SMITHFIELD, R.I. – If you looked at the box score, your first thought is probably that there wasn’t much defense played. You would be correct. You might also think it wasn’t a bad night for the losing team, a team that has been offensively challenged this season. But there’s more than just the reality of not desiring moral victories that would explain why the numbers don’t tell the whole story for Quinnipiac in their 103-95 loss at Bryant on Thursday night.
There’s the reality of how they got to a couple of those numbers and how the game was decided in the second half. In sum, the night was a good one for a team whose confidence at the offensive end has been flagging at times. But that wasn’t all there is to it, and in the end some old demons came into play.
“Believe it or not, I think our poor offense in the second half – shot selection and the eight turnovers – got them loose,” said Quinnipiac head coach Tom Moore.
The Bobcats were right with Bryant for a lot of the second half, and for a while the Bulldogs couldn’t shake them. They were within six or less for the first half of the latter frame, still down 68-64 with just under 11 minutes left when Bryant scored ten unanswered points to break the game open again. In that sequence, they committed four turnovers after they had taken good care of the ball for most of the night (they still finished with 11, a good total under normal circumstances for a team that has struggled with them).
“When the game was in the balance, I’m disappointed with how we played offense,” said Moore. “I thought we were young and we were rushed, and there wasn’t a need to be.”
Quinnipiac shot 57.7 percent from the field and had just the aforementioned 11 turnovers. They didn’t lose the game there first; they lost it in allowing Bryant to shoot nearly 61 percent from the field, including 12-19 from long range. They had their usual high rebounding edge (36-25). But a contributor to the high field goal percentage Bryant had was from Quinnipiac’s offense, as Bryant got their share of run-outs, especially during the decisive run.
The Bobcats came into the game averaging over 15 turnovers per contest and shooting 41 percent from the field. With no one who strikes fear into defenses as a shooter, they have been woeful from behind the arc and at times a bit predictable because jump shooting is a bad option for them. They struggled from deep again on Thursday night, going 3-12.
One thing that can get lost in all of the issues they have had is that as Moore alluded to, they are still an inexperienced group on the whole. Starting point guard Dave Johnson is a senior, but alongside him are sophomores Zaid Hearst and Evan Conti, the latter of whom played about eight minutes a game last season. Freshmen Kendrick Ray and James Ford and junior college transfer Shaquille Shannon come off the bench.
The experience is largely up front, including a player who has been hampered a bit by the perimeter inexperience in Ike Azotam. The junior, whose numbers are down a bit this year, had a nice night with 21 points on 10-16 shooting. Moore said he’s had to work a little too hard at times because the guards haven’t always been able to get him better shots, and that also goes for Jamee Jackson and Ousmane Drame, who with Azotam combined to go 21-31 on the evening in demonstrating again that the frontcourt is this team’s stronger unit right now.
Moore said he and his staff have thought about pressing more since the Bobcats can put out a smaller and very athletic lineup that would be capable of turning teams over. The inexperience is probably one thing keeping them from doing it often, although they have done it at times. It’s not hard to envision an opponent finding ways to break the press, then the Bobcats getting caught up in the faster speed of the game and not playing well as a result.
The Bobcats are now 5-9 on the season, including a 1-2 start in Northeast Conference games. Moore said their theme has been to keep to their staples of rebounding and playing good defense, and try to get better offensively. If the Bobcats can improve offensively little by little, they can be a reasonably formidable team at that end of the floor by the end of the season. The confidence can continue to come back, and that will make a world of difference.
It doesn’t get easier for the Bobcats, as they head home to take on Sacred Heart on Saturday before going on the road again for three in a row. That would be a good time to have more of the confidence back, perhaps from taking some of the positives from Thursday night’s game.
