Cougars Move Into First Place with Fourth Straight Win
In their second-straight 2–0 week in CAA hoops play, Charleston reached a pair of important milestones: their first league road win and a return to the top of the standings. The Cougars were able to recover from a sluggish start to win at Delaware, then came home and took care of business to defeat JMU Saturday afternoon.
We’ll start with the game in Newark. I’ve made a handful of trips up to UD to see the Cougs, and it seems like every time they play at “The Bob”, the shots don’t fall. That was the case on Thursday. Charleston made just one field goal over the first 10 minutes of the game. It was the continuation of a troubling trend the Cougars have shown, especially on the road, but one that was slightly mitigated this time around by the CofC defense. Even though Delaware crawled out to a 10-point lead midway through the first half, Charleston still had the Blue Hens limited to 13 points.
The most welcome sign was the adjustments Coach Grant made in defending Eric Carter and reigning CAA Rookie of the Year Ryan Daly. Those two ate Charleston’s lunch for much of the game at TD Arena this season, but were held to just 4 combined points in the first half.
When Charleston finally did wake up, first with a Marquise Pointer three and then a pair of Joe Chealey jumpers, they were able to make up the deficit in short order. Unlike say, the Towson and Drexel games, when a Charleston run was like pouring sand into a leaky bag made of lackluster defense. The Cougars somehow climbed all the way back into a tie with the ball for the final possession before halftime, and did this.
So after nothing went right for half of the period, the Cougars went into the locker room with momentum.
Charleston delivered a second half performance that displayed more poise than their three previous road losses. They held Delaware to just 31 points on 27% shooting (including a 2 for 12 mark from deep), and displayed balanced scoring on offense. Chealey, Johnson, Riller, Brantley and Pointer each scored at least 5 points in the second half and the team made 14 field goals for 37 points.
One substitution pattern of note was that Grant seemed to give freshman Samba Ndiaye a bit more leash this game. Harris got into foul trouble, but rather than going small with Brantley/McManus in the frontcourt (or four guards), Coach Grant let Samba play next to Jarrell. Although Ndiaye wasn’t able to convert from the free throw line (1–4), he did collect six rebounds in six minutes. With Osi Smart still recovering from injury, Samba has moved up the bench to be the first big man to check in. He’s still pretty raw, but it was good to see him gain some confidence under Grant’s decision-making.
The only thing that kept Delaware within striking distance going into the final minutes was their red-hot free throw shooting. The Hens were 17 of 19 for the game, while Charleston (coming into the contest top-25 in the country in FT%), was just 11 of 21. Nursing a two point lead with 90 seconds to play, Charleston closed the game out with their senior backcourt. Cam and Joe hit back-to-back threes to give Charleston some breathing room, and Cougar fans let out a sigh of relief that the team had finally put together a complete road performance.
Closing out the week, Charleston played host to a pesky James Madison team. The Dukes rest at the bottom of the CAA standings, but they have played nearly every opponent close.
True to form, Charleston started this game slow as well. After Cam Johnson made the first shot of the afternoon — giving weak-kneed Charleston fans a welcome opportunity to sit early — JMU went on an 18 to 5 run to go up double-digits before the under-15 timeout. But the Cougars were still undefeated at home, and had come back from a larger deficit just a week prior. Reason for a twisted form of optimism?
Sure enough, Charleston responded after the media timeout. Generally Joe Chealey would be the one to pull the team out of a drought, but it was actually Jarrell Brantley who took control of the game and proved to be the best player on the floor. That’s a welcome sign for CofC fans, as Brantley had not looked like himself the past two weeks. After missing his first three-ball, as well as two putback opportunities at the rim, Brantley didn’t pout. He put his back to the basket and drove on JMU’s defense all night.
One of the most satisfying developments of the night was the play of Nick Harris. Charleston’s gentle giant has been at times accused of playing below his size and potential. There may have even been a Kickstarter on CofCFans.com to have an assistant coach kick him in the crotch before home games — just to get Nick fired up early on. The catalyst on Saturday was JMU center Develle Phillips, who has way too many L’s in his name and got some early offensive boards and dunks on his opponents. After one play in particular, the camera’s caught Phillips jawing at Harris as he jogged downcourt. Say no more. Nick went full on Bynum vs. Shaq on Phillips for the game’s most satisfying play.
Nick and Jarrell were doing the heavy lifting down low, but Cam Johnson provided a nice spark from outside. The senior was 3–5 from behind the arc, chipping in 11 points and taking some of the pressure off Chealey. Joe still finished with 19 points, but did not have the most efficient night, going 4 for 12 from the field.
James Madison went zone defense most of the game — crowding Joe and Marquise whenever they got the ball, and cutting off Grant Riller’s driving lanes. For the most part, the Dukes were successful. Riller was held to just three points for the first 38 minutes of the game, electing to drive and kick on his way to a team-leading four assists. Marquise Pointer was the only Charleston bench player to score and had just two points. But with Brantley handling the majority of the scoring and rebounding load (21 and 8 for the game), and Johnson and Harris chipping in, it didn’t matter that Riller and Pointer were limited.
For the second straight game, Earl Grant’s defense looked like his teams of old. Charleston held the Dukes to below 40% shooting from the field, below 40% from the arc, and below the 60-point threshold. Cam Johnson did a great job limiting Stuckey Mosley, who had 17 points on 16 shot attempts. The Cougars also forced a couple shot clock violations, and the oh-so-rare 5-second call when they swarmed JMU on one possession in the second half.
CofC did have one last drought in them, which caused their multi-possession lead to dwindle down to 3 points with a minute and change remaining in the game. The Dukes had their eyes glued to Chealey, Brantley and Johnson, and the Cougars’ look on their most important play of the game even had Everett and Danny guessing they knew the play. But JMU had overlooked Grant Riller on his quiet day, and given him too much space. Riller buried the dagger.
Bookending Charleston’s victory, Northeastern lost at Drexel (what’s up with these hot and cold Dragons?), and William & Mary won on the road against UNCW. That scenario has created a three-way tie for first in the CAA, with Hofstra one game behind. There are still eight games to play, four of which will pit the Cougars against the Huskies, Pride and Tribe.
Despite the roller coaster season thus far, the Cougars are in a share of first place at essentially the midway point of the conference season. In the postgame, Earl Grant mentioned that if he wants the team to be operating at a 10 out of 10 in March, they’re at about a 6 right now — largely because Brantley’s time out delayed the team’s rhythm. If that’s true, the Cougars should be feeling pretty good about themselves. A “6” has them at 7–3 in the league, with at least a split record against 6 of the 7 teams that trail them in the standings.
Next week is the always-difficult Northeastern/Hofstra road swing. Win both of those games and Charleston is really in the driver’s seat.
