UNCG Press

From WFMY News 2's DigTraid page, here's an interview with UNCG Coach Wes Miller. Also, there are interviews with Trevis Simpson, David Williams and a video of practice.

USA Today posted their weekly SoCon update with some interesting notes about UNCG.

--The carnage that was the January schedule of games in the Southern Conference has produced plenty of good basketball, but it's come at the majority of the league's expense. Entering the final month of the regular season, only Davidson, Wofford, Furman and College of Charleston will have winning overall records. The best overall win tally in the north division is Elon's 10-10 record.

--The league is about a month away from voting for its top coach, but barring some unforeseen changes, it may very well come down to Davidson's Bob McKillop and UNC-Greensboro interim coach Wes Miller. The latter, who took over for Mike Dement in early December, coached his team to six straight victories to close out January. Miller's team was atop the north division standings entering the final month of regular-season play.

McKillop, who has his team on top of the south division standings, has his team at 9-1 entering February an in line to win the regular-season title.

--As far as the Player of the Year honors go, the decision may be a bit harder for the coaches and media. The Citadel big man Mike Groselle enters the final month of play as the Southern Conference leader in both points (17.3 ppg) and rebounds (9.6 rpg). However, many may not vote for a player on a team that has struggled so much. The Bulldogs won just one of their first one of their first 10 league games. Others to keep an eye on are UNC Greensboro guard Trevis Simpson, College of Charleston senior Antwaine Wiggins and Georgia Southern's Eric Ferguson. Ferguson is the only other player in the league in the top five in both points and rebounds.

There was an article this past weekend in the Raleigh News & Observer about Wes Miller and App State coach Jason Capel and their unique relationship as head coaches in the same conference.

Also, I believe Wes Miller is scheduled to be on WFNZ's (Charlotte, NC) syndicated afternoon sports radio show "The Drive" hosted by Taylor Zarzour and Marc James. The show airs from 3-7 EST. I will post the time he is going to be on the show when I find out. The show can be heard on UNCG's flagship station WCOG 1320 AM in the triad, on ESPN Radio in the triangle and on WFNZ in Charlotte. The show is streamed over the Internet here, here and here.

UPDATE: Wes will be on at 6 pm EST.

UPDATE x2: The interview can be heard here.

Duke Embarrasses UNCG

UNCG 62 - Duke 108

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Coach K got win 880. UNCG got embarrassed in front of a national TV audience. I got to listen to whole thing from the middle of High Point Rd because the schedulers at the Greensboro Coliseum don't own a calender. When I get over my rage at the morons who thought a wrestling tournament, high school basketball tournament and major college game should be played on the same night, I'll write more about it. Until then I'll just call everyone associated with this debacle idiots.

Late 3 Pointer Sinks Spartans

UNCG 56 - Davidson 60

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Brendan McKillop hit a 3 pointer with less than 30 seconds remaining and then kept the Spartans from getting a good look of their own to win on their Senior Night. Kendall Toney led the UNCG with 16 points.

Positives
- Turnovers --- UNCG has given the ball away too many times throughout the year. Against a good Wildcat defense, UNCG had a season low 6.
- Freshmen --- Kyle Randall continues to play well in the second half of the season. Randall had 15 points and a surprising 7 rebounds. Brian Cole played extended minutes and really made the most of them. Cole scored 14 points on 5-8 shooting.

Negatives
- Ben Stywall --- Ben has been one of the best players in Southern Conference. However, he was saddled with foul trouble all night and only managed 1 point and 3 rebounds.
- Rebounds --- When UNCG hasn't rebounded well, the results have been poor. Davidson out rebounded UNCG by 10.

Huge Second Half Sinks Spartans

UNCG 67- NC State 89

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It was a familiar feeling game for UNCG fans against NC State. Play tough and watch the other team's fans look nervous, but wither in the end. The Spartans dug themselves another big hole right out of the gate. UNCG showed plenty of heart, though as they battled back to being down just 4 at halftime. A 57 point outburst by the Wolfpack in the second half turned back any thoughts of an upset.

Positives:
- Scoring help --- It was good to see more than one Spartan in double figures. Brian Cole (10 pts)did a great job of keeping UNCG in the game in the first half. While Korey Van Dussen's (12 pts) scoring in the second half helped the Spartans fight deep into the second half. Of course, Ben Stywall (18 pts) and Brandon Evans (14 pts) did their normal scoring too.
- Rebounding --- Again, UNCG did a great job of out rebounding an ACC opponent. Stywall led the charge with 13 rebounds.
- Free throws --- The Spartans shot over 80% from the line and are shooting over 70% for the year. Hopefully, this is something that UNCG can take advantage of by getting to the line more often.

Negatives:
- Defense --- NC State scored over 50 points in the second half and shot close to 70% in the half. For the game the Wolfpack shot over 50%. It seems like everyone UNCG has played has shot really well. Some of that is just luck, but some of it is poor defense. The Spartans need to get better at this in league play.
Turnovers and assists --- It was another rough night for turning the ball over. However, it is starting to become obvious that UNCG is dribbling too much and not passing enough. This is leading to very few assists. Spartan guards are creating a lot of shots for themselves, but very few openings for their teammates. Again let's hope that the assist numbers start to go up (and turnovers down) when SoCon play begins next week.

Links & OOC Scheduling

Now that I have some free time for the next couple of months, I'm going to try to exchange links with a few more college basketball websites. Feel free to send me sites that you think I should check out. I'm going to start by contacting websites of teams that UNCG is playing this upcoming season.

Which brings me to my to my next point. I'm adding a new space for confirmed out of conference opponents. I'll use this post to point out where I found these teams from. Hopefully by the time the real schedule comes out, we'll already have a good portion of it figured out. If anyone comes across a link or knows something that they'd like to share, email me.

- NC State, ECU & Princeton - We've known about these 3 for a while. All three games will be at the Greensboro Coliseum.
- Duke, Clemson, Maryland, Virginia Tech & Wake Forest - The article points out that the Duke game is in Cameron (11/14). Other than that game, it's unknown where the rest of these will be played.
- NC A&T (rumored) - I'm going to leave this one off the list because the article only vaguely says that the series will be restarted.
- Richmond, VCU & Charlotte (rumored) - The article just says Barakat is working on these teams. I also believe these are the same teams he mentioned at the press conference in December.

Bizarre Recruiting Story

Jon Wall (Raleigh , NC) is widely considered the #1 high school prospect in America for the 2009 class. Memphis, Kentucky, NC State, Baylor, Duke and UNC all have a shot at landing him. Earlier this season, the Raleigh News & Observer did a piece detailing his rise to basketball prominence and some of the things surrounding his recruitment.

Then today there's this story that NCSU has ordered the shut down of a Facebook group titled "Jon Wall PLEASE come to NC STATE!!!". It was started by a NCSU student. Apparently, people in the Wolfpack athletics department thought that this might constitute a recruiting violation.

The NCAA made clear to N.C. State that it considers such sites a violation, Lee said. Making such a public appeal to Wall, in effect, turned Moseley into a representative of the university's athletic interests under NCAA Division I Bylaw 13.02.13.

NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson said the bylaw applies to "individuals who would develop a social networking site or use an existing one to send recruiting messages to prospective student-athletes. Those communications are not allowed."

Even though NCSU shut down their Facebook group, the article points out that there are still similar groups for the other schools still recruiting Wall. I'm interested to see all plays out. Expecting schools to self police this is a very silly idea.

The next problem will be defining what is a violation and what is free speech. I've mentioned a recruit on this blog that hasn't signed a LOI. I'm not a student and (as of right now) not a member of the Spartan club. All I am is an alumni. So, does this make me a "booster" in the NCAA's eyes? Have I committed a violation? Does this stretch all the way to message boards? The issue gets even murkier if a UNC student starts a "Jon Wall, come to NC State" group on Facebook or Myspace. Does NC State have the right to sue to stop it?

I honestly believe this is the case of a school being a little too cautious. I think the NCAA will shy away from doing much about this because they're not going to like what they find. Every school is probably involved (at least at the elite level). So who will they want to punish? Just think back to the old Jerry Tarkanian quote that, "the NCAA is so mad at Kentucky that they are going to put Cleveland State on probation for another year".

Aaaarrrrgggg ?!?

UNCG 53 - East Carolina 97

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Halftime score ... ECU 41-UNCG 32. Second half score ... ECU 56-UNCG 21. We've seen this before. The telling stat is second half shooting percentage. UNCG 18.8% (6-32) and ECU 67.7% (21-31).

The Good:
- I'm honestly struggling to find anything good here. It was another solid first half effort. If they gave 1/2 wins for good first half performances, UNCG would have a good record. I don't know what Coach Dement is saying in locker room at the break but he needs to change it (hint: Watch Bull Durham).

The Bad:
- "Splash" page on UNCGSpartans.com. Can we just go ahead and take that down now. It was great to infuse a few days of excitement back into the basketball program. The slogan "On the rise" seems a little hollow right now.

The Ugly:
- Offense - 30.2% from the field, 19% from 3 point range and 61.1% from the free throw line. Mikko (9 pts), Stywall (4 pts) and Landon (0 pts) had a bad night.
- Defense - 59.7% from the field and 51.7% from 3 point range. Seven, SEVEN Pirates scored in double figures.

That's it. Wish I could come up with some great analysis as to what happened, but I've got nuthin'. Hopefully, the Spartans can just put it behind them and start to pull things together.

Seeing Red

UNCG 52 - NC State 79


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A 16-4 run after the halftime took what had been a competitive game and turned into a rout. UNCG whittled down a 17 point Wolfpack lead down to 11 by the half, but got no closer. Courtney Fells had 22 points and Ben McCauley had a double-double (17 pts and 15 rebs) for NC State. Damian Eargle scored 10 fro UNCG.


The Good:
- Kendall Toney - If NC State were on the team on UNCG's schedule, Kendall Toney would go down as the greatest player ever at UNCG. Toney led UNCG in points (16) and rebounds (8). After not playing particularly well in his first three games this season, maybe this will get Kendall going and playing with a high level of confidence.
- Turnovers - After turning the ball over a ton in the first 3 games (20+), UNCG limited it's turnovers to 13. However, 4 of them came in the second half spurt that knocked the Spartans out.

The Bad:
- "Paging Landon Clement" - UNCG could really use the version of you that came out firing to start the year.
- Assists - UNCG had 8, compared to NC State's 22. Part of this is based on the fact that NC State made more baskets. However, part of it is that UNCG's offense doesn't look good at all .. all leading back to the point guard issues that have been plaguing the team.

The Ugly:
- UNCG's record falls to 1-3 for the year. That's not completely unexpected. 2-2 would be better, but the team has played 3 road games and 1 home game. This team is young. Young teams tend to struggle on the road. But a 27-point loss to an ACC team that isn't supposed to be a great team hurts. If this NC State team beats Davidson next weekend, then this doesn't look quite as ugly. However, I really wish the Spartans would have been more competitive.

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