It was evident for the start that G wanted the team to have more energy. The first possession had the
best movement by the players and ball I've seen in a long long time. Then we get seven rebounds and hustled.
It's seems like forever but La Salle made 9 3's. Again G must have emphasized in practice to be aggressive offensively. Take the shot when you can. We've seen players reluctant to shoot and pass up shots. I think you could see Duren's confidence start to come back.
Garland took shots in the flow. Sam
Mills played one of the best games EVER in my opinion. He
was more aggressive, took 3's, mid-range shots and even took the ball to the basket. That's the Sam Mills I thought we would have when he came to La Salle as a highly touted guard. Now we need it for every game.
The
bigs were outstanding. Wright might have just a left hand but man is that lethal. Everyone knows he's going to use his left and he still powers up to the basket. Zack was great on the boards and had a ton of blocked shots.
Good job by officiating crew last night. Tim Kelly was former La Salle Golf coach. Had his wife and three little daughter's at the game. Lots of nice pictures I'm sure. When have you ever seen a ref go into the stands and let his daughter bounce the game ball or get hug from his daughter when leaving the court at halftime. Hey it's La Salle and it's Christmas time.
G seemed to be using the "hug 'em and love 'em" approach. It worked last night.
*****
I agree with JB, especially on the highlighted text. We zipped the ball around and players looked to advance the ball by passing in transition, not by over-dribbling. We need to continue to do that.
I also like the way players got a good number of blows and stayed fresh. G basically split 120 minutes among 5 guards, and pretty evenly so, with a slightly greater share going to TD (29), and 80 minutes among JW, SZ and Rohan (at 15, which is a good number). I think that is a pretty good formula subject to tweaking (e.g., more PT to JW over SZ when we play more athletic teams; more time if someone is on fire in a game, etc.). I think that is a smart approach and should serve as a framework. My only nit on overall coaching last night is that if the game is in a comfortable win zone, T Dunn should get more minutes. Other than that, G was awesome.