Basketball recap
December 18, 2007
Here’s my game story from Troy’s 98-80 win over Jacksonville.
First off, what a remarkable performance from the bench, including Brandon Hazzard (27 points) and Mario Telfair (20). I thought Troy would be worthless in any games that both O’Darien Bassett and Justin Jonus struggled, but it turns out that won’t be the case.
The team is 5-0 since everyone got healthy or eligible, and head coach Don Maestri is playing all 12 players most nights.
The problem is, Troy is also staring at an 0-3 Sun Belt start with South Alabama, Western Kentucky and North Texas - perhaps the league’s 3 best teams - on the schedule to start and with WKU and UNT at home BEFORE students get back.
Make no mistake about it, Jonus and Bassett will still need to be good, but the emergence of Hazzard as an outside threat and Telfair as one who is tough to guard 1-on-1 will open things up for other teammates. Maestri said the toughest thing is figuring out how to get Hazzard more minutes, but he’ll have to because of the way the kid shoots the ball.
Bernard Toombs, a guy who’s bandwagon I’m on, is playing more - likely at the expense of Jarvis Acker down low. Toombs is four inches taller and is all over the place when the ball’s in the air. His offensive game needs a little more work, but he’s a guy that needs to be on the floor.
Speaking of rebounds, Troy’s likely to lose the rebounding battle most games, but these guys box out a lot better than the guys did last year. That counts for a lot.
Tom Jervis is a guy that’s battling through a high ankle sprain. He’s playing in games, but barely practicing. That will change as his abilities as a finesse big man are up there. He’s having trouble banging with the bigger bodies, but he’s very basketball-savvy.
Teamwork play of the game: Alright, Justin Jonus is a guy who likes to shoot. He’s always been a score-first guy, well, because he can score. Well against JU, he was colder than the temperature outside. With about 3-4 minutes to go in the game, he had a chance at a contested 3-pointer from the left wing—one he would likely shoot otherwise, and one you would think a guy who wanted to hit a shot would shoot, but he faked it and found a wide open Bassett in the left corner, and he drained a 3. It just goes a lot to say how this team isn’t concerned with who’s scoring the most points. I heard last year, even after wins, some would mope about how they didn’t score enough points.
Not sure how well Troy will do in Sun Belt play still. I don’t think they’ll finish last but I’m hard-pressed to see them in the upper half of the league. The schedule didn’t do them any favors having to play USA, WKU and UNT twice, as well as MTSU, but chemistry goes a long way, especially at the end of the season. This team has it.
