WE HAVE REACHED FEAST WEEK. There’s a lot of basketball coming up over the next 10 days or so and there’s no better place to start than this game in the Shriners Children’s Charleston Classic.
Clemson enters this game 4–1 and is about 30 spots higher than we are in the KenPom rankings (for whatever that’s worth.) It’s pretty easy to see why people view them so highly: they play a lot of defense, they run a good offensive system, and their coach runs about 13 guys so they are DEEP. They also have the ability to got hot in a hurry. Early in the first half Clemson went on a 7–0 run in about 48 seconds.
We had our moments early. Honor Huff had a lot of energy to start us off: skying for rebounds, hustling back on defense, trying to jump start our offense. The problem was that we were giving up A LOT of open shots to the Tigers. It didn’t really matter that we played frantic defense for 28 seconds, because they just swung the ball to the other side of the court and got a shot off time, after time, after time.
Clemson also plays… weird? They used these hockey style shifts for their players where it’s 5-in/5-out. I’m not sure if it was catching our guys off guard but it never really felt like we could get a feel on this team in the first half. To Clemson’s credit, their guys seem very well coached and conditioned so they played fast and frantic all night. It also doesn’t help us when they have A LOT of size down low.
Our biggest strength in the first half was our ability to go on runs and it went something like this: offensive rebound, kickout to Jasper Floyd, 3, 10 seconds later a steal from Honor Huff who scores at the other end. When we get hot, I think it would be a challenge for any team in the nation to stop us, we just have to keep having runs like that.
Carrying over a theme from a previous post, I want my praise to be as loud as my disrespect: Harlan Obioha was the story of the first half. He’s earned my trust and has become the epitome of a winning player. He finished the half with 6 rebounds, 2 dimes, and he seemed to be a part of every big play we had. We need a rebound? He’s got it. We need energy? He’s got it in spades. If he can keep this kind of play up this year, he very well may end up as a personal favorite.
We ended the first half up 32–25, and while it was pretty rough to watch at times, some of the team stats are in our favor. We forced 7 turnovers, led the rebounding battle 20–17, and scored 12 points off turnovers. Our percentages though? Fuckin WOOF. We shot 44%… from the FT line. We also shot 33% from 3 and 40% in general. Despite all of that, the thing that gave me a spark and some belief that we could win this game was Chance Moore who was making his debut for the Mountaineers.
He’s a 5th year transfer from St. Bonaventure, and I had watched some film after he announced that he committed to WVU, but he showed me more than I expected in the first half. He finished the half with 7/3/1 steal, but his impact was more than that. He had a dunk that might end up on SportsCenter and on the last play of the half he stole an inbound pass and nailed a 3 from halfcourt. Quite the introduction to the fanbase, right?
The first 7 minutes of the second half were as back and forth as I’ve ever seen a game. Then the energy started to shift. Amir Jenkins hits a middy, Morris Ugusuk hits a 3, Chance Moore gets a huge block on the other end and then comes down BULLIES his way to the hoop and gets a layup. Mountaineer basketball at its finest. The crowd helped a lot too. I never really understood what you meant when you said that Mountaineer fans traveled well until I didn’t live in the state anymore. Now that I live in Georgia and have met multiple people from The Mountain State, I get it. This game was essentially a home game, and I really do love that about my home state.
As much as I would have liked them to, the good guys were never really able to pull away. We showed flashes of greatness and dominance but the Clemson crew never went away. Every time we went on a mini-run, they had an answer. Every time we hit a big shot, they hit one to quite us down. This is clearly a good team and it makes sense that this is the team that has given us the most trouble this season so far.
Remember how I said that Clemson got hot in a hurry? Well, they get hot at the right time too. It was never a huge run, but they hit big shots when they needed to. We let the lead slip away from us on a huge 3 with 2 minutes left, and we were never able to recover after that. I knew that our luck was bound to run out at some point, but I was just hoping it would have been in Big 12 play and not in this tournament.
The good guys lose the game 70–67 for our first loss of the season. We had a chance at the end of the game when one of their guys missed their second free throw, but we opted to take an easy two over trying to tie the game. It’s an unfortunate way to lose the game, and I feel bad for Brenen Lorient who (you could tell) just had a lapse in judgement, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.
To lift my spirits a little bit, I think I’m going to start a segment in these posts where I give more flowers than I already to. Welcome to the first ever “Roundball Big 3 of the Game.” It’s similar to the 3 Stars concept in hockey, and college basketball is a socialist system by nature (I know you hate that but it is true) so I think it’s fitting. The three guys who stood out to me this game? It shouldn’t come as any surprise.
Honor Huff: 17 points, 3 3’s, 1 steal
Chance Moore: 16 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 blocks
Amir Jenkins: 8 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists
Honor doing Honor things, Chance Moore making his presence known, and Amir getting a lot of burn in our first real test as a true freshman. The only thing that would have been better is if we could have walked away with the win too.
Not the way I wanted to end the night, but we have certainly had worse losses. I’m going to switch over to the Celtics game and let them stress me the fuck out too. I love ya, Pops. I’ll see you Sunday for the 3rd place game (ew.) I miss you.
Round The Game 
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