Men's Basketball Faces Red Hot App State Saturday
Since snapping their season-high three-game skid, Georgia Southern (12-5, 5-2) has found its groove again to claim three straight against Southern Conference competition.
Two of the last three wins have come on the road against The Citadel and Elon where the Eagles have held the opposition to just 54.5 points per game.
“Probably the best thing is that it’s good to see some carry-over,” said head coach Jeff Price. “We’ve done nothing in practice, basically in the last two weeks, except get back to stress defense and rebounding. I think it’s showing and starting to carry over (into games).”
While their opponents are hitting only 37.9 percent from the floor, GSU is hitting 49.5 percent of their field goals including 47.1 percent from 3-point land.
The last two wins have also seen the Eagles hold a tremendous edge on the boards, outrebounding their opponents 38.0-23.5 on average. Leading the effort is senior Matthew Fields, who leads the team on the season at 6.8 rpg and since Dec. 1 is pulling down 8.2 rebounds per contest.
“(That’s) just Matt being Matt,” said Price. “He’s aggressive and active on the boards. He’s taken the initiative to go get (rebounds). He’s done a great job on both ends.”
Fields notched his first double-double of the season Thursday with 13 points and a career-high 12 rebounds.
App State shares the league’s longest current winning streak with Davidson and since the 85-72 loss to GSU in Statesboro, has won seven of its last eight. The Mountaineers gave Chattanooga its first league loss of the season Thursday and is averaging 91.5 ppg over the last two games.
“They’re just a much more confident, aggressive team, a team that has found themselves and they’re shooting the ball so well from the perimeter and with (Donte) Minter inside, it’s just really effective. You’re just seeing an entirely different team than what we saw in Statesboro.”
The inside-outside combination of Donte Minter and Donald Sims proved to be too much Thursday against the Mocs as the pair combined for 46 of the team’s 92 points. Minter shot 8-for-11 from the field and Sims tallied a career-high 28 points on six of 11 3-point shooting. As a team, the Apps converted 14 of 34 from long-range.
“I don’t think you can allow a team to score 42 points from the 3-point line and win the game,” said Price. “It’s hard to guard both (Minter and Sims) and we’ll see how the flow of the game is going but I know we can’t allow them to make 14 3’s like they did last night.”
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- Category: Men's Basketball
- Published on Friday, 18 January 2008 00:08
