Friday, January 27, 2012

...'Purple Cows' along the Otter Creek... and 'The Trap'

      The Continentals threw their best punch at 'The Boys' last weekend, but they took it in stride, broke a 55-all tie on a steal by Jake who fed 'TheBigDog' for the easy duece. Joey followed with an assist to rising Dylan Sinnickson; Jake drained a 3-ball; and long Jack Roberts fininshed the run with a lay-in to push it out to 64-57. Then the G. trio nailed all 6 FT's to seal it. Eleven W's so far on the road speaks well to the preparation, intensity, depth and 'game' that 'The Boys' bring every night. They followed that with another solid effort, and cruised by Plattsburgh to set up the confrontation with the hated Purple Cows from Williamstown.

      'TheMikeMakers' will be at Pepin tomorrow. The joint will be rockin' with an SRO crowd of Panther noisemakers fully expected. Having seen them up close recently, a couple of data points come to mind. Although they are dangerous on their best shooting nights, this group doesn't measure up to the recent teams that featured Snyder, Geohegan, Schultz and Whittington. Their 'Bigs' have been adequate at best. My take is that our 'Bigs' can get to the rim and control the paint on both ends. This should create two major positives for 'The Boys'. When Williams has the rock, there will be added pressure to score from beyond the arc. That plays into the Panther's 'D'. We can cover out there, so there shouldn't be good 'looks' (for Klemm, Wang or Epley), and against our strength inside they should have a real problem getting to the rim, since none have looked great off the dribble. Part of that lies in the fact that if they do penetrate there's no real force inside for them to drop it off to. More pressure for their main guys.

       This game was one of possible bumps in the road, when the schedules came out. Different than the last two in season games is that The Boys are now the 'hunted', and now we are at full strength
for the first time in these recent match-ups. I was on record several blogs back that we were not going down in this game. If you're one who thinks that we can be jinxed by taking a stand, take heart. This one is 'do-able'. My take is that they will have to shoot north of sixty percent from 3's, get 'The BigDog' in early foul trouble, have our G.'s forget to cover on the arc, and have us get nothing out of our bench to take down the second-to-last of the 'Tall Trees' in the  D3 forest, only us and Hope (whose only 'L' was to a D1) remain standing. That should be too tall an order. The game is pretty giant on several fronts- it keeps us in the nescac lead and pointing towards the growing chance of a showdown with TheLordJeffNation; and it will tag the EphMen with their third nescac loss. That is good. It also should eliminate them from the top 30 in the nation, since no amount of spin doctoring by the ever resourceful Williams' advocacy group will be able to justify their fifth loss. That is sweeter.

      Beyond this, the trap lies in the New Hampshire forests. 'Williams' at Pepin, has been the chatter on campus, and in the pubs all week. Everybody wants it. Feels it. And that is just fine with the Keene State Owls, who love to press end to end for forty minutes, and get us into an up tempo game where their 'chaos' and crowd just might take down a Number One. Have seen them, know they won't quit and can score the ball. On the 31st, 'The Boys' will be in a very dangerous spot. The big plus is that JeffB. has been so solid in his one-at-a-time approach, that the nervous can go grab a quick Lamaze session (to regulate their breathing), on the Panther Express (it is resting on a siding this weekend), and let The Boys will deal with Williams first. Once that is taken care of, the road to Keene State will be here soon enough.

       Pepin will have a celebration for BBall Alumni tomorrow, and a strong turnout of Midd alums from our recent ncaa teams, and others from the late 70's to the early 'double-ohs', and the late 60's and early 70's- my squad, 'the team that turned the corner', and finally two stars, Charlie Sykes and Zip Rausa, from the great Tony Lupien-coached, Midd teams of '56-'58, will be on hand. It should be fun to reconnect the eras. If you're an alum and still on the fence, the game is at 11:30, with an informal lunch at 1:00 at Up's to follow. Williams' tip is at 4p.m.with a reception immediately afterwards. Remember... "down the Alibi stairs, off DicktheHealer's table, nothin' but net". Clubbo.    


     
   
     

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