The first 2009 edition of The Star's JSU Sports Podcast is up, and we're still looking for your opinion.
This week Al and I talk about the JSU men's basketball team's split of its two-game homestand, dropping a game to Eastern Illinois, then pulling it out against a Southeast Missouri State team that whittled their 21-point lead to 3 with just minutes play. Meanwhile, the struggles of the women's team continue.
Plus, we start talking about the types of teams JSU might use to fill its two open dates on the 2009 football schedule. We're still waiting to hear who specifically you'd like the Gamecocks to schedule.
Let us know by posting a comment here, or e-mailing me at bcunningham@annistonstar.com. Be sure to tell us what specific teams you'd like to see them play, and why. And don't forget, there are two openings on the schedule. We'll discuss your picks on the podcast when we get enough suggestions to work with.
In the meantime, click the player below to hear this week's episode.
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Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
Duhart update
In the time it took to play the JSU women's game, it was learned 6-foot sophomore center Cierra Duhart would not be returning to the Gamecocks in the second semester.
It is believed she will transfer to a smaller school closer to her Hawkinsville, Ga., home in order to facilitate her personal situation. Duhart told coach Becky Geyer of her decision Monday.
"The tough part about that is ... you lose that scoring you had expected to have and now other people have to pick it up," Geyer said. "It's been a huge adjustment for us, there's no doubt about it.
"But as we told our kids, we're all here now, this is the group here now, we don't need to say where we're at. We've just got to continue to get better and if we continue to get better, we're going to win some ballgames."
The Gamecocks also haven't had freshman guard Chase Ogden since the Tennessee Tech game. Without further comment, Geyer said Ogden was "not currently" on the team.
Ogden's career got off to a rough start. She took a shot in the nose and had to wear a faceguard early on. He played 13 minutes in three games, scoring two points, collecting three steals and dealing an assist.
It is believed she will transfer to a smaller school closer to her Hawkinsville, Ga., home in order to facilitate her personal situation. Duhart told coach Becky Geyer of her decision Monday.
"The tough part about that is ... you lose that scoring you had expected to have and now other people have to pick it up," Geyer said. "It's been a huge adjustment for us, there's no doubt about it.
"But as we told our kids, we're all here now, this is the group here now, we don't need to say where we're at. We've just got to continue to get better and if we continue to get better, we're going to win some ballgames."
The Gamecocks also haven't had freshman guard Chase Ogden since the Tennessee Tech game. Without further comment, Geyer said Ogden was "not currently" on the team.
Ogden's career got off to a rough start. She took a shot in the nose and had to wear a faceguard early on. He played 13 minutes in three games, scoring two points, collecting three steals and dealing an assist.
Sharp eyes
There isn’t much that gets past the band.
When SEMO center Lesley Adams entered Monday night’s game, it didn’t take long for the Hard Corps pep band to notice the 6-foot-2 junior had her shorts on backwards. (You could tell because the trademark was on the rear and the OVC logo was on the right leg – unless everybody else’s was on backwards and hers was not).
And they let her know it … several times. And between their loudness and the emptiness of Pete Mathews Coliseum, you could’ve probably heard it all the way to the parking lot.
Adams’ shorts may have been reversed, but she faced the basket the right way enough times in the half to pull down five rebounds as SEMO opened a 42-24 lead on the way to what was looking like its 15th straight OVC road win.
She had them the right way in the second half. Adams entered the second half with 14:01 to play and some members of the band noticed the change immediately, but most didn't catch on until a minute in.
When SEMO center Lesley Adams entered Monday night’s game, it didn’t take long for the Hard Corps pep band to notice the 6-foot-2 junior had her shorts on backwards. (You could tell because the trademark was on the rear and the OVC logo was on the right leg – unless everybody else’s was on backwards and hers was not).
And they let her know it … several times. And between their loudness and the emptiness of Pete Mathews Coliseum, you could’ve probably heard it all the way to the parking lot.
Adams’ shorts may have been reversed, but she faced the basket the right way enough times in the half to pull down five rebounds as SEMO opened a 42-24 lead on the way to what was looking like its 15th straight OVC road win.
She had them the right way in the second half. Adams entered the second half with 14:01 to play and some members of the band noticed the change immediately, but most didn't catch on until a minute in.
Still waiting
There are two players in the JSU basketball program you have yet to see this season and the longer their absence grows, the question arises whether the Gamecocks would be better off to simply redshirt both of them.
Freshman forward Brylle Kamen has yet to play for the men’s team as JSU waits for an NCAA determination on his eligibility as an international signee. No one to date has said what the hold up is – whether it’s grade correlation, international playing experience or something else -- but other players around the country in similar situations already have been cleared.
Sophomore post Cierra Duhart has yet to play for the women’s team following the early arrival of her twins and complications following their birth.
Duhart, the women’s second leading scorer and top rebounder last year, has been taking classes and was said to have done well in the fall semester all things considered, but has not been involved with basketball at all. Kamen at least has been practicing with the men’s team.
Although the decision is the athletic department’s to make, it would probably be logical at this point to go ahead and say they were going to redshirt Duhart -- giving her three more years of eligibility -- since there’s no telling when the 6-foot Georgian could be available if she did come back this year. The decision on Kamen isn’t so simple.
“We can’t necessarily say that because we don’t know what the circumstance will be when they give (the decision) to us,” JSU coach James Green said. “If they say, ‘OK,’ let’s say he’s available for the last 12 games of the season or something crazy like that but that year’s going to count against him anyway, why wouldn’t we go ahead and play him then.
“I don’t know what the circumstance may be. Not until we see that will we know. I wish we did know so we could play him. If I had that decision I would say at this particular point he’d play.”
In the meantime, Green has taken the public tack that until the Gamecocks have him, you can’t worry about how he’d fit in the plan.
Freshman forward Brylle Kamen has yet to play for the men’s team as JSU waits for an NCAA determination on his eligibility as an international signee. No one to date has said what the hold up is – whether it’s grade correlation, international playing experience or something else -- but other players around the country in similar situations already have been cleared.
Sophomore post Cierra Duhart has yet to play for the women’s team following the early arrival of her twins and complications following their birth.
Duhart, the women’s second leading scorer and top rebounder last year, has been taking classes and was said to have done well in the fall semester all things considered, but has not been involved with basketball at all. Kamen at least has been practicing with the men’s team.
Although the decision is the athletic department’s to make, it would probably be logical at this point to go ahead and say they were going to redshirt Duhart -- giving her three more years of eligibility -- since there’s no telling when the 6-foot Georgian could be available if she did come back this year. The decision on Kamen isn’t so simple.
“We can’t necessarily say that because we don’t know what the circumstance will be when they give (the decision) to us,” JSU coach James Green said. “If they say, ‘OK,’ let’s say he’s available for the last 12 games of the season or something crazy like that but that year’s going to count against him anyway, why wouldn’t we go ahead and play him then.
“I don’t know what the circumstance may be. Not until we see that will we know. I wish we did know so we could play him. If I had that decision I would say at this particular point he’d play.”
In the meantime, Green has taken the public tack that until the Gamecocks have him, you can’t worry about how he’d fit in the plan.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Coach's son rocks
There’s more than just basketball talent on James Green’s family tree.
The Jacksonville State basketball coach’s 17-year-old son, Bryan, is a promising musician and Saturday night he put his singing talents on display for the Pete Mathews Coliseum crowd, performing the national anthem before the JSU-Eastern Illinois women’s game.
He's done the anthem many times before, but this was his JSU debut.
“I wasn’t (nervous). I’m used to it,” Bryan said. “I’m a little bit older now. I do a lot of plays and stuff at school. I’m used to the crowd.”
Bryan, a junior in high school back in New Albany, Miss., sang the anthem “a lot of times” when his father coached at Southern Miss. As an 11-year-old, he sang in front of 35,000 at a USM football game — with his father by his side. (Dad was listening in the wings Saturday night).
He sang once when his dad coached at Mississippi Valley.
There will be a lot of singing in this young man’s immediate future. He plays the role of Luminaire, the enchanted candlestick, in his school’s upcoming production of “Beauty and the Beast” — he was the scarecrow in its production of “The Wiz” — and he plans to put a gospel group together in the coming year.
The Jacksonville State basketball coach’s 17-year-old son, Bryan, is a promising musician and Saturday night he put his singing talents on display for the Pete Mathews Coliseum crowd, performing the national anthem before the JSU-Eastern Illinois women’s game.
He's done the anthem many times before, but this was his JSU debut.
“I wasn’t (nervous). I’m used to it,” Bryan said. “I’m a little bit older now. I do a lot of plays and stuff at school. I’m used to the crowd.”
Bryan, a junior in high school back in New Albany, Miss., sang the anthem “a lot of times” when his father coached at Southern Miss. As an 11-year-old, he sang in front of 35,000 at a USM football game — with his father by his side. (Dad was listening in the wings Saturday night).
He sang once when his dad coached at Mississippi Valley.
There will be a lot of singing in this young man’s immediate future. He plays the role of Luminaire, the enchanted candlestick, in his school’s upcoming production of “Beauty and the Beast” — he was the scarecrow in its production of “The Wiz” — and he plans to put a gospel group together in the coming year.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Let the (OVC) games begin
James Green figures his Jacksonville State basketball team got an early leg up on most of the Ohio Valley Conference when the Gamecocks won their OVC opener on the road at Tennessee Tech last month.
But the new JSU coach knows in order to keep that edge from now on, it will be important the Gamecocks defend their home court.
The first chance comes Saturday as they get back in the OVC in earnest against Eastern Illinois at Pete Mathews Coliseum. The game starts an intense run of four games in seven days, the first two of which are at home and the first three are against teams that were picked immediately ahead of the Gamecocks in the preseason conference poll.
The Gamecocks (7-3, 1-0) won their first OVC game under Green last month when they went to Tennessee Tech and, even without leading scorer Brandon Crawford, took out the Golden Eagles, 82-66.
Not only was it a win, it was a win on the road.
“That helped, I think, because it gives us something to talk about,” Green said. “We won our first road game. Now, it’s (about) protecting our home court … And if we’re going to finish somewhere other than tenth, then we better figure out a way to defend our home court.”
When you’re picked last in the preseason poll like JSU was, you have to beat everybody in the league to prove the experts wrong. Not everybody expects the Gamecocks to finish last. At least one preseason magazine picked them to finish ahead of Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Illinois and Southeast Missouri.
But those are the three teams picked immediately ahead of the Gamecocks in the preseason poll and just happen to be three of the teams JSU plays on this four-game gauntlet - No. 9 EIU (Saturday), No. 8 SEMO (Monday), No. 7 EKU (Thursday).
“It’s so early in terms of having to win this particular game, and I don’t want to single a team out that we need to finish ahead of right now because we don’t know how it’s going to shake out,” Green said. “Obviously when you look at the standings, most of the time if you’re picked tenth, you’re going to kind of ignore those top three and you’re going to concentrate on those other seven and see how can I get into being in the top five out of the next seven.”
That’s where beating Tennessee Tech on the road helps them. They got a win on the road, and a win against a team picked ahead of them. Austin Peay got an even bigger jump, winning both its OVC December games on the road. No one else in the league did better than a split.
As the Gamecocks head into conference play, they will be looking for improvement in two specific areas -- offensive rebounding and changing ends of the floor.
They are currently second in the league in defensive rebounds, but only fifth when it comes to grabbing their own misses (12.5). They’re averaging only 13 second-chance points a game, 11 against their Division I opponents.
The improvement on changing ends relates to all five players getting up the floor at the same time. Once the Gamecocks get past what Green called “some nick-knack injuries”, they hope to play a rotation of eight or nine players in order to be fresher in the final five minutes of the game.
“We have a tendency to run when we think we’re going to get the ball and when we don’t, we kind of wait,“ Green said. “What happens is you eat up your shot clock. We want to put the pressure on (opponents) every time.“
Regarding the injuries, freshman forward Stephen Hall practiced Friday and Green said “chances are he will play some minutes.” Hall didn’t play in the Berry game because of a leg injury. He is averaging 7.2 points and 5.3 rebounds.
Junior forward Jacques Leeds didn’t practice Friday because of a left shoulder injury and his status for the EIU game, Green said, is “up in the air.” Leeds could show enough improvement in Saturday’s game-day practice to play.
“He has another opportunity to see what he can do,“ Green said. “If he can’t, it gets a little bit slimmer he won’t play. And if we can play without him we will, too, simply because it gives him more time to recover.”
Leeds is averaging 3.0 points and 1.8 rebounds, but had nine points and five rebounds in 16 minutes against Berry in the absence of Hall and Amadou Mbodji’s foul trouble.
But the new JSU coach knows in order to keep that edge from now on, it will be important the Gamecocks defend their home court.
The first chance comes Saturday as they get back in the OVC in earnest against Eastern Illinois at Pete Mathews Coliseum. The game starts an intense run of four games in seven days, the first two of which are at home and the first three are against teams that were picked immediately ahead of the Gamecocks in the preseason conference poll.
The Gamecocks (7-3, 1-0) won their first OVC game under Green last month when they went to Tennessee Tech and, even without leading scorer Brandon Crawford, took out the Golden Eagles, 82-66.
Not only was it a win, it was a win on the road.
“That helped, I think, because it gives us something to talk about,” Green said. “We won our first road game. Now, it’s (about) protecting our home court … And if we’re going to finish somewhere other than tenth, then we better figure out a way to defend our home court.”
When you’re picked last in the preseason poll like JSU was, you have to beat everybody in the league to prove the experts wrong. Not everybody expects the Gamecocks to finish last. At least one preseason magazine picked them to finish ahead of Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Illinois and Southeast Missouri.
But those are the three teams picked immediately ahead of the Gamecocks in the preseason poll and just happen to be three of the teams JSU plays on this four-game gauntlet - No. 9 EIU (Saturday), No. 8 SEMO (Monday), No. 7 EKU (Thursday).
“It’s so early in terms of having to win this particular game, and I don’t want to single a team out that we need to finish ahead of right now because we don’t know how it’s going to shake out,” Green said. “Obviously when you look at the standings, most of the time if you’re picked tenth, you’re going to kind of ignore those top three and you’re going to concentrate on those other seven and see how can I get into being in the top five out of the next seven.”
That’s where beating Tennessee Tech on the road helps them. They got a win on the road, and a win against a team picked ahead of them. Austin Peay got an even bigger jump, winning both its OVC December games on the road. No one else in the league did better than a split.
As the Gamecocks head into conference play, they will be looking for improvement in two specific areas -- offensive rebounding and changing ends of the floor.
They are currently second in the league in defensive rebounds, but only fifth when it comes to grabbing their own misses (12.5). They’re averaging only 13 second-chance points a game, 11 against their Division I opponents.
The improvement on changing ends relates to all five players getting up the floor at the same time. Once the Gamecocks get past what Green called “some nick-knack injuries”, they hope to play a rotation of eight or nine players in order to be fresher in the final five minutes of the game.
“We have a tendency to run when we think we’re going to get the ball and when we don’t, we kind of wait,“ Green said. “What happens is you eat up your shot clock. We want to put the pressure on (opponents) every time.“
Regarding the injuries, freshman forward Stephen Hall practiced Friday and Green said “chances are he will play some minutes.” Hall didn’t play in the Berry game because of a leg injury. He is averaging 7.2 points and 5.3 rebounds.
Junior forward Jacques Leeds didn’t practice Friday because of a left shoulder injury and his status for the EIU game, Green said, is “up in the air.” Leeds could show enough improvement in Saturday’s game-day practice to play.
“He has another opportunity to see what he can do,“ Green said. “If he can’t, it gets a little bit slimmer he won’t play. And if we can play without him we will, too, simply because it gives him more time to recover.”
Leeds is averaging 3.0 points and 1.8 rebounds, but had nine points and five rebounds in 16 minutes against Berry in the absence of Hall and Amadou Mbodji’s foul trouble.
Check that
You know how sometimes when you're writing a report your mind knows what it wants to put down on the paper but the thought process moves too fast for your fingers on the typewriter
That's what happened in a quote attributed to JSU football coach Jack Crowe in my story that appeared in today's print edition of The Star about the return of Gamecocks quarterback Ryan Perrilloux, and it might have caused a bit of confusion.
Let me clear things up.
One word made all the difference. It was a word in Crowe's quote related to Perrilloux's possible motivations for some of the inconsistencies -- academic and otherwise -- he had during the season.
The quote that appeared in the story had Crowe saying "it was more of (Perrilloux) thinking he wanted to come BACK instead of taking care of his business." What he actually said -- and it's in the notebook -- was "it was more him thinking he wanted to come OUT instead of taking care of his business."
See the difference.
Although Perrilloux often told the media he planned on coming back to JSU, people close to him have told The Star the quarterback was considering coming out for this year's draft. A report from the NFL Advisory Board indicated he would only be a fifth or sixth round pick if he did.
Perrilloux was on his way back to JSU Thursday night and is said to be committed to completing his degree here in two semesters.
That's what happened in a quote attributed to JSU football coach Jack Crowe in my story that appeared in today's print edition of The Star about the return of Gamecocks quarterback Ryan Perrilloux, and it might have caused a bit of confusion.
Let me clear things up.
One word made all the difference. It was a word in Crowe's quote related to Perrilloux's possible motivations for some of the inconsistencies -- academic and otherwise -- he had during the season.
The quote that appeared in the story had Crowe saying "it was more of (Perrilloux) thinking he wanted to come BACK instead of taking care of his business." What he actually said -- and it's in the notebook -- was "it was more him thinking he wanted to come OUT instead of taking care of his business."
See the difference.
Although Perrilloux often told the media he planned on coming back to JSU, people close to him have told The Star the quarterback was considering coming out for this year's draft. A report from the NFL Advisory Board indicated he would only be a fifth or sixth round pick if he did.
Perrilloux was on his way back to JSU Thursday night and is said to be committed to completing his degree here in two semesters.
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