. I have said all year he clearly progressed the most from last year. I thought Timmy was going to have a huge night but cilgate did a good job with doubles. Good to see Brandon and them cheering on the team. Right there is our depth. People forget that Brandon had same impact last year as Kyle is this year. Pair them with holba. Look out.

[lehigh90Participant]

Nice win in a game you had to have at home. So, back to .500 at 4-4, and not crazy far out of 2nd or 3rd.

Couple minor things that struck me, away from the obvious things …

I was thrilled when we signed Jesse “The Body” Chuku out of high school. I envisioned that big, athletic body banging in the post. Dominating on the block and off the offensive glass. I was scared that he seemed to like the 3 a little too much in HS, but thought he would come around to a post game. Little disappointed that he wasn’t eligible immediately and had to sit. Now, fast forward to midway through his senior season. I’ll preface this by saying he played pretty well last night. But, 5 attempts from the floor (ALL 3’s!). Thank God he made 3 of them. That low post athletic banger I dreamed of never came to Bethlehem. We got a big, athletic 3 point shooter who plays 20 feet from the basket. And, he pulled only 3 boards, none off the offensive glass.

Turnovers were ugly last night. TK 8 turns. KL 5 turns. JG 5 turns in only 14 minutes. That is 18 empty possessions from 3 players. 21 total turnovers. Not good.

Finally, KR not having a very good season. Hasn’t made that leap from his freshman year. Two seasons left for improvement. Hope we see it.

But, we beat one of the better teams in the league. So, it’s progress.

[travismParticipant]

Chuku really irritates me at time. He could be so do so much more if he wanted to. I thought maybe with lack of bugs this year we would have seen him down low more. That’s not his game tho. Standing at the three point line is what he does. Very lazy on defense a good portion of games. Also never gets to the foul line. He is also out of position a lot of times on defense as well. Timmy yelled at him two times last night about not knowing where to be. Also got benched less then min of not game due to a breakdown on a def assignment. Very frustrating player to watch. Could be so much more

[toddcuddParticipant]

Finally ready to post on this one – a bunch of thoughts.

AP was great. Man, it’s nice to see how his game has developed. That step-back? Did you see that? Brand new to me! He mentioned in post-game that he’d been watching a lot of film – CJ film, maybe? If he can keep rolling, things are looking up. Full arsenal now – goes to the rack confidently, floater, threes, step-back. Great stuff.

Flip-side: turnovers continue to be gross. A few thoughts there – KL shouldn’t be a secondary ball-handler. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I see overall. But he’s a bit reckless, and shouldn’t handle any more than he has to. TK’s 8 TOs is shocking. IMO, that’s not all on him. Nobody on ‘gate could guard him, so they doubled and tripled him. MUST have an answer to that. SOMEBODY has an easy look. Fix that, coaches.

Very happy to see the game that TJ had. He’s very solid with the ball, and it was great to see him hit a couple of shots. They were big in this game, too. Let’s let him handle the ball when KR and AP don’t have it.

re: JC. I agree with a lot of your observations, Travis. & 90. But honestly, I think the expectation problem is on us, not him. We saw a big, muscular, bouncy guy and came to our own conclusions. I’m right there, on that. In truth though, I suspect that the staff knew what they were getting – a 3-pt shooter. We should have known too, given his prep-school numbers. Somebody here made that clear too (bum, 65?). We have to accept that. If he’s 6’9″ with good ups and paint game – he probably wouldn’t be at LU. My only gripe with staff is playing him at the 4. If they know what he is – play somebody else at 4. You guys know what I have in mind there.

[toddcuddParticipant]

p.s. I thought this game was unusually “chippy”, in football-speak. Tillotson looked like a punk, as did others. I saw TK shove somebody on the way back, and was surprised – hadn’t seen that before. Checking in on bucky board, i shouldn’t have been. My impression is that they are $h!t-talking punks. Glad we spanked ’em.

[Bison137Participant]

[quote=25069]p.s. I thought this game was unusually “chippy”, in football-speak. Tillotson looked like a punk, as did others. I saw TK shove somebody on the way back, and was surprised – hadn’t seen that before. Checking in on bucky board, i shouldn’t have been. My impression is that they are $h!t-talking punks. Glad we spanked ’em.

[/quote]

Tillotson is definitely a trash-talking punk. One of my least favorite players ever to put on a PL uniform.

[Author]

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