That's A Wrap - cusa-fans.com

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That’s A Wrap
SMU’s Chance At .500 Season Gone As Marshall ‘Grinds’ To 73-57 Win
By Rick Atkinson for cusa-fans.com
http://cusa-fans.com/

DALLAS – Marshall’s big men, Tyler Wilkerson and Hassan Whiteside, muscled SMU late on Saturday, ruining not only Senior Night for the Mustangs but their hopes for a .500 season for the first time since 2004-05.

“We got the ball inside to our big guys,” said Marshall coach Donnie Jones. “We started taking advantage of our size, which is our strength on our team. We shot only two free throws in the first half and 25 in the second, which was a big key.”

Wilkerson had a game-high 22 points for Marshall, while seven-foot freshman phenom Whiteside added 17. (NBA Hall of Famer and Miami HEAT president Pat Riley was in the house checking out Whiteside along with numerous NBA scouts.) Both collected 10 boards.

With the 73-57 win, Marshall (23-8, 11-5) earned the fourth-seed and a first-round bye in next week’s Conference USA tournament. The Thundering Herd will face the Tulsa-Rice winner on Thursday.

SMU (14-16, 7-9) finishes as the eighth-seed, its best showing since joining C-USA five seasons ago. The Mustangs meet ninth-seed UCF on Wednesday. (SMU trounced the Knights in January.) The Mustangs are still looking for their first C-USA tournament win.


Papa Dia, left, battles Hassan Whiteside while directing traffic

SMU trailed The Herd, 35-31, at the half after leading by as many as five points. Whiteside played just 12 minutes in the first half or Marshall may have pulled away sooner.

“I was trying to save him for the stretch,” Jones said. “I thought the last couple of games, I played him too long. I thought he got tired at the end of the [UTEP game on Tuesday] which affected his defense. … “I knew it was going to be a grind-out game. The way [SMU] plays, they bring everybody away from the basket, so I knew it was a different type game for him.”

Papa Dia led SMU with 18 points and 13 rebounds for his tenth double-double of the season.

“First of all, Marshall’s really good,” said SMU coach Matt Doherty. “Give them a lot of credit. With that, our defense was terrible. Our pick-and-roll defense was bad. And part of the reason was we turned the ball over.”

SMU committed 16 turnovers, with 10 - including five by Dia – coming in the first half. Marshall scored 18 points off the miscues.

“I felt like early in the game tonight I maybe confused my team a little bit too much with our zone defense,” Doherty said. “And once it broke down we decided to just go to man-to-man.”

Mixed Feelings

“I think both teams knew it was going to be an emotional game,” Jones said. “For SMU, being Senior Day, and we were coming off an emotional game against UTEP, when our seniors had a loss. We’d been playing well. We’d won seven in a row. We knew we needed to get a road victory to get that [fourth tournament] spot.”

“I thought our guys played good down the stretch. We made some free-throws and executed and were fortunate to get the victory.”

Marshall made 19-of-25 free throws in the second half while SMU had just two chances, making both. “I thought we did a good job defending,” Jones said. … “Our guys did a good job of listening to the scouting report.”

Perhaps the killer for The Herd was Chris Lutz’s sling-shot from the corner with six minutes left which gave Marshall its first 10-point lead of the game. SMU never got it to single-digits again.

SMU seniors Derek Williams and Faye were honored before the game, their last at Moody Coliseum. Williams played 40 minutes on a bad ankle, after getting a medical clearance to participate about an hour before tip-off. “Derek gave a courageous effort,” Doherty said. “I don’t think he was himself but he didn’t hurt us. If he was hurting us I would have taken him out.”

Williams finished with nine points, on 4-of-12 shooting, with three assists and three rebounds. Faye, the only other Mustang to score in double-digits, had 10 points, all coming in the first half.

Marshall held SMU to 39-percent shooting (23-59), while hitting 50-percent its shots (24-48). Wilkerson was 9-of-13 from the field.


NBA Hall of Famer and Miami HEAT president Pat Riley was in the house.

Analysis: The Whiteside Effect

Anyone doubting how quickly a college program can turn around with the addition of just one dominant player need look no further that this year’s Herd. Whiteside’s arrival in Huntington, West Virginia - of all places - has transformed a middling Marshall squad overnight into maybe a bracket-buster (albeit for one season?)

“It’s really changed our team, [having Whiteside],” Jones said. “It’s his ability to block shots and his ability to score and run the floor. It really frees up our other guys. It’s taken the pressure off Tyler Wilkerson to give him the opportunity to do a lot more. His game has really improved because of it.”

What’s the attraction in Marshall for a Whiteside? And how about Houston coming into Dallas last week with the nation’s leading scorer, Aubrey Coleman? Or Rice, before that, with “Iran’s Kobe Bryant,” Arsalan Kazemi - who was recruited by Syracuse, Louisville and Maryland?

Gotta ask: when’s SMU going to get one of these dudes?

Doherty said the following after Saturday’s game when asked what he’s learned in his fourth year at SMU: “I think you’ve got to learn the league, you’ve to learn the university. You got to figure out what type of student-athlete fits at SMU and in the league, and have a style of play that takes advantage of that. I felt like this is the first year that I have a style of play, offensively and defensively, that fits our university and fits the league. I think it’s foolish for us to be like Memphis or UTEP. … Let’s do what we do. What does Georgetown do in the Big East? What does Vanderbilt do in the SEC that makes them so successful? … We feel now that we have a style of play and can recruit to it.”

Makes sense, but is it over-thinking? How about just going after the top, NBA-caliber, dream recruit in the country - who can make grades at SMU - and build your “style,” your “fit,” around him?

(If SMU had another shot at a Larry Johnson, would he fit the school’s “style"? Dallas’ own Johnson, who led UNLV to the NCAA national championship in 1990 before a 10-year NBA career, was coming to SMU before death-penalty dazed administrators got nit-picky about grades.)

Was Marshall looking for a guy who “fit” the school or the league, when it pursued Whiteside? Or did they see a good kid, a physical specimen who could flat deal, and just go after him? Did Coleman necessarily “fit” C-USA and/or Houston, or could he just move and shoot lights out?

Doherty and the Mustangs have definitely turned a corner this season. The arrow is up. But let’s not think this thing to death. Bring in a Whiteside, a Coleman or an “Iranian Kobe” and watch the fun.

Next For SMU:
GMC Sierra Conference USA Men’s Basketball Tournament, BOK Center, Tulsa, Okla., March 10-13, 2010; Wednesday, March 10, SMU vs. UCF, 8:30 p.m.; Winner plays 1-seed UTEP.

Notes:
*Derek Williams finished the season as C-USA’s leader in league-game minutes played (627). Williams needs one point to reach 500 points for the season and become only the 17th player in SMU history to do so.
*SMU last finished with a .500 record in 2004-05 under coach Jimmy Tubbs, (14-14, 9-9 WAC). SMU’s last winning season was 2002-03 under coach Mike Dement, (17-13, 11-7 WAC).


Senior Derek Williams with his mother, Sonja Lewis, left, and aunt, Suzette Arrindell


Mouhammad Faye with his girlfriend, Hilary Fingeret, and coach Matt Doherty