RICHMOND, Va. – Some quick hitters from Saturday’s quarterfinal games at the CAA Tournament:
- A common theme thus far has revolved around the teams with byes into the quarterfinals starting slowly because they aren’t in the same rhythm as the teams who had to win on Friday to get to this point. It happened in every game on Saturday, and even the coaches felt it made a difference at first. Clearly, though, each team found their footing after a while as all four top seeds advanced to the semifinals.
- A little related to that, all eight games thus far have either been tied or had a two-point margin at halftime.
- Georgia State has turned the ball over all season, leading the conference in that category. It was their main Achilles heel at the offensive end, among a few of them. On Saturday, George Mason made them pay in a big way, as the Patriots turned 21 turnovers into 27 points.”You can’t turn that ball over, that’s one of the things I learned early in my coaching career,” interim head coach Paul Graham said. “If you turn the ball over, it leads to dunks and layups on the other end, so your defensive balance isn’t there.”
- The most surprising stat of the day? Perhaps Georgia State’s 36-22 rebounding edge over George Mason. The Panthers didn’t let the Patriots get many second shots, but they didn’t need to as the Patriots didn’t miss enough for it to matter with the points they scored off turnovers.
- Drexel nearly lost their entire front line to fouls. In the final minute, they were playing with four guards and Yannick Formbor, who filled in admirably with six rebounds in 15 minutes but was also on the verge of fouling out as he had four fouls.
- In Friday night’s win over Northeastern, Delaware got good support for Jawan Carter. On Saturday night, they didn’t get quite the same, although Jamelle Hagins had 12 points on 6-7 from the field and had four blocked shots. But Devon Saddler was 3-14 from the field and no other Blue Hen made more than one shot.
- Blaine Taylor likes having the balance and depth he has with this ballclub, and where it showed up on Saturday was in how at several different junctures, a different player stepped up. Frank Hassell had the big night with 24 points on 9-13 shooting and 10 rebounds. At one stretch of the first half, Kent Bazemore was the start en route to scoring 11 points and grabbing five rebounds. Ben Finney (nine points, four rebounds, four assists) had a stretch where he was the main man. Keyon Carter had just six points, but had one stretch where he stood out as well.
- An X-factor for Hofstra is David Imes, and he came up big on Saturday. The emerging sophomore forward had 10 points on 5-6 shooting and eight rebounds, and was an active presence. Most of the Pride’s offensive threats come on the perimeter, so if he can continue his play in the frontcourt it will only help the guards immensely.
- Although William & Mary has a star in Quinn McDowell, who set a tournament scoring record on Friday with 35 points, the Tribe may to a degree go a little as their freshman guards go the next three years. Brandon Britt and Julian Boatner have, like a lot of freshmen, looked very good at times and ordinary at times as well, and on Saturday they combined to go 6-17 from the field.
