Jesse Steele on defense

Your best review of the game including post-game quotes from the Hawks head coach Dave Calloway and some of the players will come from Tony Graham at The Hawks Nest. Here is a quote from Jordan Davis that appeared on The Hawks Nest after the game tonight. I think Davis’ quote pretty much sums up the game tonight:

“We just never give up,” Davis said. “We keep fighting and we keep fighting. Today was a perfect example. We came back and finished it up.”

I have a bunch of comments that I’d like to make about this game on a variety of topics, but I’m exhausted and I have to be awake early in the morning to get to work. The two comments that I’ll make right now before I turn in, though, is that Phil Wait had a monster game tonight and I use the term “monster” because I think tonight was the first time that I saw him really dominate on defense. Here’s a guy who is some seven feet tall and the idiots on Bryant’s squad were dumb enough to run directly into him. If I’m not mistaken, that happened twice and both time the poor fool that ran into him fell on their ass with no foul called. The second time it happened I said to my buddy, “That’s what happens when you run directly into a brick wall.”

Here’s hoping that Wait has more performances like he had tonight against the rest of the Northeast Conference competition.

The second comment that I’ll make is that I love when the Hawks get focused and aggressive in their play. Going into the second half, I think it was obvious to any fan watching that something changed in the team’s play. As a guy who played sports at a highly competitive level, I’m always looking for that type of aggressive and diligent performance from the athletes. Sometimes it’s hard to find that with the Hawks (especially during the first half of their home games). However, the Hawks that played in the second half of tonight’s game were focused and aggressive and it showed. They outscored Bryant 36 to 9 in the last 18 minutes of the game.

That’s something to be proud of and the Hawks should be proud of their performance in the second half tonight.

Below are some 36 pictures from tonight’s game. Sorry, no captions right now since I’m rushing to get to bed. I’ll try to come back tomorrow with some additional thoughts on the game embedded within this post. Check back tomorrow after 5pm to see if I have any additional thoughts and some of the captions for these pictures. In the mean time, enjoy!

Mercifully, the game ended

The Hawks were 1 for 19 three point attempts. Ahem… That’s ONE for NINETEEN attempts! Look, everyone in the arena tonight “got it” – the team was down by a significant margin and the best way to gain ground is to get 3 points at a time instead of 2. But when you’re 1 for 5 from three point territory or 1 for 10 or 1 for 15 or 1 for 19, I would think you stop and say, “Ummm, let’s change this strategy. This three point shot stuff ain’t working!”

Then again, the Hawks couldn’t sink a basket for their lives tonight. From the great Tony Graham over at the Asbury Park Press blog The Hawks Nest: “Monmouth shot 25.5 percent (13-for-51) in the game and 1-for-19 from downtown.”

Really? Only 25.5 percent?! Good grief!

Anyway, I’m glad that non-conference play is over and that Monmouth is has some time to lick their wounds before getting into Northeast Conference competition against Bryant in early January. In the mean time, here are some forty pictures from tonight’s game. Look for captions later tomorrow. Enjoy!

What’s an alumnus to do?! Who’s an alumnus to root for?!

The Monmouth Mob Actually Showed Up

Well, as you might imagine I opted to root for Monmouth since it feels a little bit more natural to me. Also, I think I have more of a connection with Monmouth (good or bad). Although no matter what the outcome of the game, I knew that I was leaving the game with my alma mater winning!

But tonight’s game was an interesting one at the MAC Center in West Long Branch, New Jersey. Not only were there a bunch of red shirts in the crowd, but there was a crowd in the first place! Tony Graham over at the Asbury Park Press says that there were 2,852 fans in attendance and I wouldn’t doubt it at all. That building was jumping! Personally, I’m looking forward to this Wednesday night’s game against Villanova which I heard is completely sold out. That’s a 4,200 seat arena that is sold out – should be fun to watch.

Back to tonight’s game.

I was very impressed with the level of competitiveness that Monmouth played with early on tonight, but that would seem to for the Hawks’ style. When the Hawks play against bad teams, they play down to their level. When they play against good teams, they play up to their level. Being so inconsistent isn’t a good thing for any sports team and I wish that Monmouth would just play their game each time they take the court instead of acting like this weird chameleon type of team. Mr. Graham at the APP’s Hawks Nest had a quote from RJ Rutledge regarding Monmouth not playing their style of game in the latter part of the game:

“We hung in with them for most of the game,” Rutledge said. “It’s just that at the end we let the turnovers get to us and we didn’t keep on playing our game.”

The other major issue that bothered me tonight was that the final score didn’t reflect the level of competition that Monmouth played with for most of the game. When you see that Rutgers scored some 79 points to Monmouth’s 56 points, you think, “Wow. Monmouth got blown out.” The truth is that they didn’t get blown out at all and that certain players like RJ Rutledge, Ed Waite, and Nick Del Tufo had phenomenal games tonight. Sure, Del Tufo needs to keep his level of aggression up on defense, but he was one of the stars for Monmouth tonight. I will admit that the final score, though, definitely captured the feeling of the game in the last 5 or 6 minutes.

And that’s the final issue that bothered me about tonight’s game. As a fan sitting in the stands and having played competitive sports against all different types of skill levels of opponents, I’m pretty good at telling when a team packs it in and calls it a day. Somewhere with 4 or 5 minutes left in the second half, it really appeared like Monmouth packed it in and called it a day and that’s a damn shame. I don’t deny that Monmouth was outmatched in terms of skill, but I do believe that if Monmouth was playing at their best and playing their style of game – well, they may have had a chance of beating this Rutgers team tonight.

Here’s hoping that Monmouth can keep their level of aggressive, competitive play up for the Villanova game this Wednesday. If they can believe that a victory can happen, then you never know – something great might happen on Wednesday night.

After double overtime - the Hawks win!

But I digress…

The game on Saturday night was awesome. Even though these aren’t the two most talented teams out there or the two most successful teams playing in either of their conferences, they managed to make an otherwise uneventful game pretty exciting. After about thirteen minutes of play, Monmouth was down 15 – 0. As most of the fans sitting around me were saying, “Is this a college basketball game or are we at some high school game?” How does a team not score a point on its home court for the majority of the first half?

Well, I’m not sure how they don’t score a point for so long, but I am sure about how they come back and win the game. They give the ball to Gary Cox. This kid is probably someone that you haven’t read much about in the local sports media and that’s because he hasn’t had the opportunity that he had the other night. Cox scored 23 points for the Hawks, who eventually came back to win the game 78 – 74. It was an absolutely amazing performance by Cox and the Hawks and a pretty horrendous outcome for Hartford. The Hartford team had some tough guys, but the Hawks played tough the entire game and, especially, during the second half. As a fan watching in the stands, I think the Hawks managed to just overwhelm the Hartford guys in the end.

Tony Graham over at the Asbury Park Press posted a great article reviewing the game. In his article he has some quotes from Head Coach Dave Calloway and some of the players. This comment from Cox stood out to me:

We didn’t have any points when were were down 15 but I still thought we were in the game. I know how hard we play defense and we were going to score some points sooner or later. When I came in I just wanted to run the offense and try not to force anything.

And that’s how you win a basketball game after being down by 15 points. You give the ball to Cox, let him run the offense for a little while, and keep playing an aggressive style of defense. Let’s see if it works again…

Below are some 40 pictures from game day. I hope you enjoy!

Jordan Davis and Marcus Ware

Imagine that – a smart move by someone from Princeton. Ha!

You can get a great review of the game and some post-game quotes from Tony Graham over at The Hawks Nest. For example, Mr. Graham has quotes from Coach Dave Calloway regarding how the Hawks coaching staff made some adjustments at halftime that put the defense on better footing against a very tight Princeton offense. What I also like about Mr. Graham’s post-game article is that he has quotes from the Hawks players. Like this one from Hett:

“Coach (Dave Calloway) trusts us to come down and make a good read,” Hett said. “I don’t think I made the best read. They kind of ran a couple of guys at me.”

And Hett is correct – as the strongest offensive player for the Hawks, Princeton made sure to put additional defenders on him when he came down the court. Frankly, that’s to be expected at this point. Speaking of the most impressive Hawks on the court, this Jordan Davis (#10) is a pretty solid player. He could easily become one of the big fan favorites if he keeps up the hard work and keeps up his tenacity in future games. He had a very impressive outing tonight.

In any event, as a fan I was very pleased with how the Hawks played in the second half and I hope that they keep that type of intensity going throughout the entire contest in future games. Enjoy the 36 pictures below – including a Santa Claus sighting!

James Hett Winning the Game

Twice during the game Monmouth’s Ed Waite threw up on the floor. In fact, the first time he yacked it appeared that he splashed the basketball a little bit. While I didn’t see the first upchuck, I definitely saw both shots of his second oral expulsion and it was gross. The best part of the vomiting fiasco was that after Waite threw up for the first time and the officials called for an official timeout, Head Coach Dave Calloway was overheard immediately asking the referee if it was still the team’s ball. Hilarious! That’s a man who keeps his eye on the prize, eh?

Bear with me, I’m trying to get all of the possible ways to say “vomit” out in this one entry. Unfortunately, I’m not as professional about discussing Waite emptying his stomach as someone like Tony Graham at the Asbury Park Press, who eloquently wrote, “sophomore forward Ed Waite took sick on the floor.” Graham is good; I’m just trying to find new ways to say vomit.

Aside from the vomit, it appeared that the Hawks were outmatched for a good portion of the game. However, through a few good stretches of play, they were able to position themselves well enough to win the game. What struck me was how the gigantic center from England, Phil Wait, played during the game. It just seemed to me like there was something off in his game tonight. And I’m not sure, but I also got the distinct feeling that by the second half of the game Wait’s teammates were trying to find ways to play around him.

Now, by no means am I an expert on basketball so take this next statement for what it is, which is a fan making an observation. However, I’m boggled about Wait’s actions on the floor. It seems to me that if you’re 7′ 2″ that you should be under the basket at all times. You should be the lead the team in rebounds and, frankly, you should probably be among the top scorers since you’d likely be putting the ball directly in the basket with each rebound. It doesn’t appear that Wait does any of that too often. In fact, if you look at the box score for tonight’s game, Wait had less rebounds than any of the other starting five.

And it’s not like he wasn’t near the bottom of the basket, rather he was just too far away from the basket to make a difference. There were routinely two or even three guys between him and the hoop when he was going up for rebounds. He also seems to be a very lateral player in that he likes to reach forward when the other team takes a shot. Shouldn’t a guy that tall be putting those massive arms up in the air and jumping to block the shot?

Whatever, I’m just a fan watching a game making an observation.

I hope you enjoy some of the 40+ pictures below. This game was a lot of fun to attend and even though I can’t find an official number on the attendance tonight, I would assume that all of the folks who were there would agree that it was a fun game to watch.

Hawks Fans Distract SBU Player

Overall, I thought that the Hawks played well this morning. There were moments when it felt like the team was ready to break out and go on a scoring run, but the momentum never materialized for a long enough period of time to make anything major happen. I’m sure that the fact the game started at 6am EST had something to do with the team’s inability to keep the momentum fueled for a long period of time, but then again they were playing against a decent Stony Brook defense.

I was impressed by the team’s new center, Phil Wait. In case you didn’t hear about it over the summer, Coach Dave Calloway recruited Wait from jolly old England. I was trying to think of something clever to yell out during the game to mimic what they might say over in England when someone does something good. I figured instead of yelling, “Good job!” maybe I could yell something like, “Jolly good show!” but it sounded too weak. Anyway, what do they say in England when you do a good job?

James Hett also played very well as did Will Campbell – two of the returning starters from last year. Those guys are great basketball players and it would have been nice to see Campbell play a little bit more in the last few minutes of the game. With respect to the last few seconds of the game where Monmouth opted to go for three point shots when they probably would have been better offer just going for a two point shot, Coach Calloway had the following to say to The Hawks Nest after the game:

We had one (a time out). We did what we normally do. I just think if you have an opportunity to go, six seconds is enough time to get down (court), kind of in a scramble mode. I think you have a better chance of getting a good look than if you let the defense get set. So we went with it. I don’t know if we got great look but we got a look. I don’t know if we would have gotten a much better look with six seconds left. Maybe, maybe not.

RJ Rutledge – the player who took the last shot of the game – had this to say about the final shot of the game:

It was a double weave and a hand off. That’s the side I like to shoot from. I came off the screen , the shot felt good, It felt like my best shot all day. Everything felt good, my mechanics, I got a look straight on. It just didn’t go my way.

Anyway, I took some pictures with both my camera and my BlackBerry during the game. They’re all listed out below for you to take a look at when you have a moment. As always, click on the picture for a larger view (and click again on the new page for an even larger view). Some of these pictures may look pretty small in size, but I actually have much larger versions saved on my computer – just in case anyone wants to see a much larger version of any picture. Enjoy!

Pretty cool, huh? What’s even cooler is that Google has a function where I can install this calendar over my existing Google Calendar. It’s great!

That’s pretty crazy.

This, of course, means that I’ll be at that game in my first row seats bright and early at 6:00am. It also means that I’ll be getting up at about 4:30am that morning so I can be at the Varsity Club pregame area by 5:00am when it opens. Then from the game I’ll walk over to Bey Hall, teach the 8:30am course that I’m teaching this semester, and then head over to Trenton to go to work until I head back to Monmouth in the evening to teach my 6:00pm class. Talk about a full day!

These early morning games are pretty fun and a good way to get national exposure. However, as a big supporter of college athletes (and student athletes at all levels of education, really), I know that these games add an extra layer of stress to the players. Forget about the fact that the game is being broadcast on ESPN and, thus, all around the world; these students are waking up at an unreal hour and prepping themselves to get ready to play against some stiff competition. Add on the fact that it’s going to be the home opener and the pressure only continues to mount. I wish these guys the best of luck.

Anyway, I’ll be nice and bitter by the time I get to that 6:00pm class at night!

Taylor originally chose Boston College this summer but said (on the link we posted here) those plans didn’t work out. Xavier came into the picture soon afterward, and he gave his commitment after visiting the school this weekend and talking things over with his family.

He said he chose XU over Cincinnati, Miami U. and Arizona State.

“I picked Xavier for various reasons,” Taylor said. “I like the school a lot. It’s the kind of campus I’d been looking for, not too small and not too big. The coaches communicate very well and they had a good presentation to me. Players listen to them. And Xavier is a team that always wins.”

Maybe we can finally put an end to this odd chapter both in this young man’s life and in Monmouth University men’s basketball history. JerseySmarts.com wishes Taylor luck at Xavier University. And we’re really looking forward to getting back in the MAC Center for the coming basketball season!