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Mosley, backcourt, shine as Blue Hens shut down Bradley

12/01/2015, 11:45pm EST
By Jeff Griffith

Anthony Mosley (above) had 15 points in a win over Bradley on Tuesday night. (Photo: Mark Jordan/CoBL)

Jeff Griffith (@Jeff_Griffith21)
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Following his encouraging freshman year, Chivarsky Corbett was expected to handle a raised level of offensive responsibility and have a breakout year as a sophomore for the Delaware Blue Hens.

Then the Hens made the trip to take on Temple at the Liacouras Center, and Corbett's heavily-anticipated season skidded to a halt after tearing his ACL.

What nobody knew in that moment of was how well sophomore guard Anthony Mosley would fill the vacancy left by fellow his classmate.

Nobody except his teammates, that is.

“He does it every day. It may have been a surprise to you guys, but to us, that’s Anthony,” said junior guard Cazmon Hayes. “We know he’s able to get to the rim and finish.”

As for Mosley, he may not have seen such a well-rounded night coming, but he definitely wanted to step up for Corbett, who is one of his better friends on the team.

“I expected myself to be solid, but I didn’t expect myself to play like that,” said Mosley. “Chivarsky is my best friend, so when he went down it kind of shook me up a little bit, so I’m just trying to do it for him, do what he would want me to do and that’s to step up.”

In the Hens’ first game without Corbett, and Mosley’s third start of his career, the sophomore shined and had the best game of his young career, dropping 15 points while snatching five rebounds and dishing four assists in a 70-47 Delaware victory over the Bradley Braves.

Mosley scored his first points on a three-pointer in the middle of the first half, and from there it was all about his impressive ability to drive through the paint and muscle his way to the whole, despite going after Bradley’s big men with his 6-2 frame.

“I felt pretty confident in my game, going to the rim, I feel confident finishing around the rim, and I’m pretty strong so I can take the hit and finish as well, that’s really what I like to do,” Mosley said.

Mosley, who only averaged 3.8 ppg last season, went cold once the Hens had officially put Bradley away mid-second half, but still finished with his career-high in points.

Granted, Mosley’s performance wasn’t the only reason to be smiling if you’re a Delaware Blue Hen; all three guards scored in double-digits, with Hayes leading the way with seventeen points.

Hayes struggled to find his long-distance shot early on, but once he got it going in the second half, he was on fire, hitting three in a row and closing out the night having shot 3-of-11 in total from beyond the arc.

“It just came to me, and when I saw it go in, I knew at that point in time, like, ‘alright, you found your rhythm,’ so I kept shooting the ball. I said, ‘about time these start falling,’” Hayes added.

Sophomore guard Kory Holden added 12 points while tallying seven assists in the victory.

As a whole, the guards stepping up may not have calmed the nerves of Delaware head coach Monté Ross, who claims to always be nervous in one way or another, but their play did provide a bit of clarity regarding how things may look going forward with Corbett’s absence.

“It’s not going to calm my nerves, because my nerves are shot; I’m always a nervous wreck,” Ross said. “But I think it gives them confidence, I think it gives us confidence. (Hayes) shot the ball tonight like he expected the shots to go in, I don’t know if he shot it like that as much or as confidently against Temple, I thought Kory got on track, neither one of those guys shot the ball well but I thought they really came through in the second half, we’re going to need those guys to step up for us.”

Of course, with only 47 points allowed, the defense was lights out for Delaware, holding Bradley to just four field goals in the first half--the first three of which were 3-pointers in the opening seven minutes of play.

The overall shooting mark on the game for Bradley was just 21-percent. The Braves shot 6-of-28 from deep.

Couple those statistics with nineteen points off of turnovers and you’ve got yourself a pretty inspiring defensive performance by a Delaware team that has allowed just over seventy points per game this season.

“We didn’t do a whole lot physically yesterday in terms of practicing, but what we did was, we had a really strong mental day with watching film, walking through, and I thought our guys were really locked in,” said Ross. “I thought it showed tonight, we just wanted to make sure that we were making them shoot contested shots, and I thought we did a fairly decent job of that, and it’s going to be important for us to do that again on Thursday against South Florida.”

Despite the injury to a key guard in Corbett--as well as injuries to 6-9 sophomore Eric Carter and 6-6 junior Devonne Pinkard--with the dominant win over Bradley in the books the outlook hasn’t changed for the shorthanded Blue Hens.

“We still believe that we can win, and that’s what we’re going to do,” Mosley said. “That’s what we’re going to strive for.”


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