Nine points may not seem like a lopsided victory, but it certainly was on Tuesday night. Even though the Bucs got out-rebounded, there's a very clear reason for it: they were hitting their shots. When your team is shooting 53% from the field, 47% from beyond the arc, and 72% from the free throw line, you're firing on all cylinders.
There's also the matter (not a small one by any stretch) of Mike Smith's tremendous second half performance, as he shot 60% from the field and scored 24 points (with ten boards) without hitting a single three. The squad got a very strong bench performance (?!) from Sollazzo (12+7), and Isiah was okay up front. Heck, if they can keep winning on the backs of Tubbs and Smith, why not?
I love to complain. Finding weaknesses and exposing them is something I take pride in (because weaknesses cannot be mended until they are exposed), but there is not a single thing to complain about from Tuesday's performance. The squad put on a show, hit some clutch shots (especially Smith with two sets of huge free throws and the dunk to send the Bobcats away), and ran Ohio out of their own building.
So now it's on to Iona, who is perhaps most memorable for beating Richmond in double overtime earlier this season, a squad that will take on Kansas in the Sweet Sixteen tomorrow night. Quite a step up there, although Iona is still a 20-win program, but if someone can shut down Mike Glover (no easy task - no one in the MAAC could do it this year), then we're looking at the possibility of something the Bucs wouldn't have even dreamed of coming into this year: a postseason championship.
Baseball's pitching staff finally ran out of juice last weekend, and then again in the doubleheader against Radford. John Long had two disastrous starts, first on Friday (2.1 IP, 5 ER), and again on Tuesday (0.1 IP, 3 ER), and the Bucs never really were able to recover from either. There's also the matter of Bo Burton four innings (8 ER, 4 BB), and Bushey looked mortal back on Sunday (5 ER in 4 IP). In fact, the only solid start of the week belongs to... Clinton Freeman?
That's right! All the promise that Skole talked about with Freeman finally came through on the mound this week. After a solid relief effort in a failed comeback, the Davy Crockett product fanned six and gave up four in four innings on Tuesday. He has now retired eleven batters at the plate in his last 6.2 innings, and seems to have found himself a nice rhythm after struggling at the start of the year. Dak Rissman also had a very impressive relief effort in the Sunday win over the Dolphins, and deservedly got that decision.
At the plate, the squad has been carried by, of all people, Bo Reeder. Big Bo hit .364 on the week with FOUR homers and a dozen RBIs. Meanwhile, Green and Scruggs have gone .176 and .143 respectively, with Scruggs getting rung up seven times. Paul Hoilman hasn't been much better, hitting just .278 with six Ks, but after taking one yard on Tuesday in the second tilt with Radford, maybe he's starting to come out of his funk and will be strong this weekend. They'll need him to be if they want a shot at beating Stetson in DeLand.
Softball had a wild and crazy Monday in a split with King College, which really showed just how perfect Buccaneer pitching has to be in order to pick up wins: Shelby Morris made one mistake, got burned, and when the team went belly-up on offense, she got a loss she probably didn't deserve.
In fairness to the bats, Christy Kooch made a fantastic game-ending catch, showing shades of Willie Mays, as she charged into the outfield fence and held on to the ball. Still, the fact that ETSU could only muster two runs against a Division II seems a little ominous right on the edge of conference season.
Tonight, they'll gear up to face Lipscomb and Whitney Kiihnl, who is 18th in the nation in ERA and 8th in the nation in strikeouts. While that could be a tough match-up, this is still a very winnable pair of games. If the wind kicks up at Basler like it has in the past, I wouldn't be shocked to see ETSU come away with at least a split today.
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