UMBC outplays La Salle

By Mike McDonald
Collegian Editor
November 14, 2007

Well, it certainly wasn’t the season opener the Explorers had hoped for.

The University of Maryland-Baltimore County Retrievers came into the Tom Gola Arena Tuesday night and spoiled the first game of La Salle’s 2007-08 season by a score of 76-69.

Mike Dao - Sophomore Rodney Green looks upcourt as he dribbles the ball against UMBC Tuesday.

“We obviously have a long way to go,” La Salle head coach Dr. John Giannini said. “It’s a disappointing first game, but I know that I have to make this team better.”

Although the Explorers were by no means dominant, the first half actually went pretty smoothly. Defensively, La Salle was doing a good job of keeping UMBC out of the paint, and in the first half, UMBC shot just 33 percent (9 for 27) from the floor.

At the other end, the Explorers were setting a pretty good tempo for themselves. They were having a great deal of success taking the ball to the basket, and at halftime La Salle was shooting 48 percent from the field. With a solid first half in the books, La Salle held a 32-28 advantage going into the break.

Whatever UMBC head coach Randy Monroe told his team at halftime, it worked. The Explorers appeared to come out of the half extremely flat, and the game almost immediately swung in the Retrievers’ favor.

“I thought our change in defenses [turned the game around],” Monroe said. “I thought these guys did a terrific job in our press and in our zone defense.”

On defense, La Salle didn't seem to be able to keep up with UMBC, and the Retrievers opened up the half on a 9-0 run. The Explorers also picked up fouls quickly, as they had four team fouls after just over four minutes of play in the second.

Offensively, things weren't much better. La Salle seemed to have very little structure on offense at various times, and UMBC did a very good job at limiting the Explorers’ open looks.

“Offensively, we looked tentative,” Giannini said. “We used a lot of our [preparation time] on zone offense...and today we just froze up. We just didn’t move the ball. We just held the ball and played off the arc and didn’t use the options that we were taught.”

Over the course of the second half, UMBC took over the game. The Retrievers gradually built their lead to its largest point at 70-54 with 1:12 left to play. After this point, the Explorers went on a 15-6 run, but it was much too little, much too late. The final score was UMBC 76, La Salle 69.

“I personally believe we could have won that game,” senior Darnell Harris said. Harris finished the game with 18 points, second on the team to sophomore Rodney Green’s 19. UMBC’s Darryl Proctor led all scorers with 23, and Brian Hodges had 22.

Overall, many of the stats from this game are very similar between the two teams. The one glaring number that jumps out on the stat sheet is three-point shooting. On the evening, the Explorers shot just 27 percent (7-for-26) from downtown, while UMBC shot 50 percent (5-for-10). And of the seven three-pointers that La Salle made, three of them came in the game’s final minute, after the game was already out of reach. Excluding the game’s final 45 seconds, the Explorers shot only 17 percent (4-for-23) from three.

“At times, we had a younger lineup out there than I would have liked. Some of our older players didn’t play the way I expected and forced our hand to having three freshmen out there a lot.”

The Explorers fall to 0-1 with the loss, while UMBC improves to 2-0 on the young season. La Salle will be heading on the road Saturday for a 7 p.m. date with Mount St. Mary’s.

mcdonaldm2@lasalle.edu