Game Notes
In Happy Osborne's eyes, his team is the underdog yet again.
Riding a three-game skid, the first-year coach will guide his Kentucky Wesleyan team into Allendale, Mich., for a game against Grand Valley State, with the Panthers still limited in numbers after three suspensions and one player leaving the program.
"They're a quality team," Osborne said. "They won 19 games last year. They won an exhibition (against Hope) and lost to Michigan State. They've got a better team (than last year). Their point guard's savvy. They can really shoot it. They're big and strong inside."
Osborne compared the Lakers (1-0) to Southern Indiana, who beat KWC (1-3), 70-61, on Tuesday night.
KWC will have to find ways to stop 6-foot-6 forward Ricardo Carbajal and 6-foot-8 center Darren Washington. Carbajal scored 24 points and grabbed nine rebounds while Washington logged a double-double (10 points, 11 rebounds) in the team's season-opening win over Olivet on Monday.
With three post players suspended, KWC was dominated in the rebounding department against USI on Tuesday. The Eagles finished with 37 rebounds to KWC's 22, and grabbed 27 defensive rebounds while KWC only had eight offensive rebounds.
Many of KWC's possessions resulted in one shot and then a rebound for USI. Osborne knows no rebounds will come easy as his team is now relatively undersized, so much of the time in practice this week has been spent on blocking out.
"We've got to do a better job on the boards," Osborne said. "We've got to get better shots, be organized and get more offensive rebounds. Right now we're giving up 50 percent (shooting). We can't do that. A lot of that's due to offensive rebounds and transition baskets."
If that's not enough, along with the suspensions, KWC has three players that aren't 100 percent health-wise. Junior forward Patrick Neel is working through an injured toe while sophomore point guard Lucas Barker is still nursing a calf injury. Senior guard Lonnie Hayes, the team's leading scorer at 30.8 points per game, dealt with health issues last week that are still having lingering affects on his energy.
That being said, Osborne said he felt like his team did what it could against USI given the circumstances.
"I think we fought," he said of the USI game. "I think we're getting there. We need to practice and we've got a lot of games coming up. But I thought our kids fought. I thought they stuck together."
Speaking of practice, KWC hasn't had much time to do that this week due to the nature of its schedule the past week. Osborne said he gave the team Wednesday off and he was only able to practice for about an hour and 15 minutes on Thursday.
But Osborne won't let that be an excuse come Saturday.
"We've got to get better defensively," Osborne said. "We've got to rebound better. We can't drop our head for, like, a second. Every chance we have to get organized, that's what we need."
