Blog with Bryan Smithson

So its been a few games since my last entry but things have been extremely busy especially because we have been on the road for several days.  I want to start with where I left off and talk about our win at VMI.  Right before introductions VMI announced how they had a brand new floor and they gave the microphone to the donor of the floor.  He was trying to get the near capacity crowd (about 4500) excited and took it a little too far.  He said "Coach Beidenbach, I like you, but you will lose today because today is our day!".......The crowd gave him some cheers and so he thought he was going to be a hero that night.  Well we were down 3 with 6 seconds remaining and I got the ball on a sideline out of bounds play but was pretty covered up, so I swung the ball to KJ who took a rhythm dribble and drilled a 28 footer to tie the game at the buzzer.  We would go on to win in overtime and crush the man's prediction of a win.  However, this was a very tough game, especially for me coming off some very high scoring games.  They face-guarded me the entire game and anytime I got the ball they threw a double team at me.  I had to make plays for my teammates who did a good job of executing out of the double team.  I struggled shooting from the floor and forced some shots up that I probably would have passed up in other games.  They did a good job making it tough on me to get open looks but I was able to knock some shots down in overtime and we got the win. 

We came back home against Radford last Wednesday and got another win where we pulled away in the second half to lock the win.  I had a solid game and the team played pretty well as a whole. Finished with 12 points of 9 shots and had 6 assts. They switched up defenses on us several times during the game which will help us in the future.  KJ and I had to notice the defense and make sure our team was in position to attack with the correct sets, plays, and spacing.  Will we see a lot of this throughout the conference season---especially because of Kenny George's impact on the game when he is in our out.

We started a rather long road trip on Friday as we left for Charleston Southern.  We had to turn our ticket list in friday night because of the amount of people that wanted to come see us play.  Their gym is extremely small(even smaller than ours) and was packed to capacity.  I think if the fire marshal would have showed up the place would have been shut down because there was people everywhere.  Compare it to an AAU game in a bad location with JJ Redick and Raymond Felton playing in the game.  Crazy right? They came out extremely excited because they haven't had a crowd like that in probably 4 years.  They tried to change things up on us by pressing full court and substituting every two minutes to try and wear me down and contain KJ and Kenny.  I have been playing a lot of minutes all season so after they wasted all their energy at the beginning we slowly chipped away and led by as many as 20.  I shot 8-15 for 21 and 6assts and we won by around 15.  We stayed in Charleston that night and left for Conway, SC in the morning (Coastal Carolina.

KJ and I are roomates on the road and we were checking the mid major poll all day to see where we moved up in the rankings.  Finally right before we left for the game we saw that we moved up to number 15.  This was pretty exciting but we definitely aren't satisfied.  We expected the same type of attendance at Coastal that we had at Charleston--partly because of the excitement of seeing 7ft 8 Kenny George, and the fact that everybody wants to see an upset in the conference.  The gym was packed and Coastal had a good game plan.  When Kenny George was in they played man to man and played extremely physical on the defensive end, Offensively they played 5 around 1 and tried to shoot 3's and crash the boards.  When Kenny was out they played a 1-3-1 Gap zone and tried to entice us to shoot 3 pointers, offensively they ran an open post motion (NC state motion) against us.  It was well put together and KJ and I didn't shoot the ball real well so they were in the game until the end.  Kenny really came through on two consecutive plays where he made good post moves and hit jump hooks in the lane.  They hit a 3 on back to back possessions but I hit a floater in the lane and that put us up for good.  We won by 4 in a low scoring game.  At the beginning of the 2nd half I tweeked the arch of my foot and was limping around the rest of the game.  I wasn't able to be as aggressive as I usually am on the offensive end of the floor in the second half because it was tough to switch directions.  This hurt us offensively because the ball is in my hands a lot toward the end of the game--especially when it is close,  but I tried to rotate the ball and get everybody involved and my teammates really helped me out by taking the scoring load at the end of the game.  I finished with 11 points and 6 assts.  I went to the doctor today and he said it is a planter fascia (sp?) problem and that I have to rest.  I am on crutches today just to unload the area of any body weight and I have been in the training room all day getting treatment.  I have 4 more days to take care of the problem before we play Winthrop on Saturday.  This is a very anticipated matchup and has been a sold out game for weeks.  A lot of people have been calling me for tickets but they are pretty limited due to the size of our gym and I don't know how many will be able to come.  The important thing is I have to rest and get as close to 100% as possible so we can continue our streak and build on our 6-0 conference record and 17-4 season record.

 Check the Video clip below vs. High Point