Andrew Cheng | The Phoenix

Head Coach Lee Wimberley addresses his Garnet basketball squad.

BY JARED NOLAN

In print | Published January 22, 2009

The Swarthmore men’s basketball team suffered a string of losses over the course of winter break. In January the team has posted seven losses, dropping their overall record to 1-12 (0-7 in the Centennial Conference). Co-captain Matt Allen ’10 called it “by far the hardest stretch of the season.” The last defeat came at the hands of the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays, who improved to 10-4 (5-2 CC) with the 60-48 victory.

Danny Walker ’10 (19 points, 7 rebounds) and co-captain Raul Ordonez ’09 (12 points, 12 rebounds) led the Garnet in scoring against Hopkins, but their efforts were not enough to spoil the career nights of two Johns Hopkins guards. Senior Collin Kamm and sophomore Leland O’Connor both posted career highs in points, 22 and 13 respectively.

The teams traded baskets for the first five minutes and the contest remained competitive for half of the first period. Swarthmore had its last lead of the game with 14 minutes left in the half when center Ordonez made a layup to put the Garnet up 8-7. From there the Blue Jays went on a 7-0 run, and the closest the Garnet got the rest of the game came with 11 minutes left in the first half was when Walker, Swarthmore’s leading scorer at 12.6 points per game, sank a three-pointer to pull the Garnet within one point to 14-13. Johns Hopkins responded with another run, however, outscoring Swarthmore 22-10 in the rest of the half to effectively put the game out of reach for the visiting Garnet.

Despite being unable to cut the deficit to smaller than 11 points in the second half, Swarthmore Head Coach Lee Wimberley asserted that his team stepped up its defense. “I felt that the second half against Johns Hopkins was the best defensive effort of the season,” he said. Allen noted the keys to the defensive improvement. “We turned up the intensity level and focused on our assignments,” he said. “In the first half we had a lot of blown assignments.”

The extra effort manifested itself in the numbers. The Blue Jays shot 46 percent from the field in the first half and were 5-6 from three-point range. After the Garnet clamped down on defense, Johns Hopkins cooled off and only made two of ten three-points shots in the second half and finished with a field goal percentage of 41.5 percent. The more active defense by Swarthmore resulted in the Garnet actually outscoring the Blue Jays 25-24 in the second half.

Wimberley will look to continue his team’s commitment to defense in the upcoming games, which should come a little easier. “We’ve played some really good teams,” he said. “The second half of the conference schedule will be easier.” Six out of the seven conference games that the Garnet has played so far this season have been against teams in the top half of the standings. And the Centennial Conference is strong this year. “Three different teams have been nationally ranked during the season,” Wimberley said.

At the midpoint of a rebuilding year, Wimberley offered some insight into his team. “We’ve continued to get better as the season has progressed,” he said. “In spite of the fact that we’ve only won one game, I’ve enjoyed coaching this team the most out of the last ten years. They play their tails off.” Before the season began, the team needed to improve in two categories: free-throw shooting and turnovers. Since then, both stats have improved. The free-throw percentage is up almost ten percentage points to 70.4 percent and the turnovers per game are down from 17.4 to 16.8.

Now, however, Wimberley has isolated another statistic where the Garnet needs to improve: outside shooting. In the Johns Hopkins game alone, Swarthmore shot 18.8 percent from three-point range. The Blue Jays made 43.8 percent of their threes. The numbers on the season are similar and this discrepancy explains part of why Swarthmore’s opponents are outscoring the Garnet by an average of 15.2 points per game.

“There were many moments throughout the game [against Hopkins] in which we made consecutive defensive stops and a couple of shots could have put us right back in it,” Ordonez said.

“Unfortunately, we were not able to convert offensively during these critical points in the game.”
However, the lack of scoring is not due to a dearth of opportunities. “We’re getting a lot of good looks but we’re not hitting them,” Allen said. Walker’s recently stellar play should also help shot-making. “The last couple of games I really got focused,” he said. “I feel comfortable out there now. I’ve found the right driving lanes.” Because he is quicker than most players at his position as a small forward, opposing teams try to stymie him by guarding him with a point guard. This allows him to post up the smaller player and then kick the ball to his teammates for outside shots.

The Garnet’s next game is at home against Ursinus (7-7, 3-4 CC) on Saturday, January 24th at 3:00PM. Swarthmore looks to reverse the result of the last meeting between these two teams, which amounted to an 88-54 Ursinus victory.

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