AJC > Sports > Tech > Blog > Archives > 2008 > January > 28
Monday, January 28, 2008
Timeout, timeout, timeout for Miller time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
All over the map …
Two games in a row Tech’s had timeouts to burn at the end of regulation and the opponent has not.
I asked coach Paul Hewitt the other day if he was making a conscious effort to conserve, he said he was not. In short, he just said that players are playing better, and he’s had less reason to call them. Hmmmmm.
Freshman point guard Moe Miller’s left ankle, which he injured with 6:51 left in regulation of the Yellow Jackets’ 92-82 overtime win Sunday at Virginia, was diagnosed Monday morning as a “grade two sprain.”
His status for Tech’s Saturday game against Maryland is uncertain. Yet the likelihood of Miller playing is far greater than it would have been had he suffered a “high ankle” sprain, in which increased inflammation tends to sideline athletes longer, sometimes for weeks.
Some of this detail was taken out of stories posted earlier, and I don’t know why, so here it is again. Folks love details. And money.
But I don’t have any dough.
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Early signs on Moe Miller & Stones’ show rocks again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ok, maybe not first things first, but Moe Miller’s sprained ankle did not after the game appear to be as bad as it looked when he wrenched it. He was walking, maybe not exactly comfortably, with ice on it. Trainer said it’s not clear yet whether it’s a dreaded high-ankle sprain.
Good time to have an off week (no weekday game). Tech next plays Maryland Saturday, at home, before three straight on the road.
Quickly …
The new nickname for Matt Causey could be “Stones.” Figure it out.
D’Andre Bell played a team-high 34 mins. at N.C. State Wednesday, and 32 Sunday night. He had some turnover issues at times, but getting his long body in front of Sean Singletary so much was capital C critical. Singletary was the best player to take the floor, maybe one of the three best players in the ACC. He hit 5 of 19 shots. He didn’t leave the floor as the best player Sunday.
Tech had just two turnovers in the second half and overtime combined. That’s huge.
Defense was solid inside the arc the whole game. Better on the perimeter in the second half, but frankly, Virginia was just unconscious with the long ball in the first half. Then, the Cavs got tired and Tech didn’t.
The rotation grew to 10 players, as Lance Storrs pitched in (and hit a 3). Interesting, and just as Hewitt predicted a few days ago.
If you can find the play-by-play somewhere, look at the last 15 minutes or so of this game. Causey was in on almost every play, scoring, assisting, or stealing. May have grabbed a rebound, too. When he gets in the zone, he’s in a world by himself. Hewitt said, “I’m to the point now where I just let him go.” Hewitt also likened him on two occasions, once in the post-game news conference and once in the hallway outside the lockerroom, to another former small college transfer — Shaun Fein. Fein hit almost that exactly long 3-point bomb in a win at Virginia seven years ago, in the old arena.
Speaking of arenas, Virginia’s is the nicest in the ACC. Top-notch all the way. Great, great place.
Former Tech assistant Dean Keener was at the game, and celebrating with the Jackets afterward outside the locker room. He’s the head coach now at nearby James Madison.
Tech’s got to rebound better. Last in the ACC in overall rebounds, defensive rebounding and offensive rebounding. If they weren’t a good shooting team, and if they weren’t taking care of the ball so much better of late, we wouldn’t be talking about all this. Add rebounding to the equation, and look out!
Jackets doing a lot better job recently working the ball inside. Sometimes it goes in the basket, sometimes it comes back out, but there’s a plan either way.
“You throw the ball inside, the cumulative affect is it opens up the 3,” Hewitt said. “I think early in the year we were just coming down jacking up 3s; there was not much rhyme or reason to our offense. Now, we can do that more because Lawal is becoming a presence down there. We try to go inside to out. As a matter of fact, I think some of the improvement in our play is just better play execution instead of breaking off the play and putting up a 3.”
Gani Lawal is becoming a stud in the paint. And he may be learning to pass out once in a while. He had his fifth and sixth assists of the season in this game. And believe me, his free throw problems are not from lack of work both by himself and under the eye of coaches.
This was the second road game in a row (and the first two this season), chaplain Derrick Moore made the trip. Hewitt said that’s normal, that he starts traveling when his football obligations end. Maybe that’s the real deal. Whether it is or not, I bet it continues, and ditto Hewitt’s decision to have the team eat dinner at the team hotel the night before the past two road games, er, wins. No more going out, huh?
Causey so gets under the skin of opposing fans. I wonder if opposing players loathe him, too? Watch teams start game-planning around him. They have to, don’t they?
Stones. I’m telling you.
