Who knows?

Jesse Steele and the Hawks on defense

In any event, I do have some thoughts on last night’s game. First, I can’t tell you enough how impressed I was with the Monmouth players after all of the crap that they’ve had to deal with in the last week.

I think that Quinnipiac might have been a little bit better conditioned than some of the Monmouth squad, but the Bobcats also had the ability to sub in more players more frequently. Although, I’m not sure if it was such a bad thing that Monmouth didn’t have a large pool of players to draw from on the bench. At some point last night it seemed like there was some cohesion and energy among the five active Monmouth players and part of me wants to believe that was because they were able to play together for longer periods of time. However, there was one point when Mike Myers Keitt – Monmouth’s leading scorer last night – motioned to his bench that he needed to be taken out for a moment.

But what do I know? I’m just a guy sitting in the crowd.

Tony Graham at the Hawks Nest has a good review of the game with some quotes from all of the gang. For example, since Monmouth missed five foull shots in a row, most folks who watched last night’s game came away saying, “What was the deal with those foul shots at the end?! Come on, Monmouth!” Well, Head Coach Dave Calloway addresses the foul shot issue on the Hawks Nest:

“If you make three more foul shots along the way it’s a different game,” Calloway said. “There’s lots of things we did well in the game but there’s lots of things to work on.”

And the coach is right – you sink those five foul shots in a row and Monmouth wins 75 – 73. But playing that type of second guessing game probably isn’t the most productive use of one’s time. Kevin O’Rourke over at the New Jersey Newsroom’s Pressbox put up some additional quotes from Coach Calloway including:

“We’ve had a lot of games that have gone that way this year, down to the last possession and you come up one short, one possession short,” Calloway said. “We’ll look back at the tape tonight and re-hash some of those possessions, especially the last couple of minutes. If we could have done one thing better, we win the game.”

That seems like a better use of time and efforts, don’t you think? And maybe someone can figure out how in the world Monmouth had 17 turnovers last night. Aside from those foul shots, if the team doesn’t turn the ball over so much, then you have a completely different game. Or, as one the assistant coaches kept yelling last night – if the opposition doesn’t score on the turnover, you essentially negate the impact of turning the ball over. Monmouth wasn’t able to prevent Quinnipiac from scoring on some of those turnovers and do you know what that gives you? A heartbreaking loss at home.

Anyway, below are some 44 pictures from the game last night. And hey – I normally adjust the pictures to be 800 pixels on their largest side (i.e. the pictures are never larger than 800 pixels on any one side). This time around, I tried taking pictures in a slightly different style with more zooming and less wide shots. Also, I adjusted the settings on the pictures so that the largest side is now 1024 pixels. In other words, if you’re looking for a little more detail than usual, these pictures should give you what you want. Let me know if you like the changes and I’ll keep this style of pictures for future home games. Enjoy!

And what’s worse – this is slowly spreading across the New Jersey media. I first heard about the news last night when my roommate told me that the Asbury Park Press was running a story on the suspensions. Hearing this, I went over to the Hawks Nest blog and found the linked article (which I made a comment on, by the way – more on that later). Then this morning I received an e-mail from a friend with a link to a story on the Star-Ledger’s website talking about the suspensions. I’m just waiting for the Pressbox at New Jersey Newsroom to pick up the story and then pretty much all of the sites where I go to get news on the Monmouth basketball team will be covering the story. It’s ridiculous.

The situation itself, though, is pretty pathetic and here’s why. If we believe that there is really an academic problem with these students (and I have no reason to not believe that poor academic performance is the cause for the suspensions), then you have four students who obviously just received their final grades for the fall semester and they failed. Sure, I could go on about how I graduated from Monmouth and the classes aren’t that hard and the students should be able to pass them with flying colors, etc, but that’s not only not the point, it’s also unfair to the students. But what I am pretty aggravated about is the fact that three of these kids are juniors and you don’t just magically underperform academically in your third year of college. If you made it that far in college (especially as an athlete), then you should be performing at a fairly successful level in the classroom.

However, if you’ve made it to your junior year of college and you’re not performing successfully in the classroom and you’re a student athlete, then you shouldn’t be on the team, period. But here’s the part that bothers me – someone had to see this coming with these three junior students! You mean to tell me in a big-time, Division I basketball program that plays in a $57 million building that there’s no one assigned to watch over these student athletes academically? They have no team-based tutor or some other such position that could have said to the coaching staff, “Hey – so and so on the team needs some extra study time because they’re going to fail whatever class.” That doesn’t exist? Come on!

But the biggest concern that I have about this story concerns Jordan Davis, the freshman who is suspended. What is going on at Monmouth that a young kid like Davis can’t pass his first semester classes? Typically, the first semester at Monmouth is filled with 101 or 050 (remedial) classes. These classes are really, really easy to pass because the content is so easy to grasp. Usually first semester classes are more of a test of self-confidence and college preparedness for most college students rather than a test on classroom content. And I don’t really blame Davis for his poor academic performance because if he failed some of these freshmen level classes then he clearly is in need of additional help. And if he’s in need of additional help I absolutely cannot believe that Monmouth was unaware of that fact when they asked him to come and play for them.

So where was the additional help for this young man? And where was the additional help for the three junior students? Where is the concern for a student’s academic performance? Hell, I’d be more than happy to sit down with these students and tutor them – someone needs to watch out for their best interests!

Anyway, you’ll remember that a few paragraphs up I reported that I made a comment on the Hawks Nest blog. It was in response to someone else’s comment that, I thought, was dead on accurate. Here is the comment that I responded to:

As usual, the “bunker mentality’ has taken over. Phone calls not returned etc. The spin may go something like this. “After reviewing the events of this past season which the Administration deems to have been out of his control, we will be extending Coach Callowy’s contract for an additional one year period. The Administration feels confident that Coach Calloway will continue to make the progress that was seen last year up until the unfortuante loss of personnel due to academic suspensions.”

Look, I don’t have anything against Coach Calloway or how he chooses to run his team. I’ve never been a head coach and I don’t think that I ever will be so I really don’t have much to say about any of the anti-Calloway stuff going around. But I have been an organizational leader and a public relations person that had to deal with the press and I have a lot to say about the “bunker mentality” that tends to take over every single situation at Monmouth University. Here is the response that I posted to the comment above:

jflan is right about the “bunker mentality” taking over. It’s like my fellow MU alumni and I have been saying for the last two years – there are 57 million different reasons why that bunker mentality needs to be broken at ALL levels of this school’s administrative structure. You don’t get to spend that type of money to build that type of structure and yet hold on to the quiet vestiges of yesteryear.

Time for the MU administration to grow up and answer the questions. Or… they risk keeping the school an irrelevant “hidden gem.”

Like I said in my response above – you don’t get to spend $57 million on a 4,100 seat arena and then start having media blackouts when big stories like this hit your sports teams. It’s well past time for an upgrade in the university’s administration and public relations that is on par with the upgrade in its facilities.

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!

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!

Taylor Quick Stats

It really is amazing the difference that one player can make on a team’s performance. Taylor put up almost 40% of the Hawks’ points for the night. That’s crazy. And what’s even better is that he’s only a Sophomore…

Aside from Taylor’s return after a seven game suspension, there were a lot of other things going on at last night’s game. For example, last night was the first time that the Wagner team has been to Monmouth’s campus since the end of last season, when Wagner obliterated the Hawks by 31 points in the last game played at the Boylan Gymnasium. The leading scorer for the Seahawks during that win was a guy named Joey Mundweiler (who also broke the NEC record for most three pointers in a single game during that game). Last night’s leading scorer for Wagner was Danny Mundweiler, Joey’s younger brother. Taylor commented on last year’s loss to the Asbury Park Press before last night’s game:

“Last year was embarrassing to leave Boylan like that,” Taylor said. “It’s a pride thing. You’re never supposed to lose like that, especially your last game in the gym. So this game should be taken to heart.”

And Taylor definitely took last night’s game to heart, as did the rest of the Hawks. Taylor’s career-high game was complimented by the consistency of guys like James Hett and Will Campbell, a Junior and Sophomore, respectively. When you add in the leadership of a guy like Senior Whitney Coleman and the raw talent of someone like Freshman Ed Waite, then you have a pretty formidable team in this year’s Hawks. Hett and Campbell have become two of my favorite players on the Hawks and I think that they have all of the potential in the world. Like all young athletes, I suspect that their off-season training will be key in deciding how far they go next year and into the future.

As for the total team itself, while there’s no way to know how Monmouth would have fared if Taylor wasn’t suspended for the last seven games, the Hawks still have a chance to make it to the NEC Tournament. After last night’s victory they are tied for sixth place in the NEC where only the top 8 teams make it into the conference tournament. Monmouth needs to keep on winning to stay in the playoff hunt.

I didn’t take as many pictures as usual during last night’s game. The reason for this is because due to a prior commitment I won’t be able to make Monmouth’s last home game for the season on Saturday, February 27th. So last night’s game was likely the last time I’ll see Monmouth at the MAC Center until next season and I opted to spend more time cheering for the team instead of taking pictures. I think that the pictures that I did take, though, are pretty decent – I hope you enjoy them!

Justin Sofman on Defense

However, as a Hawk fan I was glad to see our guys win. Overall, I thought the Monmouth defense was sluggish in the first half, but much better in the second half. It seemed like some of the players may have taken Bryant for granted and thus didn’t expect to be behind by almost ten points a few minutes into the game. Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that some of the Hawks didn’t seem to have their heads in the game for the first half. On that note, if you head over to The Hawk’s Nest blog on the Asbury Park Press website, you’ll see that there are some interesting “notes” for the game. One of the notes says that Dutch Gaitley started for the Hawks last night because Freshman Ed Waite came late to the pregame shoot around. Frankly, Waite’s play seemed to be affected by his not starting the game. Some of that may be age-related, but since I don’t know the entire story of why he was late to the pregame shoot around, I can’t be sure of the circumstances.

Yet it wasn’t just Waite who seemed distracted last night. Another Hawk walked off the court after being substituted out and yelled, “Fuck!” because he wasn’t happy with his performance. The same player did the same thing a little bit later in the game. That’s not acceptable. Being a college athlete is not an easy responsibility to shoulder and I understand that pressure. However, there’s little that can be said to defend a player when he walks off the court and yells “Fuck!” twice in one game.

At the end of the day, though, Monmouth is on a four game winning streak and making waves in the Northeast Conference (NEC). Their next home game is on Thursday, January 21st against Saint Francis of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, I will not be at that game because – fortunately – I will be teaching that night. I’ll be back watching the Hawks and taking pictures on Saturday, January 23rd when the Hawks take on Robert Morris – a game that will be broadcast on MSG.

Some other thoughts from the game…

One of the pictures below shows some Bryant fans with signs supporting their team. I thought that was great – even though the team is down 18 straight games, their fans are making the trips to away games and bringing signs to show their support. That’s great. I’m always impressed with Head Coach Dave Calloway and the way that he commands his team on the court. He’s got to be the hardest working coach in the NEC, hands down. Also, Travis Taylor started off the game a little bit slow, but I thought that he did a great job on defense. Take a look at one of the pictures below where Taylor blocked a Bryant player’s shot like it was no big thing. Taylor is a tough player and a great asset for the Hawks. Not enough good can be said for Will Campbell and his consistent levelheadedness under pressure. Campbell sunk five separate three point shots, two of which were in the last few minutes to seal the victory for the team. Very impressive. Some more on Campbell’s game-winning pair of three pointers from The Hawk’s Nest:

Campbell, who ended with a game high 19 points, sent Monmouth in front 64-62 connecting from the right corner with two minutes left.

With 15 seconds remaining Campbell struck again from the right wing after Monmouth coach Dave Calloway called time with seven seconds showing on the shot clock.

“Obviously on that last play there, we’re looking for Travis (Taylor) or Will,”
Calloway said. “Those were the two calls.”

Bryant (0-16, 0-4), which has lost 18 games in a row dating back to last season, double-teamed Taylor and point guard James Hett got the ball to Campbell.

“James made the right decision and went towards Will and Will hit a big shot,” Calloway said.

Below you’ll find nearly 30 pictures from last night’s game. I’ve been trying to refine the pictures a little bit more than from the first few games so that they all don’t look exactly the same (it’s a basketball game and I have a stationary seat, what do you expect?!). Enjoy.

Monmouth Wins

Some comments about the game from the official Monmouth University Athletics website:

Monmouth University posted its third straight victory with a 55-42 win over Central Connecticut State on Thursday night. Monmouth, which held CCSU to its lowest offensive output of the season, improved to 6-9 overall and 2-1 in the Northeast Conference, behind Travis Taylor’s sixth career double-double, and Justin Sofman’s game-high 14 points.

Taylor, who had just two points at the half, recorded his fifth double-double of the season, adding 10 points and 10 rebounds to the effort, while Sofman went 4-for-9 from beyond the arc off the bench.

The Blue and White, who last opened an NEC slate at 2-1 in 2006-07, last won three straight games in the same campaign, when Monmouth strung together four straight victories in late-December and early-January.

The Hawks have been excellent in conference play thus far. If they can keep up the winning momentum going into Saturday’s home game against Bryant, I think they’ll have a real chance of competing to win the Northeast Conference this season. However, it’s still early in the season to think about that stuff yet. More on the game from the The Hawk’s Nest:

Justin Sofman scored 14 points, 11 in the second half, and Will Campbell tallied 11 of his 13 in the first.

Monmouth (6-9, 2-1) won its third game in a row for the first time since a four-game streak in 2006-2007 with a 55-42 decision over CCSU before 776 fans at the Multipurpose Activity Center.

“They were doubling real hard and played real physical, that’s always a good
defense,” said Taylor who ended with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

“We tried to double down and rotate on him,” said coach Howie Dickenman of CCSU (4-9, 1-2).

“I told them (his players) ‘No strolls in the park, every time he gets the ball it’s an emergency,'” Dickenman said.

An emergency is right! In fact, all of the Hawks played very well and I thought that Head Coach Dave Calloway did a great job of rotating in some of the back up players to give his starters some rest and his second string some experience. It was good to see players like Dutch Gaitley and Nick Del Tufo playing tonight. The Monmouth team is pretty good – they have a nice core of young guys that can really be the foundation for a strong team in the coming years.

There are more than thirty pictures from the game below. I’ve been trying to hone in on some of the shots and make them look a little bit better via Photoshop and Picasa, so I hope that they are better to look at. And for the haters (P.Nuts), the reason why all of the pictures look relatively the same after each game is because I sit in the same seat and how much different is each basketball game from the next?!

One final thought. The kid who wore #24 for the Blue Devils had a tattoo that read “God’s Gift” on the back of his arms (you’ll see below in the photos). One of my roommates and I found this absolutely fascinating (hence having to take the pictures). I was dumbfounded for two reasons. First, I can’t figure out what it means. Sure, I get the whole, “I’m God’s Gift to [insert something here].” But to get that saying tattooed on the back of your arms? Really? Second, the kid wasn’t that good at all. Maybe he was just off tonight, but I wasn’t impressed at anything he had to give tonight on offense or defense. So when you add a poor performance to the inherent arrogance of suggesting that you are God’s Gift to something…well, it made me pretty confused.

Enjoy the pictures!

The final score - Rider over Monmouth

Of course, the referees weren’t the reason for the Hawks dropping the lead in the last few minutes of the game. An empowered Rider offense combined with a strong full court press defense to put some severe pressure on the Hawks. The full court press has been tough for the Hawks to combat this season and when Rider brought it out today the defensive strategy helped to foul out two of the Hawks’ leaders.

Here’s a brief recap of the game from the Associated Press:

WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. — Justin Robinson scored 13 of his 19 points in the second half as Rider rallied for a 70-63 victory over Monmouth (N.J.) on Saturday.

The game, originally scheduled for 7 p.m., was moved up to 2 p.m. because of an impending snowstorm.

The Broncs (8-5), who trailed 31-27 at the half, used a 16-5 run to turn a 46-41 deficit with 9:39 remaining into a 57-51 lead with 5:10 left.

That run was capped by three consecutive layups by Jhamar Youngblood, who played two seasons for the Hawks (3-9) before transferring and sitting out last season. Youngblood scored 14 of his 16 points in the second half.

Will Campbell scored 27 points to lead Monmouth, including 22 in the second half. Travis Taylor scored 20 for Monmouth, including nine during a 13-2 first-half run that turned an 8-2 deficit into a 15-10 lead.

Will Campbell definitely had a great game today. As the Associated Press story above reports, he scored 27 points – which also ties him for a career high. Not bad for a Sophomore; Campbell is absolutely one of the foundations on which Head Coach Dave Calloway will build the future of his team. As a fan of Monmouth basketball, that sounds great to me!

Another great storyline that played itself out during the game was the return of Jhamar Youngblood to the Monmouth University campus. Youngblood played a few seasons at Monmouth before transferring to Rider. I’m not sure of the reasons why he left the team and went to Rider, but I do know that there was a vocal section of fans at the top of the lower level across from the benches who were dogging the kid out all game. That’s what happens when you leave one team and go to another, I guess. It was definitely entertaining to watch. Almost as entertaining as listening to the fans on our side of the arena go after the referees! Seriously, though, one of the referees was absolutely horrendous.

The Monmouth team is much better than their record would show. I look for a strong showing from the Hawks in the coming weeks as 2009 comes to a close. Before I close up this post with thirty-something pictures from the game, I want to give two quick shout outs to Coach and GGL for coming along to the game! Oh, I’m experimenting with different functions on my camera and which ones are the best for taking action shots. You’ll see that some of the pictures are crisper than the ones I took at the Monmouth vs. UPenn game, but that other pictures are darker in tone. I’m working on it…

Below is a quick report from the AP on the game as well as almost 50 pictures from the game and some of my thoughts.

WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. – Travis Taylor scored 28 points and Monmouth (N.J.) earned an 80-75 victory over Penn on Saturday night.

Taylor shot 12-for-14 for the Hawks (3-7), who snapped a four-game losing streak. Whitney Coleman contributed 20 points and eight assists.

A jumper by Taylor early in the second half gave the Hawks a 58-48 lead with 13:35 remaining, but Penn went on an 11-2 run to cut the lead to 60-59 with 10:53 left.

The Quakers (0-7) would later tie the score at 73 with two free throws from Zach Rosen with 2:13 left on the clock. But Penn was unable to take the lead, as they Quakers were outscored 7-2 in the final 2 minutes.

Rosen led Penn with 23 points. He shot 7-for-12 from the field, and nailed five 3-pointers. Mike Howlett chipped in with 16 points and 10 rebounds.

Monmouth shot 52 percent from the field (26-for-50).

I’m always impressed by Whitney Coleman, Will Campbell, and Travis Taylor when I watch the Hawks play. The Hawks are really a great team whose abilities are better than their 3 and 7 record. But I think that once conference competition begins the Hawks will prove just how talented they are in the NEC.

Overall, the Hawks played well, but the Quakers weren’t so terrible and are probably a better team than their 0 and 7 record. This was the type of game that either team could have won, but it’s worth mentioning that this is also the type of game that was Monmouth’s to lose. For a while in the beginning of the second half it seemed like the Hawks were going to let their lead slip away, but the defense came alive and Monmouth maintained their lead in the final minutes. Of course, UPenn did come back to tie it up late in the game, but the Hawks succeeded in the end.

And now… Almost 50 pictures from last night’s game for you to enjoy!

The final score of the MU vs. FIU game

In my view, the Hawk players of the game were #10 Will Campbell, #25 Travis Taylor, and #5 Whitney Coleman. Taylor, in particular, was dominant for most of the night. The FIU team played aggressively with a few minutes left on the clock and I’m sure that their aggressive play with help them in future games. However, the Hawks managed to not just to win, but to win by 29 points and nearly broke the 100 point barrier in their first game of the season! It really was a great win for the basketball team and, as an alumnus of the university, it was great to see such strong (and vocal) student support. That’s the type of experience that many of my fellow alumni and I never had the opportunity to get while we were undergraduates, but I like that the current generation of students have this great facility and a great team to cheer on!

And on that point, there are a bunch of Monmouth University alumni from the late 1990’s/early 2000’s that have some degree of bitterness towards the university for a variety of reasons. As someone who was always aggravated that the college completely botched my graduation back in the spring of 2003, I have to admit that I was very impressed with the production tonight. It all went off perfectly and the entire show made me slightly proud to be from Monmouth. And for those of you that know me, you know that this statement means something else coming from my mouth! For those of you who are friends with me on Facebook, you can check out over 50 pictures from the game.

I can’t wait for the big game against Seton Hall this Sunday afternoon – if you’re in the Monmouth area you should check it out!

Mainstream Coverage of the Monmouth victory over FIU: Miami Herald | The New York Times | Asbury Park Press (PDF Download)