Sorry about the lateness of the post, but I had to head out the door last night as soon as the game was finished. Last night, we saw the Jiri Hubalek that we've been waiting all season to see. Strong post move, soft touch around the hoop, an actual force on the glass. He even hit a few nice midrange jumpshots.
Much like the Bethune-Cookman game, ISU jumped out to a comfy early lead only to relinquish it late in the first half before hitting the gas pedal again. The Clones were paced by Hubalek's 15 and 11 in the first half, as well as double figures (10) from Craig Brackins.
We also saw the return of the more up-tempo game that we saw against Bethune- Cookman. We were able to exploit our size and athletic advantage for once, something that we had had trouble with at times earlier this year. Bryan Petersen dished out seven dimes, opposite of no assists. Instead of pulling it up every time down the court, he was willing to force the issue a bit, and more often than not this resulted in some easier bucket. Neither team was listed as having any fast break points, but ISU got into their offense a lot quicker than they had in the past, and everyone seemed pretty comfortable with it.
Craig Brackins and Rahshon Clark both finished with 13 points, with Rahshon picking up three treys in the game, which helped to stretch out the TSU zone a bit at times, and Petersen finished with 11, including a couple of bombs from long range. More than that, you tell me that Wesley Johnson finishes with zero and three and I tell you we might have lost this game. It was nice to see some of the other guys step up their games.
I am dangerously close to starting up a "Sean Haluska Consecutive Missed Three Point Attempts" counter though. He's over twenty without a make.
Next, the Clones get Purdue this weekend - a young Boilermaker team that just lost at home to Wofford. Who knows what Purdue team will show up, but if the same ISU team shows up that we saw the past couple of days, we might be able to pick up a quality road win.