I worked on this briefly yesterday but real life got in the way yesterday in the way of a massive amount of snow and ice that needed to be shoveled and some issues with some construction that is going on at the house so this post is abbreviated. - Paragon
From Adadnde's column this morning:
"Daniel Hackett was, at times, the most intense player on the floor," Floyd said.
The most encouraging thing for the Trojans is they won handily despite an off night from top scorer Nick Young, who shot five for 13.
The tournament rookie admitted, "I was a little nervous in the beginning. First time playing in an environment like this."
Of Young's first five shots, one was blocked, another was an airball and a third was impeded by the bottom of the backboard. At halftime he was two for eight and the Trojans still had an 11-point lead.
Gotta love it! Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside, with respect to the original.
Talk about a team effort! SC really came together last night in their win over Arkansas. Lead by Taj Gibson and Nick Young SC really dominated the Razorbacks as they moved on to the 2nd round of East Regional in Spokane. It was a bit of a slow start falling behind 8 points but they hunkered down and came together. SC held Arkansas to only 37% shooting from the field and kept them from scoring on the inside forcing them to take unnecessary 3-point attempts. SC also crashed the boards to keep the ball from the bigger Arkansas frontcourt and in the end they just looked more hungry. It was real impressive defensive show probably their best a performance defensively all season.
Something just clicked mid-way through the 1st half and they took off on a 70-40 run for the rest of the game. Arkansas just couldn't slow them down, as they got aggressive and more intense Hackett just rose to the occasion and had one of his best games ever. Hackett is going to a special player as his time goes on at SC, you can bet that he will be in a leadership role and will set the pace for this team mentally as his intensity will fuel SC to perform. He definitely has a no BS approach and he will challenge his teammates no doubt.
The game was oddly officiated with a lot of ticky-tack fouls that affected both teams in the first half with SC but in the end the match-ups played into SC's favor and it showed as the game wore on. Arkansas may have had the size even when SC went "Big" but it didn't matter as SC would not be detered.
I guess they showed Patrick Beverly huh? Arkansas shouldn't even have been here in the first place so lets just move along from that nonsense. He's got a lot to learn yet.
Anyway, SC put the past away with this convincing win, their first win in the tournament in 6 years, but there is no time to savor this win as now they need to focus on Texas, more on that later.