Lipscomb barely beat Lamar today, but Lipscomb is the preseason favorite to to win the Atlantic Sun and came close to getting an NCAA tournament bid in 2019, losing the championship game to co-regular season titlist Liberty, which went on to knock off Mississippi State in the first round. Lipscomb lost to Liberty in the championship game again last year but finished 16-16 and was not a contender in the regular season.
Gabe Watson suffered a concussion and lost a tooth in a collision late in the second half against Lamar, and Ron Hunter said after the game he was very unlikely to be ready to play Sunday. It will be interesting to see how the Wave plays after having an awful first half against Lamar when no one appeared able to get calm but rebounding to win comfortably.
Here was my Zoom call with Hunter after the game. No one else was on it.
"I'm glad it's over with. I've never seen a young group a nervous as my group was in the first half, but one of the things I said I didn't want to do this year opening up because we've got such a young team--11 of our 14 I think are freshmen or sophomores--I didn't want to play a veteran group that has veteran guards that had played a game already, and we were able to get all of that. I thought Lamar did a good job, but I'm proud of our kids. The freshmen (Sion James, Tylan Pope and Jadan Coleman) did a nice job for the first time playing college basketball. You can see those guys are going to be good players. The thing that surprised me was our transfers (Jaylen Forbes, Watson, Kevin Cross, Oton Jankovic) were the ones who were probably over-excited, and so we just couldn't make a basket. But both halves, our goal is always to keep teams to 30 points in a half, and we did that. The defense kept us in it in the first half until our offense got going. I thought Jadan coming in and making those 3s, we kind of got going when he started making those bombs. We needed to see the ball get through the basket, and it allowed us to set up our press. We did a lot of little things that better basketball teams don't do, but these young guys will figure it out, so I'm proud of them. I would rather play a game like this we these young guys than win by 20 thinking they are better than they are. They realized today what college basketball is all about, and I was really proud of how they were able to fight and come back and do it defensively."
Forbes hit a 3 at one point and then launched from like 30 feet the next time down the court and did not come close. Did he just need to settle down because we got to see what he could do in the second half?
"Yeah, there's no question, all of them, I've been coaching a long time, but I've never had so many guys anxious and going so fast. We were running past balls. We weren't picking up loose balls and it almost felt like if the ball touched their fingers, they had to shoot. We just talked about settling into the game. They have to learn how the game has to slow down. You can do everything you want in practice and it doesn't even matter. They've got to get game experience. Even Forbes, he didn't play a lot last year at Alabama. We've got to get him where the game has to slow down, and I thought in the second half the game slowed down for him."
You weren't kidding about Jadan Coleman's shooting ability. The first four 3s he took all hit the bottom of the net.
"He can really shoot it. He can't guard my mom, your mom, anybody's mother, but he can really shoot that basketball. He's a weapon coming off the bench and it really kind of gets our team going. When he hit those couple shots, it really energized our team and he's going to be a big part of what we do this year."
Tylan Pope had a double-double off the bench. How critical is he going to be for your team?
"He's huge. He's our physicality. He hasn't played college basketball and we weren't rebounding the ball like I thought. The two things we really wanted to improve on this year were rebounding and 3-point shooting, and you can see we are a better 3-point shooting team. In the second half we only gave up two offensive rebounds, but that's what we've got to get. T.Y. (Pope's nickname) is a big reason for that. Nobal (Days) is not a great rebounder but he understands our defense, but T.Y. and we have bigger guards now coming down to help rebound. Overall, I'm not even worried about the score. I told the kids the only score that matters is 1-0, but I'm really glad how these kids came together. We had a deficit. We haven't had a deficit in practice. You can't get a deficit in practice, so this was really good for me and good for our team. You never want to be down at half, but I learned more today about my team than I probably had since we've been in quarantine. Now our offense is still in quarantine. Don't get me wrong. Our offense is still in quarantine. I think we've got another day for our offense to get out of quarantine, then we're going to be fine."
You used the press a lot today, something you couldn't do last year. How much will that help?
"Last year it was hard to put my whole system in. We probably had about 45 percent of the system. This year with the presses and the traps, we've got everything in. We can do a lot more things. There were about four or five more defenses I wanted to play, but we were having so much success with the press that I didn't use them, but our length and our athletic ability allows us to play a lot of defenses and presses. That's what really excites me. These kids are going to be fine. Even in the locker room, they were going 100 miles an hour before the game. I couldn't slow them down. It was one of the craziest scenes I've ever seen."
Quick turnaround for Sunday. Do you like to see how they respond to that?
"Yeah, we do. We're probably going to have to play without Gabe. He has a concussion, so he's probably going to be out. He's lost a tooth, so they are taking him to the hospital with a doctor right now to get him checked out, so we're down one guard, but I feel like we've got a lot of different guys. We needed a second half like this and we are going to play a different type of team on Sunday, so we just have to turn around and get prepared. I like this better now. Now I know my team, and we need games. One thing this team needs is game experience."
Watson lost a tooth?
"Yeah, he lost a tooth. The concussion's probably the bigger thing right now, the thing we're most concerned with. He'll be fine, but we probably won't see him on Sunday."
Gabe Watson suffered a concussion and lost a tooth in a collision late in the second half against Lamar, and Ron Hunter said after the game he was very unlikely to be ready to play Sunday. It will be interesting to see how the Wave plays after having an awful first half against Lamar when no one appeared able to get calm but rebounding to win comfortably.
Here was my Zoom call with Hunter after the game. No one else was on it.
"I'm glad it's over with. I've never seen a young group a nervous as my group was in the first half, but one of the things I said I didn't want to do this year opening up because we've got such a young team--11 of our 14 I think are freshmen or sophomores--I didn't want to play a veteran group that has veteran guards that had played a game already, and we were able to get all of that. I thought Lamar did a good job, but I'm proud of our kids. The freshmen (Sion James, Tylan Pope and Jadan Coleman) did a nice job for the first time playing college basketball. You can see those guys are going to be good players. The thing that surprised me was our transfers (Jaylen Forbes, Watson, Kevin Cross, Oton Jankovic) were the ones who were probably over-excited, and so we just couldn't make a basket. But both halves, our goal is always to keep teams to 30 points in a half, and we did that. The defense kept us in it in the first half until our offense got going. I thought Jadan coming in and making those 3s, we kind of got going when he started making those bombs. We needed to see the ball get through the basket, and it allowed us to set up our press. We did a lot of little things that better basketball teams don't do, but these young guys will figure it out, so I'm proud of them. I would rather play a game like this we these young guys than win by 20 thinking they are better than they are. They realized today what college basketball is all about, and I was really proud of how they were able to fight and come back and do it defensively."
Forbes hit a 3 at one point and then launched from like 30 feet the next time down the court and did not come close. Did he just need to settle down because we got to see what he could do in the second half?
"Yeah, there's no question, all of them, I've been coaching a long time, but I've never had so many guys anxious and going so fast. We were running past balls. We weren't picking up loose balls and it almost felt like if the ball touched their fingers, they had to shoot. We just talked about settling into the game. They have to learn how the game has to slow down. You can do everything you want in practice and it doesn't even matter. They've got to get game experience. Even Forbes, he didn't play a lot last year at Alabama. We've got to get him where the game has to slow down, and I thought in the second half the game slowed down for him."
You weren't kidding about Jadan Coleman's shooting ability. The first four 3s he took all hit the bottom of the net.
"He can really shoot it. He can't guard my mom, your mom, anybody's mother, but he can really shoot that basketball. He's a weapon coming off the bench and it really kind of gets our team going. When he hit those couple shots, it really energized our team and he's going to be a big part of what we do this year."
Tylan Pope had a double-double off the bench. How critical is he going to be for your team?
"He's huge. He's our physicality. He hasn't played college basketball and we weren't rebounding the ball like I thought. The two things we really wanted to improve on this year were rebounding and 3-point shooting, and you can see we are a better 3-point shooting team. In the second half we only gave up two offensive rebounds, but that's what we've got to get. T.Y. (Pope's nickname) is a big reason for that. Nobal (Days) is not a great rebounder but he understands our defense, but T.Y. and we have bigger guards now coming down to help rebound. Overall, I'm not even worried about the score. I told the kids the only score that matters is 1-0, but I'm really glad how these kids came together. We had a deficit. We haven't had a deficit in practice. You can't get a deficit in practice, so this was really good for me and good for our team. You never want to be down at half, but I learned more today about my team than I probably had since we've been in quarantine. Now our offense is still in quarantine. Don't get me wrong. Our offense is still in quarantine. I think we've got another day for our offense to get out of quarantine, then we're going to be fine."
You used the press a lot today, something you couldn't do last year. How much will that help?
"Last year it was hard to put my whole system in. We probably had about 45 percent of the system. This year with the presses and the traps, we've got everything in. We can do a lot more things. There were about four or five more defenses I wanted to play, but we were having so much success with the press that I didn't use them, but our length and our athletic ability allows us to play a lot of defenses and presses. That's what really excites me. These kids are going to be fine. Even in the locker room, they were going 100 miles an hour before the game. I couldn't slow them down. It was one of the craziest scenes I've ever seen."
Quick turnaround for Sunday. Do you like to see how they respond to that?
"Yeah, we do. We're probably going to have to play without Gabe. He has a concussion, so he's probably going to be out. He's lost a tooth, so they are taking him to the hospital with a doctor right now to get him checked out, so we're down one guard, but I feel like we've got a lot of different guys. We needed a second half like this and we are going to play a different type of team on Sunday, so we just have to turn around and get prepared. I like this better now. Now I know my team, and we need games. One thing this team needs is game experience."
Watson lost a tooth?
"Yeah, he lost a tooth. The concussion's probably the bigger thing right now, the thing we're most concerned with. He'll be fine, but we probably won't see him on Sunday."