BOSTON – With three games left, College of Charleston is both not in a great place but also in a good place. It all depends on whether you look at in the short-term or long-term, but either way, the Cougars head home after a tough road trip to the cold northeast with their first three-game losing streak of the season after losing at Hofstra on Thursday night and Northeastern on Saturday afternoon.
Let’s just say it’s probably a good thing that this week is the week they play just once, against travel partner UNCW. It will allow for more practice time.
“We typically haven’t turned it over,” said head coach Earl Grant, referring to what has become an acute concern. “It’s been uncharacteristic the last few games with the turnovers. I think we turned it over tonight maybe more than we had turned it over in three games, 18 times. That’s uncharacteristic. I’ve got to figure out why, I’ve got to figure out what the problem is there. We’ve got time next week to do that.”
The Cougars have one of the conference’s top players, a good starting lineup and one of the better mid-major coaches. They were in first place before this losing streak. So what happened? In a word: turnovers. The Cougars are not normally a team that turns the ball over much – they actually give the ball away less than any other CAA team – but that was a problem in the two losses in the northeast. They had 13 against Hofstra, which isn’t all that high (even as they average less than 11 a game), and Hofstra actually had more turnovers on the night, but the Cougars turned it over early and allowed the Pride to get transition baskets, making it an uphill battle the rest of the night.
Against Northeastern, it all came down to one game-changing stretch. Just over six minutes into the second half, the Cougars began a stretch of ten minutes where they did not score, and Northeastern broke the game open with a 17-0 run. Prior to the game-changing stretch, the game was played within a nine-point window. The Cougars had more turnovers during that stretch (eight) than they had in the entire first half (seven), en route to 11 giveaways in the latter frame.
The Cougars couldn’t even extend some of the possessions where they got a shot, as they didn’t have an offensive rebound the entire second half and had just two for the entire game. Grant Riller, the CAA’s second-leading scorer, didn’t score in the second half and had just nine points for the game.
Sometimes, when shots don’t go, a team loses focus or gets deflated and carries that energy over to the defensive end. Grant thinks the turnovers had that effect in both games in the northeast, especially since plenty of them were live-ball giveaways.
“Anytime you turn it over, it’s going to be deflating, because turnovers lead to things for that team on the other end,” Grant said. “I think that’s the thing that deflates us. I think that deflated us, having those turnovers, and that affected our defense as well.”
To that end, the Cougars allowed the Huskies to shoot 55.6 percent from the field in the second half, with a 34-12 edge in points in the paint for the game.
About halfway through the long dry spell, the Cougars’ lineup consisted of Riller along with four reserves, two of them freshmen. Later, Riller sat and Zep Jasper was the only starter out there to finish the game. You have to think Grant was not only trying to find a combination that could get new life at the offensive end, but also to find out what some of these players can do. There’s another freshman, Trevon Reddish, who did not get off the bench, and in a conference where no team has great depth, any team that might develop a little will have an edge.
“We’ve got to try to maximize it the best we can,” Grant said of the personnel. “I’m excited about the young guys, I wish they were a little older a little quicker. They’re doing a good job, they went in late in the game and did some good things, and I was proud of their efforts.”
The Cougars on the whole are a good team, and as capable as anyone of winning the conference championship next month. Riller is concluding a great career that will likely see him finish in the top three all-time in the CAA in career scoring, while Brevin Galloway has come alive as a key part of the support cast. They are one of the conference’s best defensive teams as well, with only Towson allowing opponents to shoot a lower percentage.
In the short term, turnovers have become an issue as well, keying the current three-game losing streak. That’s not a good place to be. But if they don’t become a long-term issue, and history is on their side there, regrouping to make a run next month will not surprise anyone. When play resumes later this week, they won’t be in a bad place with their standing or personnel.
