UGA Basketball
Yesterday it was 247 Sports, today the Athletic, AJC article is coming…but can’t wait for Dash’s talk with Coach White…
The Athletic: How Georgia coach Mike White differs from Tom Crean and Florida lessons learned (Subscription)
I will say the article is worth reading if you can access it, the most interesting part I read was that White looks to be going back to the style of play he had at Louisiana Tech and in his early days at UF…as time went on at UF with access to so many AA’s his style evolved to fit the players. He’s not saying he won’t get AA’s at UGA eventually, but if you want a clue as to what we’re going to see next season…
theathletic.com
What does White’s press look like?
GatorNation: What Florida’s Full Court Pressing Defense Could Look Like (2020)
“White’s Louisiana Tech teams were known for pressing and that likely gives us the best example of what we should expect when the Gators pick up 94 feet this season. While White was in Ruston for four seasons, I mostly looked at his final two years as that was when he was able to get in his guys that he recruited to his system. That should give the best possible demonstrations of the press which should give us an indication of what to expect for the Gators.
Let’s start with the numbers. In four seasons Louisiana Tech was really successful, posting better numbers when pressing then when not. Here were their points per possession allowed when pressing, as well as their percentage of defensive possessions played in the press in brackets.
2012: 0.76 (18.1%)
2013: 0.69 (26.4%)
2014: 0.71 (29.9%)
2015: 0.71 (29%)
As you can see, there was a lot of consistency with their press effectiveness as those points per possession numbers each year are fantastic. It’s also worth noting that those percentages don’t tell the whole story of how much Louisiana Tech pressed. For starters, on most missed shots it’s tough to press, so many of those possessions they weren’t able to pick up full court. As well, any time there was a foul or out of bounds when the Bulldogs were defending in the halfcourt and there was a baseline or sideline out of bounds they obviously don’t have the opportunity to full court press because, well, the full court isn’t in play. For that reason there was probably only a total of 50% or so of total possessions where it was possible to play a press so as you can see, they pressed on a majority of those opportunities.
The press most used by Louisiana Tech is what is commonly known in coaching circles as the run and jump press. Oftentimes this starts with a player guarding the inbounder, ideally trying to influence a wide pass to one of the corners. The corner is a bad spot to be for a ball handler as both the sideline and endline become second and third defenders and gives a great opportunity for a trap. Once the ball is inbounded, the player guarding the inbounder runs to doublet team the player who caught the ball. If the ball gets reversed a second trap can occur on the opposite side of the floor, though often a reverse will trigger each defensive player returning to their checks and simply sticking tight to them and playing prototypical full court man-to-man pressure.
A goal of this style of press is to force long passes. When pressing, defenders always have a particular place to be and when the ball is passed everyone’s job is to move during the flight of the ball. The more a pass is lobbed, the more time there is for the defense to recover. Additionally, these lobbed passes can turn into interceptions. Here are a few clips of the press working to perfection.
With Mike White promising a pressing defense from the Gators this year I thought I’d look back at how his Louisiana Tech teams pressed.
In these clips you will also see a bit more of a conservative zone press at times, something that could very well be the more effective press at the SEC level. Often the Bulldogs went out in a 2-2-1 three-quarter court press, using their length to once again force long passes. The 2-2-1 also allowed for traps on the sideline, but that wasn’t the only time they were looking for steals.
In the 2-2-1 alignment Coach White loved collapsing on the middle of the floor when passes were funneled there in the press.
Let’s talk about breaking a press for a second. Obviously, teams are going to want to inbound the rock to their best ball handler. While he’s got the ball in his hands, usually the second and third best ball handlers go wide to either sideline as options to have the ball swung to. When those options are taken away, it’s usually the job of the power forward to sprint back to the ball down the middle of the floor as a release valve when the rest of the press isn’t working. Louisiana Tech loved denying the sideline passes to quality ball handlers and instead allowing the ball to go to the middle where they could converge from multiple angles. Because the primary, secondary, and tertiary ball handlers are along the outside, the player getting the pass in the middle of the floor is usually a frontcourt player who wants no part of handling the ball against a press. As well, when the ball is passed to the middle of the floor that means Louisiana Tech could swarm him from multiple angles. Watch White’s Bulldogs generate a bunch of turnovers this way.
A place La Tech loved to generate turnovers was when teams tried to advance the ball through the middle of the floor. When the ball went there, the Bulldogs could send pressure from multiple spots to get steals. pic.twitter.com/RKk5bijWOA
— Eric Fawcett (@Efawcett7) October 27, 2020
Whenever a team plays a press there is always the fear of allowing easy buckets. Whether it’s a talented ball handler knifing through the pressure or a pinpoint hail mary pass making it over the top of the defense, presses can be vulnerable to allowing easy points.
Here is what was potentially the most interesting part of White’s Louisiana Tech defenses.
They hardly allowed easy points while pressing.
No, seriously, I mean hardly.
When I do consulting for basketball teams there is a term I use called “critical error” to describe a breakdown that allows an easy bucket (stolen from the soccer analytics world who use the term to describe an error so egregious it solely allows for a goal). Obviously when pressing, you want your number of critical errors to be far less than your amount of turnovers generated, or tough shots forced.
I watched every pressing possession that Louisiana Tech had in White’s last two seasons there. 1357 possessions.
In those two years, I counted a total of 17 “critical errors” where a colossal failure occurred that allowed an easy layup or completely uncontested three. Yes, there were times where they got scrambled and allowed quality shots but they were at least somewhat contested. Truthfully, I went into research for this feature expecting to see regular breakdowns that allowed layups, something I would need to chart and figure out an equation to find out if pressing was really worth it based off these colossal errors that would occur from time to time. But nope.
I was in awe. One critical error every 80 possessions or so. Or, less than one every two games. This really speaks to just how good these Louisiana Tech teams were at pressing, and it speaks to Coach White and his staff for coaching this style of defense that seldom collapsed.
Here are a couple of the breakdowns I found for a few examples of what can go wrong.
Teams that had success against the press didn’t do so by forcing the ball over the top, more with patient ball movement to methodically move it up the floor. This created the occasional wide open look. pic.twitter.com/xDmSewFeWk
— Eric Fawcett (@Efawcett7) October 27, 2020
Teams that had success against the press often weren’t looking for the home run pass over the top to beat it, they moved the ball slowly and methodically, waiting for the doubles to come before intentionally moving the ball schematically to work it to open shooters. This would be one of my concerns when it comes to Florida pressing in the SEC. There are so many good coaches in the league and so many experienced ball handlers that they’ll be comfortable moving slowly and methodically, waiting for the traps from the Gators to come, and then having a plan of attack to use a couple of passes to get a wide open shot.
Pressing is all about speeding up your opponents and making them make errors. Look at some of the clips from earlier in the videos shared. You can see the terror in the eyes of some of the ball handlers and you can see utter discomfort in their body language. You can tell they wanted the ball out of their hands like it was a live grenade, something that often forced them into bad decisions with the ball. Will that happen with SEC guards? Maybe some, but largely not.
Here’s another thing, something you’ll notice in the clips shared. Louisiana Tech was blessed with two point guards absolutely perfect for the press in Kenneth “Speedy” Smith and Raheem Appleby (brother of Tyree Appleby). Smith was 6’3”, while Appleby was 6’4”. Smith was one of the fastest players in the country (thus the nickname) and Appleby was incredibly athletic. An example of that:
This has nothing to do with pressing but look at this absurd dunk by Raheem Appleby I came across while going through White’s Louisiana Tech teams. @Rockthrees pic.twitter.com/Y3JqXeKhL7
— Eric Fawcett (@Efawcett7) October 27, 2020
And, both players were also really long.
Without exaggeration, in probably 95% of games they played under White Smith and Appleby were:
Longer than their opponent.
Faster than their opponent.
More athletic than their opponent.
In the 5% of games they weren’t they probably checked two of those three boxes.
Now, let’s think of Florida’s point guards in Tre Mann, Tyree Appleby, and Ques Glover.
In most SEC matchups Mann will be longer, he’ll be nearly as fast, and more athletic than most opponents. Appleby and Glover will likely be faster in some of the matchups, but will almost never be longer or that much more athletic. Additionally, even though those players will check some of those boxes the margin won’t be as large as it was for Speedy Smith and Raheem Appleby against Conference USA competition.
There is definitely still some reason for skepticism when it comes to Florida as a heavy pressing team but a look back at Louisiana Tech’s press gives a good example of what it could look like. “Controlled chaos” is a term that has been used to describe Louisiana Tech’s press defense and is one that has come up in Florida’s practices. That led me to think the Louisiana Tech press was going to be hectic, scrappy, and confusing for opponents but much to my surprise (pleasantly, I might add), it wasn’t. It was methodical, it was cerebral, and most of all, it was measured. On the spectrum of control to chaos it was far more on the side of control, and that gives some hope that it will work at the SEC.
We have seen a number of attempts to bring a pressing style of defense from the mid major to high major ranks fail, most notably Will Wade at LSU and Shaka Smart at Texas, both of whom came from the famous VCU press. The thing with that style of press was that it was far more chaos than it was control. Trying to bring that chaos to the high major level against elite guards simply wasn’t going to work. However, could White’s much more controlled contain-the-ball style of press work? We’ll have to see, though watching his Louisiana Tech teams demonstrate it was awfully impressive.”
www.gatorcountry.com
Team Notes
Justin Hill leaves the Lancers
“I think they were going for the way I push the ball, really get downhill and can be a scorer or find my teammates in those situations,” Hill explained. “I feel like those were the aspects that separated me most from other people.”
Schedule News
Former Dawgs News
Red & Black: Pro Sports Roundup: Bulldog Basketball in Europe
“The final series of the Turkish Basketball League’s championship featured two former UGA athletes, Derek Ogbeide and JJ Frazier, who make up two of the 13 bulldogs currently playing overseas.”
www.redandblack.com
SEC Basketball
Vanderbilt
The Tennessean: 'It was really an easy decision': Goodpasture's Isaiah West commits to Vanderbilt
College Basketball
Eastern Michigan
CBS Sports: By committing to Eastern Michigan, Emoni Bates could be repeating mistakes that stunted once-promising career
www.cbssports.com
Kansas State
The Wichita Eagle: Jerome Tang adds Stony Brook transfer to Kansas State Wildcats basketball roster
Temple
NBA
Atlanta
ESPN: Sources: Atlanta Hawks acquire guard Dejounte Murray from San Antonio Spurs for three first-round picks, Danilo Gallinari
New York Nets
SNY: Nets 2022 free agency and trade buzz: Patty Mills, Nic Claxton returning on two-year deals
“ESPN also reports that Nic Claxton is returning on a two-year deal worth $20 million”
Utah
NBA.com: Will Hardy Takes Over As Leading Man For Utah Jazz
www.nba.com
History
ESPN: Roy Williams, Jim Calhoun among five coaches headed to College Basketball Hall of Fame
Providence Journal: Friars legend Jimmy Walker to be inducted into college basketball Hall of Fame
Hoops Birthdays 6-30
Mitch Richmond SG Kansas State GS SAC WAS LAL 1988-2002 6-30-1965 57 YOA
UGA Connection
UPI: Mitch Richmond took control in the second half Thursday...
“He scored 23 of his 34 points after halftime as Kansas State downed Georgia 82-79 in overtime in the opening round of the NCAA West Regional.
'Mitch in the last 10 games has emerged as the player we go to,' Kansas State Coach Lon Kruger said. 'Mitch has emerged as the guy, as the leader.'
Richmond made all five of his 3-point attempts, including four in the second half. He also grabbed 11 rebounds to slow the Bulldogs as Kansas State, 21-10, advanced to Saturday's second round.
'In the second half, Mitch scrambled and got active,' Kruger said. '(Georgia's Willie) Anderson got hot and Mitch stepped up and took the battle to him.'
“The Bulldogs appeared headed for an easy victory, leading 16-8 midway through the first half. But the Wildcats outscored Georgia 11-2 during a four-minute span to get back into the game.
Georgia had a chance to win in regulation, going for the last shot after Coleman's tying basket for the Wildcats. But an offensive foul on freshman Mike Harron sent the game into overtime.”
www.upi.com
Yesterday it was 247 Sports, today the Athletic, AJC article is coming…but can’t wait for Dash’s talk with Coach White…
The Athletic: How Georgia coach Mike White differs from Tom Crean and Florida lessons learned (Subscription)
I will say the article is worth reading if you can access it, the most interesting part I read was that White looks to be going back to the style of play he had at Louisiana Tech and in his early days at UF…as time went on at UF with access to so many AA’s his style evolved to fit the players. He’s not saying he won’t get AA’s at UGA eventually, but if you want a clue as to what we’re going to see next season…
How Georgia coach Mike White differs from Tom Crean and lessons learned at Florida
White and the Bulldogs both needed a reset and they'll start fresh with lofty aspirations.
theathletic.com
What does White’s press look like?
GatorNation: What Florida’s Full Court Pressing Defense Could Look Like (2020)
“White’s Louisiana Tech teams were known for pressing and that likely gives us the best example of what we should expect when the Gators pick up 94 feet this season. While White was in Ruston for four seasons, I mostly looked at his final two years as that was when he was able to get in his guys that he recruited to his system. That should give the best possible demonstrations of the press which should give us an indication of what to expect for the Gators.
Let’s start with the numbers. In four seasons Louisiana Tech was really successful, posting better numbers when pressing then when not. Here were their points per possession allowed when pressing, as well as their percentage of defensive possessions played in the press in brackets.
2012: 0.76 (18.1%)
2013: 0.69 (26.4%)
2014: 0.71 (29.9%)
2015: 0.71 (29%)
As you can see, there was a lot of consistency with their press effectiveness as those points per possession numbers each year are fantastic. It’s also worth noting that those percentages don’t tell the whole story of how much Louisiana Tech pressed. For starters, on most missed shots it’s tough to press, so many of those possessions they weren’t able to pick up full court. As well, any time there was a foul or out of bounds when the Bulldogs were defending in the halfcourt and there was a baseline or sideline out of bounds they obviously don’t have the opportunity to full court press because, well, the full court isn’t in play. For that reason there was probably only a total of 50% or so of total possessions where it was possible to play a press so as you can see, they pressed on a majority of those opportunities.
The press most used by Louisiana Tech is what is commonly known in coaching circles as the run and jump press. Oftentimes this starts with a player guarding the inbounder, ideally trying to influence a wide pass to one of the corners. The corner is a bad spot to be for a ball handler as both the sideline and endline become second and third defenders and gives a great opportunity for a trap. Once the ball is inbounded, the player guarding the inbounder runs to doublet team the player who caught the ball. If the ball gets reversed a second trap can occur on the opposite side of the floor, though often a reverse will trigger each defensive player returning to their checks and simply sticking tight to them and playing prototypical full court man-to-man pressure.
A goal of this style of press is to force long passes. When pressing, defenders always have a particular place to be and when the ball is passed everyone’s job is to move during the flight of the ball. The more a pass is lobbed, the more time there is for the defense to recover. Additionally, these lobbed passes can turn into interceptions. Here are a few clips of the press working to perfection.
With Mike White promising a pressing defense from the Gators this year I thought I’d look back at how his Louisiana Tech teams pressed.
In these clips you will also see a bit more of a conservative zone press at times, something that could very well be the more effective press at the SEC level. Often the Bulldogs went out in a 2-2-1 three-quarter court press, using their length to once again force long passes. The 2-2-1 also allowed for traps on the sideline, but that wasn’t the only time they were looking for steals.
In the 2-2-1 alignment Coach White loved collapsing on the middle of the floor when passes were funneled there in the press.
Let’s talk about breaking a press for a second. Obviously, teams are going to want to inbound the rock to their best ball handler. While he’s got the ball in his hands, usually the second and third best ball handlers go wide to either sideline as options to have the ball swung to. When those options are taken away, it’s usually the job of the power forward to sprint back to the ball down the middle of the floor as a release valve when the rest of the press isn’t working. Louisiana Tech loved denying the sideline passes to quality ball handlers and instead allowing the ball to go to the middle where they could converge from multiple angles. Because the primary, secondary, and tertiary ball handlers are along the outside, the player getting the pass in the middle of the floor is usually a frontcourt player who wants no part of handling the ball against a press. As well, when the ball is passed to the middle of the floor that means Louisiana Tech could swarm him from multiple angles. Watch White’s Bulldogs generate a bunch of turnovers this way.
A place La Tech loved to generate turnovers was when teams tried to advance the ball through the middle of the floor. When the ball went there, the Bulldogs could send pressure from multiple spots to get steals. pic.twitter.com/RKk5bijWOA
— Eric Fawcett (@Efawcett7) October 27, 2020
Whenever a team plays a press there is always the fear of allowing easy buckets. Whether it’s a talented ball handler knifing through the pressure or a pinpoint hail mary pass making it over the top of the defense, presses can be vulnerable to allowing easy points.
Here is what was potentially the most interesting part of White’s Louisiana Tech defenses.
They hardly allowed easy points while pressing.
No, seriously, I mean hardly.
When I do consulting for basketball teams there is a term I use called “critical error” to describe a breakdown that allows an easy bucket (stolen from the soccer analytics world who use the term to describe an error so egregious it solely allows for a goal). Obviously when pressing, you want your number of critical errors to be far less than your amount of turnovers generated, or tough shots forced.
I watched every pressing possession that Louisiana Tech had in White’s last two seasons there. 1357 possessions.
In those two years, I counted a total of 17 “critical errors” where a colossal failure occurred that allowed an easy layup or completely uncontested three. Yes, there were times where they got scrambled and allowed quality shots but they were at least somewhat contested. Truthfully, I went into research for this feature expecting to see regular breakdowns that allowed layups, something I would need to chart and figure out an equation to find out if pressing was really worth it based off these colossal errors that would occur from time to time. But nope.
I was in awe. One critical error every 80 possessions or so. Or, less than one every two games. This really speaks to just how good these Louisiana Tech teams were at pressing, and it speaks to Coach White and his staff for coaching this style of defense that seldom collapsed.
Here are a couple of the breakdowns I found for a few examples of what can go wrong.
Teams that had success against the press didn’t do so by forcing the ball over the top, more with patient ball movement to methodically move it up the floor. This created the occasional wide open look. pic.twitter.com/xDmSewFeWk
— Eric Fawcett (@Efawcett7) October 27, 2020
Teams that had success against the press often weren’t looking for the home run pass over the top to beat it, they moved the ball slowly and methodically, waiting for the doubles to come before intentionally moving the ball schematically to work it to open shooters. This would be one of my concerns when it comes to Florida pressing in the SEC. There are so many good coaches in the league and so many experienced ball handlers that they’ll be comfortable moving slowly and methodically, waiting for the traps from the Gators to come, and then having a plan of attack to use a couple of passes to get a wide open shot.
Pressing is all about speeding up your opponents and making them make errors. Look at some of the clips from earlier in the videos shared. You can see the terror in the eyes of some of the ball handlers and you can see utter discomfort in their body language. You can tell they wanted the ball out of their hands like it was a live grenade, something that often forced them into bad decisions with the ball. Will that happen with SEC guards? Maybe some, but largely not.
Here’s another thing, something you’ll notice in the clips shared. Louisiana Tech was blessed with two point guards absolutely perfect for the press in Kenneth “Speedy” Smith and Raheem Appleby (brother of Tyree Appleby). Smith was 6’3”, while Appleby was 6’4”. Smith was one of the fastest players in the country (thus the nickname) and Appleby was incredibly athletic. An example of that:
This has nothing to do with pressing but look at this absurd dunk by Raheem Appleby I came across while going through White’s Louisiana Tech teams. @Rockthrees pic.twitter.com/Y3JqXeKhL7
— Eric Fawcett (@Efawcett7) October 27, 2020
And, both players were also really long.
Without exaggeration, in probably 95% of games they played under White Smith and Appleby were:
Longer than their opponent.
Faster than their opponent.
More athletic than their opponent.
In the 5% of games they weren’t they probably checked two of those three boxes.
Now, let’s think of Florida’s point guards in Tre Mann, Tyree Appleby, and Ques Glover.
In most SEC matchups Mann will be longer, he’ll be nearly as fast, and more athletic than most opponents. Appleby and Glover will likely be faster in some of the matchups, but will almost never be longer or that much more athletic. Additionally, even though those players will check some of those boxes the margin won’t be as large as it was for Speedy Smith and Raheem Appleby against Conference USA competition.
There is definitely still some reason for skepticism when it comes to Florida as a heavy pressing team but a look back at Louisiana Tech’s press gives a good example of what it could look like. “Controlled chaos” is a term that has been used to describe Louisiana Tech’s press defense and is one that has come up in Florida’s practices. That led me to think the Louisiana Tech press was going to be hectic, scrappy, and confusing for opponents but much to my surprise (pleasantly, I might add), it wasn’t. It was methodical, it was cerebral, and most of all, it was measured. On the spectrum of control to chaos it was far more on the side of control, and that gives some hope that it will work at the SEC.
We have seen a number of attempts to bring a pressing style of defense from the mid major to high major ranks fail, most notably Will Wade at LSU and Shaka Smart at Texas, both of whom came from the famous VCU press. The thing with that style of press was that it was far more chaos than it was control. Trying to bring that chaos to the high major level against elite guards simply wasn’t going to work. However, could White’s much more controlled contain-the-ball style of press work? We’ll have to see, though watching his Louisiana Tech teams demonstrate it was awfully impressive.”
What Florida’s Full Court Pressing Defense Could Look Like | GatorCountry.com
www.gatorcountry.com
Team Notes
Justin Hill leaves the Lancers
“I think they were going for the way I push the ball, really get downhill and can be a scorer or find my teammates in those situations,” Hill explained. “I feel like those were the aspects that separated me most from other people.”
Justin Hill leaves the Lancers - Farmville
BY MATTHEW HATFIELD The Farmville Herald One of the standout basketball players from Longwood University’s historic 2021-22 season has decided to move on in hopes of further elevating his own individual profile, compete on a national scale and possibly one day reach the professional ranks...
www.farmvilleherald.com
Schedule News
Former Dawgs News
Red & Black: Pro Sports Roundup: Bulldog Basketball in Europe
“The final series of the Turkish Basketball League’s championship featured two former UGA athletes, Derek Ogbeide and JJ Frazier, who make up two of the 13 bulldogs currently playing overseas.”
Pro Sports Roundup: Bulldog Basketball in Europe
The Turkish Basketball League, also known as TBL, wrapped up its season on June 18, as Konyaspor toppled Samsun to claim the league championship.
SEC Basketball
Vanderbilt
The Tennessean: 'It was really an easy decision': Goodpasture's Isaiah West commits to Vanderbilt
'It was really an easy decision': Goodpasture's Isaiah West commits to Vanderbilt
Isaiah West helped lead Goodpasture to a state championship as a sophomore and is the state's top-ranked 2023 player.
www.tennessean.com
College Basketball
Eastern Michigan
CBS Sports: By committing to Eastern Michigan, Emoni Bates could be repeating mistakes that stunted once-promising career
By committing to Eastern Michigan, Emoni Bates could be repeating mistakes that stunted once-promising career
The former basketball prodigy is trying to reset his career, but will EMU be the right environment to do it?
www.cbssports.com
Kansas State
The Wichita Eagle: Jerome Tang adds Stony Brook transfer to Kansas State Wildcats basketball roster
Loading…
amp.kansas.com
Temple
NBA
Atlanta
ESPN: Sources: Atlanta Hawks acquire guard Dejounte Murray from San Antonio Spurs for three first-round picks, Danilo Gallinari
Hawks acquire All-Star guard Murray from Spurs
The Atlanta Hawks traded Danilo Gallinari and three first-round picks to the San Antonio Spurs for All-Star guard Dejounte Murray.
www.espn.com
New York Nets
SNY: Nets 2022 free agency and trade buzz: Patty Mills, Nic Claxton returning on two-year deals
“ESPN also reports that Nic Claxton is returning on a two-year deal worth $20 million”
Loading…
sny.tv
Utah
NBA.com: Will Hardy Takes Over As Leading Man For Utah Jazz
Will Hardy Takes Over As Leading Man For Utah Jazz
After serving as an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics last season, Will Hardy has been hired as the new head coach of the Utah Jazz. At 34 years old, Hardy will be tasked with leading the Jazz to new heights following the successful tenure of Quin Snyder
www.nba.com
History
ESPN: Roy Williams, Jim Calhoun among five coaches headed to College Basketball Hall of Fame
Williams, Calhoun among 9 to college hoops hall
Five coaches -- Roy Williams, Jim Calhoun, John Beilein, Lon Kruger and Jerry Krause -- have been named to the National College Basketball Hall of Fame along with former players Richard Hamilton, Larry Miller, Frank Selvy and Jimmy Walker.
www.espn.com
Providence Journal: Friars legend Jimmy Walker to be inducted into college basketball Hall of Fame
Friars legend Jimmy Walker to be inducted into college basketball Hall of Fame
Walker, who died in 2007, was the leading scorer per game all-time at PC and the lone New England college player to be selected No. 1 in the NBA Draft.
www.providencejournal.com
Hoops Birthdays 6-30
Mitch Richmond SG Kansas State GS SAC WAS LAL 1988-2002 6-30-1965 57 YOA
UGA Connection
UPI: Mitch Richmond took control in the second half Thursday...
“He scored 23 of his 34 points after halftime as Kansas State downed Georgia 82-79 in overtime in the opening round of the NCAA West Regional.
'Mitch in the last 10 games has emerged as the player we go to,' Kansas State Coach Lon Kruger said. 'Mitch has emerged as the guy, as the leader.'
Richmond made all five of his 3-point attempts, including four in the second half. He also grabbed 11 rebounds to slow the Bulldogs as Kansas State, 21-10, advanced to Saturday's second round.
'In the second half, Mitch scrambled and got active,' Kruger said. '(Georgia's Willie) Anderson got hot and Mitch stepped up and took the battle to him.'
“The Bulldogs appeared headed for an easy victory, leading 16-8 midway through the first half. But the Wildcats outscored Georgia 11-2 during a four-minute span to get back into the game.
Georgia had a chance to win in regulation, going for the last shot after Coleman's tying basket for the Wildcats. But an offensive foul on freshman Mike Harron sent the game into overtime.”
Mitch Richmond took control in the second half Thursday...
Mitch Richmond took control in the second half Thursday -- just as he did during the last three weeks....
www.upi.com
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