Game Notes
Happy Osborne sent three assistant coaches to scout Thursday's game between Alderson Broaddus and Trevecca Nazarene.
Part of the extra manpower was because both are Kentucky Wesleyan's next two opponents. The other part was because of how seriously the first-year coach is taking Saturday's game with Alderson Broaddus, the only other team that remains unbeaten in Great Midwest Athletic Conference play aside from the Panthers.
The Battlers are riding a seven-game winning streak and are a team that Osborne, hyperbolic or not, called the best team in the conference.
"They have three guys shooting 40 percent from the 3," Osborne said. "They run five out. They've played man-to-man (defense) all year long but (Thursday) they played zone for 32 minutes. We've got to be ready for both."
Osborne specifically pointed out forward Adam Kline (6-foot-6, 240 pounds) and guard Malcolm Tatum (6-foot-2, 175 pounds) as players his team will have to key on.
Kline averages about 13 points and 11 rebounds per game and Tutum is averaging 16 points and four assists per game.Â
He said the Battlers (9-4, 3-0 G-MAC) run a lot of Princeton offensive sets and compared their style to that of John Beilein's teams at Michigan.
A win on Saturday would give Osborne 500 in his career as a head coach at both the collegiate and high school levels. To do that, he'll have to stop a hot team.
And there's only one way to do that, he said.
"We've got to be really good defensively," he said. "We've got to get deflections. We've got to cause turnovers. We've got to make them score over top of us. We can't gamble and miss. We've just got to buckle down and be tough.
"They are a very, very, very smart team. That is a concern."
