SMITHFIELD, R.I. – About a month ago, no one could have imagined Central Connecticut State doing what they did Thursday night. It’s rare that a team’s first six field goals are three-pointers and that they start off 7-8 from deep, but that’s what the Blue Devils did in their 60-34 win at Bryant. It’s another sign of a team that has changed drastically at that end in the last month.
For the first two months of the season, the Blue Devils struggled offensively. They scored 60 or more points just four times in the first 13 games. Against Holy Cross at Mohegan Sun Arena, they might have hit their low, as a Crusader team that has struggled to defend all year shut them down completely. They didn’t reach a season low in points – that came two games later in a 55-42 loss at Monmouth – and by a slim margin it wasn’t their lowest shooting percentage (29.3; they shot 29.2 percent five games later in a 76-45 shellacking against Quinnipiac). But they looked about as inept as they have all season at the offensive end.
Things got so bad that head coach Howie Dickenman said he told his team “no more threes” at one point. A big part of it was that the Blue Devils had a tendency to take ill-advised shots, as they weren’t running bad offense all the time and they have players capable of making shots.
“We would keep count of bad shots when breaking the film down, and there were some times when we had 16 or 17 ill-advised shots,” said Dickenman. “We stressed, don’t take that, pass it to your teammate. We’ve been getting a lot of assists in our last couple of games that we won.”
The early start from deep was partly the result of the Blue Devils driving inside and getting rejected several times by Bryant big man Papa Lo, who blocked six shots in the first half. Once the Blue Devils started to knock down shots from long range – they were 8-12 in the first half – other things opened up just enough for them to keep up a good lead, especially since they shut down Bryant and held them to a season-low point total.
Although they barely did it this time around, it marked the seventh time in nine games that the Blue Devils have scored at least 60 points. While they are just 4-3 in those games, their season record is 8-14, so it’s clear that some offense will certainly help. It hasn’t been easy to come by, especially with their best player, Ken Horton, sidelined for the season with a hip injury. More recently, leading scorer Robbie Ptacek has sat out six games with an injury, another hit to the offense.
Of late, the main players who have picked up the slack are the perimeter duo of Shemik Thompson and Joe Seymore. It’s easy to forget that Thompson was the Northeast Conference Rookie of the Year two years ago given that classmate Horton has become this team’s best player, but he’s regaining that form and is second on the team in scoring and now stands seventh all-time in career assists at the school. Seymore had a game-high 19 points against Bryant and continued to shoot the ball well. After going 11-44 from long range in the first 12 games of the season, Seymore has made 25 of 58 shots from deep in the last ten games.
“This is the best time for him to get hot,” said Dickenman, adding, “we need him.”
Central has also improved thanks to the play of a freshman point guard, which doesn’t happen often. Devan Bailey had five assists and no turnovers against Bryant, giving him 24 assists with just four turnovers in the last five games. In Northeast Conference games, his assist/turnover ratio is 2.5. That’s in addition to his defense, an area where he’s long been able to hang his hat.
The Blue Devils’ improved offense has also coincided with Markeys Deans hitting his stride. The junior college transfer averaged just 3.8 points per game in the first 12 games and never scored in double figures in that stretch. Thursday night’s 12-point, seven-rebound effort marked the eighth time in ten games he has done that, giving them one more reliable scoring option.
Dickenman added that a more consistent starting lineup has helped in the last few games. Throughout the season, he has had to mix and match, using 14 different starting lineups. No starting lineup has lasted more than four games thus far. But the current one is 3-0 and might last a little longer.
Central Connecticut has come along offensively to the point where they can win some games when their defense is good but not great. That’s a marked change not only from earlier in the season, but earlier in the month.
