Men’s basketball competes in Coaches vs. Cancer

Old Dominion University hosted the Hampton Roads Coaches vs. Cancer doubleheader last Saturday as part of a cancer awareness initiative by both the American Cancer Society and the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Old Dominion defeated William and Mary in the first game while Christopher Newport University lost 89 to 74 against the No. 5 ranked Virginia Wesleyan Marlins.

CNU (16-4) felt the pressure early, as Va. Wesleyan capitalized off of several errant in-bounds passes.

“Turnovers. Turnovers really hurt us. Every time we turned the ball over they made transitions. They kind of threw us off,” said freshman guard Mike Cherry, a three-time USA South Rookie of the Week. “Coach just told us to make the next play, be tough, just play ball and get open. Don’t worry about the pressure.” Cherry led the Captains in scoring with a career-high 26 points.

CNU was able to climb back to a 29-23 lead with five and a half minutes remaining in the first period after a fade-away jumper by senior guard Conley Taylor. Taylor had 12 points and is now 30 points behind Buck Moore for fifth on CNU’s all-time scoring list.

Turnovers continued to plague the Captains throughout the rest of the first half, as they headed into the locker room trailing 42-36. Much of the second half saw the Captains close the gap, but Va. Wesleyan put together several runs that kept CNU out the game.

“They amped up their pressure, and that’s something that they can do,” said CNU head coach John Krikorian. “They’re a very deep, experienced team. They bring seniors off the bench that have been there before that are very talented and they were able to step up their pressure and for a few possessions, our guys didn’t respond. It led to some easy baskets and that’s a sign of a great team that you can withstand those. And right now we’re just a good team. We got caught in that moment and let it continue to snowball and we were never really able to recapture that for the rest of the game. That stretch there really turned the game in their favor.”

“They had a good defensive team,” added Cherry. “It was mainly our fault, making wrong passes. We didn’t play our game most of the game. We didn’t play Christopher Newport basketball. If we played them again, we don’t need to change anything, just do better at protecting the ball. Play with the same heart and toughness and we’ll be alright.”

Freshman forward Nik Biberaj, who has also been a USA South Rookie of the Week twice this season, added 19 points and 6 blocks, both career highs.

“It was just one-on-ones. I was just trying to go to the basket strong,” said Biberaj. Even in the loss, Coach Krikorian continues to be impressed with the growth of his young talent.

“They have, over the course of the season, really played themselves into being more like sophomores and juniors and certainly here after the break, during our 12-game winning streak, they’ve been an integral part of that,” said Krikorian about the two freshman starters. “I wasn’t openly surprised that they played well in this environment, they both were terrific high school players and played in large venues, but they really performed well tonight and that’s really good for the Captains going forward.”

Despite all of the turnovers, CNU managed to stay in the game well into the second half.

“We shot 1-13 from the 3-point line and arguably were in the game for the most of it and three of our starters didn’t really contribute a whole lot in scoring. That’s Va. Wesleyan’s defense. But to see our two freshmen step up the way that they did is a huge positive,” stated Krikorian. “Adam Otey, a freshman guard, stepped in and played extremely well off the bench…We competed, I’m proud of our kid’s efforts.”

This was the only meeting of the year between the two teams and CNU’s final non-conference game of the season. The Captains will host North Carolina Wesleyan Jan. 31 to kick off their remaining 5-game stretch of conference games before the USA South Tournament. CNU is 7-0 in conference play this season.

Tickets for the game sold for $5 apiece and all proceeds from the doubleheader were donated to cancer research.

“We are very honored to have been able to participate in this and very grateful to Old Dominion for hosting it,” said Krikorian. “They really stepped up and when the idea came forward last summer to do a double-header and try to create some excitement in the community for basketball, and for Coaches vs. Cancer, which I’m a huge supporter of–as are all the coaches that were out there today, to see it come to fruition in a great environment. ODU was such a great host. We’re hoping that this is something that we can look forward to doing again in the future.”

Posted by Pierce Yarberry on Feb 1 2012. Filed under Basketball, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.