This is OUR New York song reference.
Final Four here we come! Yay! We're relevant! Yay! People will watch our game! Cool. More basketball. That's right, the Rebels are headed to the NIT's "Frangible Four". We will play either Illinois or Dayton on Tuesday the 30th. Yes, it once again directly coincides with a game where the Diamond Rebs will play at Trustmark Park. Decisions, decisions. Two games that we'll all pretend don't mean anything to us when, in fact, they do.
Anyway, now that the general NIT talk is over, let's talk about last night's game.
Murphy Holloway was once again the player of the game in my eyes. Holloway registered a double-double with seventeen points and eleven rebounds. Also, he stole the ball five times and often made hustle plays that don't show up in the stat sheet. I'm sure that some of you have players on the team that you like more than Murphy Holloway, but I'm not sure how. Specifically last night, he was involved in major plays at the end of each overtime as well as regulation.
Chris Warren scored a lot of points and made his free throws. However, he also turned the ball over four times and continued to struggle defensively. Still, when he's scoring, he's really helpful, and he was scoring last night. I don't want anyone to misunderstand my issues with Chris Warren. I absolutely love the guy. I just know that he's capable of being a better player through putting more effort into playing defense. I still want the ball in his hands when the game is on the line.
Terrico White was 7-21 and 0-6 from three. Yikes. I know that he had some monster dunks, but his shots weren't falling all night. While I don't want Terrico to play well for the remainder of the year (so that maybe, just maybe, he'll come back), he's going to have to if we want to win this thing. And yes. I want to win this thing.
Reginald Buckner didn't create too much offensively, scoring four points and missing both free throws, but he did register nine rebounds, four blocks, and only one foul in 21 minutes of work. It was a good game from Reggie, and I'm excited about his potential impact the rest of the way.
I feel like Terrance Henry didn't do what I was expecting of him. Don't get me wrong, he played a good game on paper, scoring nine points with six rebounds and two blocks, but being rewarded with 32 minutes, I expected more. I wanted Henry to do things like help stop Mike Singletary, and he didn't. Still, he and Buckner have me excited about next year. With the addition of inbound signee Demarco Cox, I think our bigs should be more of a presence down low next year.
Zach Graham and Trevor Gaskins were both adequate, with Gaskins making more of a difference in the game, but not by much. DeAundre Cranston played a respectable twelve minutes and did some good things while he was in the game.
Thoughts?