I made the mistake of waiting more than a couple days to write a
game recap for George Washington. Let’s never do that again (after this spate of recaps) and never
discuss why there won’t be a GW recap and just go over SMU, shall we?
1.) The Flying Dutchmen looked like a team that lost four
key players less than 36 hours before the tip. SMU, which probably would have
easily handled a full Dutchmen team, raced out to a 10-0 lead and led by at
least six the rest of the way. The Dutchmen’s effort rarely waned, and an 11-2
run spanning the two halves narrowed the gap to 10 in the first half-minute
into the second half, but the
Mustangs immediately mounted a 24-7 run and later scored 12 in a row after the
Dutchmen pulled within 18 with 5:48 to play.
2.) The Dutchmen trailed wire-to-wire for the third straight
game and played like an exhausted, undermanned and frustrated team in missing a
bunch of point-blank shots and shooting 25.9 percent, the lowest shooting
percentage in a game since the Dutchmen shot 25 percent in a 77-46 loss to Old
Dominion on Mar. 1, 2003. Taran Buie was 3-of-13, Stevie Mejia was 3-of-9 and
the trio of David Imes. Moussa Kone and Darren Payen were a combined 3-of-21
with one field goal apiece. The Dutchmen’s shooting struggles extended to the
free throw line, where they were just 12-of-24. Frustrations also appeared to
boil over when the Dutchmen were whistled for two intentional fouls, including
one on walk-on Matt Grogan, who responded by kicking one of the panels along
press row in between the two benches. The referees seemed to take sympathy on
the Dutchmen in not immediately giving Grogan a technical.
3.) The men’s basketball program will be paying the price
for the knuckleheaded actions of the four departed players for years to come.
One immediate effect: The much-sooner-than-anticipated debut of Payen, who was
supposed to redshirt this season but has been pressed into action because the
Dutchmen have no other bodies. He was predictably shaky in his first game
action in at least eight months, but with five rebounds and two blocks, Payen
showed the talent that had Mo Cassara confident he could be a member of the
CAA’s All-Rookie team next year.
4.) Payen wasn’t the only player to make his debut for the
Dutchmen. Freshman walk-on Adam Savion entered late in the second half and hit
three free throws. Grogan set a career-high with seven points, which means the
Dutchmen had two walk-ons score in the same game for the first time since I
started paying attention in 1993-94. Yay?
5.) Grogan, the only Dutchmen with multiple 3-pointers, was
one of the few bright spots, as was junior Stephen Nwaukoni, who returned after
a two-game absence for personal reasons and pulled down a team-high eight
rebounds in 27 minutes. Nwaukoni is still an inconsistent player on offense,
but he’s grown increasingly reliable on the boards with at least five rebounds
in 21 of his last 27 games. Buie scored 10 points and pulled down seven
rebounds while Mejia had 11 points, three assists and three steals.
6.) The one cool thing about an otherwise awful couple days
was getting to ask SMU coach Larry Brown—whose return to his native New York
was rendered a sidebar by the Hofstra debacle—about his connections to Hofstra,
most of which were pretty obscure (hey, coming up with obscure connections to
Hofstra is what I do here).
The obvious link between Brown and Hofstra was sitting
courtside. Dutchmen icon Speedy Claxton was the 76ers’ first-round draft pick
in 2000, when Brown was the 76ers’ head coach.
“One of my favorite guys,” Brown said at his press
conference. “And in spite of that serious knee injury he had a heckuva career.
I wish he had some eligibility left. I wouldn’t be so nervous before games.”
(Me too)
While living in Philadelphia, Brown became close friends
with Jay Wright, who (duh) of course coached Claxton at Hofstra before he
headed to Villanova. Brown credited Wright with keeping him sane—at the very
least—during the almost 16 months he was out of work after getting fired by the
Charlotte Bobcats and before he took the SMU job.
“He was a tremendous advocate of mine and helped me get
where I am,” Brown said. “I over-praise him, but I think he saved my life in a
lot of ways, just allowing me to be part of basketball after I got fired from
Charlotte.”
Later, we asked Brown about what we thought was his first
game as coach at UCLA—the Bruins’ 90-71 win over the Flying Dutchmen (who
ACTUALLY were called the Flying Dutchmen back then!) on Dec. 1, 1979 (exactly
33 years to the day before his second game against Hofstra).
Turns out that was the second game of his UCLA tenure: The
Bruins beat Idaho State the night before. The game against the Bruins was the season
opener for Hofstra in Joe Harrington’s only year at the helm.
Brown remembered “…there was a kid from Long Beach” on
Hofstra—David Taylor, who held the school record for most blocked shots in a
career until Greg Washington broke it in 2010.
Brown also said he “couldn’t believe I was the coach of
UCLA,” which went on to reach the national title game. It was the first (and so
far only) time in program history the Flying Dutchmen faced a team that reached
the national title game (THANK YOU 2006 FLORIDA).
Brown began his nomadic coaching career with the ABA’s
Carolina Cougars from 1972-74. In his second season at the helm, he coached
against former (and future) Hofstra coach Butch van Breda Kolff, who was with
the Memphis Tams. The press conference following the SMU game was held in the
Physical Fitness Center, where van Breda Kolff roamed the sidelines during his
second stint with the Dutchmen, after which he was replaced by Wright.
See? All connected.
“I was a big Butch and Petey Carill fan,” Brown said,
referring to the long-time Princeton coach who played under van Breda Kolff at
Lafayette. “They were special guys.”
3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. SMU 12/1)
3: Taran Buie
2: Stevie Mejia
1: Matt Grogan
SEASON STANDINGS***
10: Taran Buie
7: Stevie Mejia
4: Moussa Kone
3: Stephen Nwaukoni
2: David Imes
1: Matt Grogan
***21 points vacated
Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com
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