Trojan Wrap, Jan. 6

January 06, 2009

By Drew Champlin

Where have I been? In Destin, Fla., for a couple of days. I thank you for your patience. I am back now, actually got back much earlier today, but had to pull desk duty at the Dothan Eagle Monday night.

What’s going on? Well, let’s focus this one on hoops. Troy got a career-high 14 points from senior Josh Williams in beating NAIA William Carey 80-68. I wouldn’t look much at this game as a barometer for the season. I can’t imagine how fired up the guys were to play this, but it’s just a home game to play in early January. I missed Troy’s win over a physical FIU team Saturday, as the Trojans improved to 2-2 in conference play. Ken Rogers didn’t miss it, though, and he wrote about the win. The Trojans play UL-Lafayette Saturday, a team probably more talented than the Trojans but it’s a winnable game. The Trojans have lost just once at home this year, and that was the season-opener at UAB without Mike Vogler and with a rusty Richard Delk and Antywan Jones (all 3 are starters).

Remember when I told you attendance is important for this game, a Saturday game at 7:30 p.m. following the women’s matchup with ULL at 5:15 p.m. There will be several recruits at this game and several top targets on the Troy list. I don’t have the list yet, but will later this week. A raucous crowd could get these impressionable, 17-year-old kids who might be playing in the NFL one day to think, “Hmm, I love this atmosphere and school spirit,“ and decide to attend school at Troy and wear the cardinal in the fall.

The basketball players would feed off it too. This year’s team has more capable scorers than last year, and have played well at home. You can criticize shot selection, recruiting strategies or on-court game planning, but one thing I’ve noticed about covering Troy basketball the last four seasons is that these guys leave it all on the floor.

Bear Woods set for foot surgery: Upcoming senior linebacker Bear Woods is set for foot surgery in the next two weeks. Woods, a second-team all-conference selection, racked up 108 tackles (second on the team) despite missing three games with nagging injuries. His final foot problem diagnosis was an os trigonum (read about it in this feature I wrote on Bear a couple of weeks ago. He battled a sprained ankle and a stress fracture in the same foot. The first injury, which was the stress fracture, happened in the season opener, so pretty much all season he could barely walk. Defensive back Chris Bowens had the same surgery last offseason. The recovery time is four weeks, but he’ll still be able to condition with weights during that time.

Viewers of the Day: Statcounter allows me to see where you guys are coming from. Sometimes, I’m amazed at where people are viewing this blog from, either because of distance or because of the weird name of the city. So, the first five Viewers of the Day come from Chunky, Miss., Nicholasville, Ky., Mahwah, N.J., Hamburg, Germany and Perth, Western Australia, Australia. Don’t be freaked out. I can’t pinpoint your exact location or anything like that.

Trojan Wrap, Jan. 2

January 02, 2009

By Drew Champlin

Trojans shaking things up: Troy will make a change in its starting lineup for Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. game with FIU. Antywan Jones, a 6-foot-6 forward, will replace Regis Huddleston, a sub-6ft guard, in order for the Trojans to have a better performance on the boards. The Trojans were outrebounded 41-27 in the 23-point loss to Western Kentucky, one that Troy was within 3 of the Hilltoppers until a late first-half surge and early second-half surge. WKU had 16 offensive boards. The move slides Brandon Hazzard into a more comfortable spot on the floor offensively. Basically, Mike Vogler is the 1, Hazzard the 2, Jones the 3 and Richard Delk the 4, with Tom Jervis the 5, but in Troy’s offense, the 4 doesn’t mean “power forward.“ Huddleston and Travis Lee will come off the bench and probably whichever one is hotter will stay in the game.

Maestri, on the WKU loss: “We’d be down 4-6 points and then make a bad decision offensively. We did not play intelligent basketball at crucial points in the game.“ Still, he was pleased with the offensive execution. “We didn’t leave down and out because we executed offensively. I’m pleased with the offense. I’m not pleased with the rebounding and defense.“

From the other side: What do you need to know about Troy’s game with FIU Saturday? Let’s find out about the Golden Panthers from Pete Pelegrin, the Miami Herald’s beat writer. He says, “FIU hoops is not that good and not just because they’ve been playing with no starters for most of the season. The team just has not meshed whether it be they’re not talented enough or the coaching I’m not sure which one yet.
FIU got its first starter back on Monday when forward Alex Galindo returned from a dislocated ankle and promptly scored the first 15 points of FIU’s 23 points in FIU’s win over Fordham that snapped a 6-game losing skid.
The starters that are still out are: PG Josue Soto (fractured thumb until late February), SG Tremayne Russell (broken hand until mid January), PF J.C. Otero (knee tear until mid-January) and C Russell Hicks (broken foot until late Feb.).
Out for the season is 7-foot backup center Badu N’Diaye who is a defensive presence when healthy.
FIU baseball season cannot start soon enough on Feb. 20. READ PETE’S BLOG HERE

Quote of the day: Maestri, on FIU freshman Freddy Asprilla, the 6-foot-11, 280-pound behometh who has been forced into major playing time with injuries to FIU starters. “Golly he’s a moose inside.“

There’s some size in Dothan: Dothan, a Class 6A high school, has a center named Khiry Thomas. He’s 6-foot-6, 267 pounds, bigger than any Troy Trojan in girth, and scores 20-plus with 10-plus rebounds per game. Troy’s not looking at him at the moment, and to the best of my knowledge he’s got good enough grades.

Don’t count on seeing Kenny Mainor back: I see a topic of discussion on Mr. Ho’s nesting pad is the possibility of defensive end Kenny Mainor applying for a sixth year. Don’t count on that happening. Sixth years are awarded in rare cases, usually with someone missing two years due to injury. Mainor redshirted on the front end of his career, but that wasn’t a medical situation. Mainor’s been in the doghouse for much of his career and while he was coming around before the injury, it’s best for both parties that he moves on. Also, think about Brandon Lang and Cameron Sheffield coming back, with the addition of redshirt Mario Addison, and potentially recruit Jonathan Massaquoi, and more depth with returnees Brandon Boudreaux, John Mark Patrick and Jeremy Hawkins and you’ll see that position is in good shape.

No recruits this weekend: Troy could host recruits this weekend if it wanted to, but won’t because school is still out and Troy is a ghost town. The big weekends are the ones of the 9th and 16th. Troy has a home basketball game on the 10th against UL-Lafayette, so I suspect that will be the bigger weekend of the two. I think it will help if all of you blog readers attend that game if at all possible. I’ll tell you next week when I find out which recruits will be there.

MIA: That’s me, for the weekend, so I won’t be at the Troy-FIU game. I told my wife I’d take her to Destin this winter (as we usually go for a couple of nights in the winter, but in December) and thought this weekend would be better than next Sunday through Tuesday. Because, next weekend if I took off, I wouldn’t be able to get the latest recruiting news for you, and it seems like that drives a lot of interest. So, have a wonderful weekend and go to the Troy-FIU game and let me know what happens.

Drew’s prediction: Troy 79, FIU 73

Troy-WKU hoops coverage

By Drew Champlin

In case you want to read about how Troy’s game went yesterday at Western Kentucky (well, the game behind the game, er, the lopsided blowout), from the Bowling Green Daily News, read the gamer and the notebook

Troy is back in action Saturday at home against FIU. The women play at 5, followed by the men around 7:30 p.m.

Unhappy New Year for Troy men’s basketball

January 01, 2009

By Drew Champlin

Trojans fall 99-76 at Western Kentucky. The good news is that this game is over. The bad news is that Troy has to play WKU again this year, along with other top league contenders Middle Tennessee, UL-Lafayette and South Alabama. Trojans have yet to play ULL and USA, though, but they’re coming (twice). Whoever made the Sun Belt basketball schedule did the Trojans no favors. Troy’s other double-dip teams are FAU and FIU.

Still, Troy got outrebounded 41-27, and outshot 57 percent to 44 percent. Richard Delk scored 17, Travis Lee 15, Brandon Hazzard 14 and Michael Vogler 12. Wherefore art thou, big men?

WKU was led by 20 points from AJ Slaughter, 19 points from Steffphon Pettigrew, a triple-double from guard Orlando Mendez-Valdez with 18 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds and 16 points and 9 rebounds from beanpole Jeremy Evans (6-foot-9, 190)

Will check back in tomorrow with more hoops thoughts. I’m supposed to be off today watching bowl games. Oops.

Top 10 Troy moments in 2008

By Drew Champlin

Here’s mine, with you guys voting on the top moment. Let’s hear what you think. These are not ranked in order but the No. 1 moment, voted by viewers (and one I agreed on) is at the bottom.

So, here goes:

Another national leader: It was the fifth straight year that Troy baseball had a national leader. This time it was Bryan Miller in doubles per game. The previous four are Josh Dew (strikeouts per nine innings), Tom King (hits and doubles), Adam Godwin (stolen bases) and Nate Moore (earned run average). Miller hit .402 with 12 homers and 64 RBIs and was named first-team All-American by Louisville Slugger. The Trojans as a team couldn’t build on his success, going two-and-out in the Sun Belt Tournament and snapping a two-year streak of NCAA Regionals. Several newcomers could pace the Trojans on another SBC title run in 2009, though.

Facilities, facilities: Two sports made strides in renovated or new facilities. The board of trustees approved a new multipurpose facility for basketball, but at least $8 million at this point must be raised before ground can be broken. Riddle-Pace Field also got a facelift, undergoing a nearly $4 million renovation in time for the 2008 season. The beautiful facility got new fieldturf, a big wall in right field with a video scoreboard and a clubhouse (the Lott Complex) with coaches offices, among others.

O’Darien’s explosions: While Troy men’s basketball struggled to a 4-14 conference record, one of the most exciting players in Trojan history had a couple of games to remember. O’Darien Bassett, a 6-foot-2 senior guard, averaged 18.2 points per game. In that was a 30-point performance in an overtime win over North Texas, where he guided the Trojans from seven points down to win over the defending tournament champs. He scored 36 in a close home loss to Western Kentucky (though that was Dec. 29, 2007), a team that went to the Sweet 16, and 42 — 28 in the final 8 minutes — of a 99-93 loss to FAU.

Bassett, who might be closer to 6-feet than his listed 6-foot-2, made the Olympic trials in Eugene, Ore., in the long jump and is pursuing a pro basketball career overseas. I’ve been covering Troy since early 2005 and I haven’t seen a player more talented than him to wear a Troy uniform.

Men, women’s basketball get big wins: The regular season was trying for Troy’s basketball teams, but the postseason was sweet for a game. The men went to UL-Lafayette, the No. 5 seed in the SBC Tournament that had beaten Troy by 21 in Troy, and played a slow-it-down game with five players all 6-foot-6 and smaller, but used its quickness and pulled out a 70-60 win. It almost happened again against Middle Tennessee in the quarterfinals, but the Trojans, who were down one with a minute to go, fell 65-59. The women, seeded 11th, won at No. 6 UL-Monroe 66-65.

In both the men and women’s tournament, Troy was the only road team to win a first-round game.

Hampton emerges on top: The hot talk of the spring was the quarterback battle, and sophomore lefty Jamie Hampton emerged over junior Levi Brown, sophomore Tanner Jones and sophomore Jonathan Chandler as the starter for the 2008 season. Unfortunately, Hampton’s season ended in Game 5 at FAU, when he was hit by FAU’s Robert St. Clair. Brown took over and guided the Trojans to the SBC title, and as of right now he’ll lead the Trojans in 2009 as Hampton is slated to redshirt to further recover his knee.

Softball hosts SBC Tournament: Troy hosted the SBC Tournament in softball, but couldn’t emerge victorious. The Trojans, led by Freshman of the Year pitcher Ashlyn Williams, beat North Texas 4-3 in the opener, but were no-hit by ULM and eliminated by UNT. The Trojans return plenty for the 2009 season and should be in the top 3 in the league.

Outright, finally: Troy had shared the SBC title for the past two seasons, but finally won it outright, finishing 6-1 in league play despite losing three players to season-ending injuries and not having three more key players (Danny Franks, Jerrel Jernigan and Bear Woods) at full strength over the last half of the year. The Trojans were upset at ULM, but responded with dominating performances of ULL and Arkansas State after the heartbreaking loss at LSU.

The year culminated with Larry Blakeney being honored as the league’s top coach, Levi Brown getting Newcomer of the Year, and just about every other Trojan starter getting named to the all-conference first team, second team or honorable mention.

NO Bowl win this time: Troy’s Jorrick Calvin forced a fumble and returned it for a touchdown early, but it didn’t end well for the Trojans in the New Orleans Bowl. A bust in blocking allowed a field goal to be blocked in overtime, as the Trojans fell 30-27.

Still, it was a fun trip and it was good meeting faithful blog readers.

Another high draft pick: Leodis McKelvin put Troy’s name on the map more when the Buffalo Bills picked the cornerback/return specialist 11th in the NFL Draft. McKelvin made his mark for the Bills and looks to be a star in the league. Among his first-year highlights were a kickoff for a touchdown in a preseason game against the Steelers, a two-INT game against the Chiefs, including a 64-yard interception return for a score and a 98-yard kickoff return for a score in the regular season against the Browns.

And, the No. 1 moment as voted on by blog viewers is….

Meltdown at LSU: Troy has made its mark in its own league and by beating some opponents on levels slightly above it, but hasn’t reached the next level by beating a national power on the road.

That almost happened, as the Trojans held a 31-3 lead at LSU Nov. 15, but let that lead slip away in the final 17 minutes. It was far and away the most disappointing loss of the year, and people still today are wondering what happened. It was the best two and a half quarters I’ve seen Troy play followed by the worst quarter. The Trojans outcoached, outschemed and outplanned the Tigers from the start, but somehow it all unraveled at the end.