Thursday, November 20, 2008

at their Mercer



Well, at least Jeff Lebo has company in the "my SEC basketball team lost to a team coming off of a 6-10 season in the Atlantic Sun" Hall of Shame.

Of course, it would have been better if he'd never managed to join Mark Gottfried at all, but it's too late for that now that Mercer can claim to be the best college hoops team in the state of Alabama not actually in the state of Alabama after a 78-74 win at Beard-Eaves last night. It's not easy to lose a game when you commit fewer 12 fewer turnovers than your opponent and shoot a comparable percentage, but Auburn managed thanks to getting outrebounded by 25 (the JUCO surge is working!) and hitting 6-of-14 at the line. Frankie Sullivan didn't do much in his debut to calm my fears he might be overaggressive; he took nine shots in 23 minutes, or two more than Quantez Robertson and Lucas Hargrove put up combined in 59 minutes.

Why do I get the feeling I'm going to be profiling hoops head coaching candidates for Auburn before I do them for football? Anyways, big congrats nonetheless to Mercer, who can add another scalp to the collection that started with O.J. Mayo's USC bunch last year around this time. After not one but two SEC upsets in a week, it seems unlikely they won't be a factor in the A-Sun.

4 comments:

Joe Blow said...

Wait...

" Mercer can claim to be the best college hoops team in the state of Alabama not actually in the state of Alabama "

That seems a little confusing to me. Then again, my coffee hasn't kicked in yet. I think UAB is the best bball team in the state right now. But maybe you meant best out-of-state team playing in Alabama?

folkart4 said...

Was it a good call on Quantez at the end of the game? A charge while getting pushed seems like a tough one to end the game. I like this team, but where are the bigs?

Jerry Hinnen said...

JB, I guess I meant the latter, but it was just supposed to be funny. Maybe my coffee hadn't kicked in either.

Folkart, I couldn't see the game (I live in Michigan and they don't carry Auburn hoops games very often here, unfortunately) and can't comment on the call. As for the lack of bigs, the loss of Dollard and Sylla was a deathblow--there's a reason Lebo signed up every 6-9 or taller JUCO he could get his hands on. It's going to be a major problem this year.

Joe Blow said...

I know it was meant to be funny. Just giving you a hard time. Keep up the good work!