City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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WEST CHESTER, Pa. -- Damien Blair saw the frustration early.

As the missed shots and turnovers began to pile up, the West Chester coach did what he could to slow the East Stroudsburg tide: timeout, substitutions, another timeout and more subs. Nothing worked.

“You could see it on every kid’s face,” Blair said. “It wasn’t just one or two kids.”

It was a game unlike any the Rams had played thus far this season, a magical opening two months to the year that saw them rise to become ranked No. 22 in the latest NABC Division II poll despite starting two freshmen in the backcourt.

Saturday brought them right back down to reality. The Warriors came into Hollinger Fieldhouse and held the Rams without a field goal over the opening 14 minutes of the first half, running away to a 87-60 win in a crucial PSAC East clash.

“We’ve definitely played better,” Blair deadpanned. “I was really disappointed in the fact that early on, we didn’t do a good job of executing our press break. That was one of the keys coming into the game, and if we would have gotten the ball where we wanted to, I thought we would have gotten some easier baskets and taken the lid off of things.”

Breaking ESU’s full-court press is Step One to beating the Warriors, whose head coach Jeff Wilson has made that defense a hallmark of a program that has been one of the best around, winning 30 games two years ago and making the NCAA Tournament in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

East Stroudsburg (11-3, 7-3) came into the game averaging the second-most turnovers forced in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, at 17.9 per game. They nearly got that in the first half alone, forcing 15 in the opening 20 minutes.

WCU freshman Matt Penecale, who entered the game leading the PSAC in assists (6.4/game) and assist-to-turnover ratio (3.3:1), put up 16 points but went without an assist for the first time this season; he was one of three Rams players to turn it over six times against that press.

“When the ball came in bounds, they got quick traps and our guys didn’t get the ball where we wanted,” Blair said. “The ball was to get the ball to the middle, look opposite but most importantly throw it ahead. We were trying to dribble it ahead, and you can’t dribble the ball ahead against their pressure, they’ve got too many guys coming from behind and getting deflections.”

On top of that, the Rams (12-3, 9-2 PSAC) missed their first 19 shots from the floor.

That added up to a 30-9 start for ESU before West Chester’s other starting freshman guard, Malik Jackson, finally banked home a shot with 5:36 left in the first half. Even with more than half the game still to be played, it already felt like too little, too late.

“I thought the defense tonight did a very good job of taking away some of the things that they typically get,” East Stroudsburg head coach Jeff Wilson said. “That being said, West Chester also struggled to shoot the ball, so that allowed us to get some momentum. They’re a much-better shooting team than that, we just hit them on the right day.”

Everything about the game was ugly for West Chester, who never found its rhythm for more than a minute or two, even in the second half.

The Rams’ shooting (25.4 percent, 16-of-63) was by far their worst of the season, surpassing the previous low-water mark of 33.9 percent (21-of-62), which came in a 65-62 win over Slippery Rock. They finished with a season-high 27 turnovers against just six assists, which was only second-worst behind that same SRU game.

They’ll have to regain momentum on the road, with games at Cheyney and Mansfield coming up over the next seven days.

“I hope they’re able to put it aside pretty quickly,” Blair said. “Everybody’s going to have clunkers throughout the course of the year, you can’t make shots every game all year long, you just can’t do it.”

Jamal Nwaniemeka led the way for East Stroudsburg with 14 points as five Warriors scored in double figures; he was joined by Will Brown and Quindell Brice with 11 each, while Rasheed Moore and Wes Cherry had 10 each.

Nwaniemeka, a Conwell-Egan grad who spent his first season at Rider before transferring in to help ESU to the Sweet 16 two years ago, said his team was boosted by West Chester’s getting ranked in the national polls just a few days beforehand.

“It’s got to get you fired up,” he said. “It was a big win for us, we’ve been on a roll, we didn’t want the roll to end.”

The win is the fifth straight for East Stroudsburg both in the rivalry and overall, as the Warriors move one game back of West Chester and Kutztown (12-2, 9-2) in the PSAC East Standings.

ESU will get Kutztown at home next Saturday, but first they’ll welcome Mansfield (3-12, 1-9) to town on Wednesday.

“I think the biggest improvement for us since the beginning of December has been our bench,” said Wilson, who gave a lot of credit to his captains--Nwaniemeka, Moore and Brown--for that: “They’ve done a very good job of telling guys to stay the course, understand the journey, you’re going to get your chance, and those guys are starting to get the chance and they’re responding to it.”