Ohio coach John Groce didn't have much trouble putting Marshall's Hassan Whiteside and Greg Oden in the same sentence Saturday night.
Ohio coach John Groce didn't have much trouble putting Marshall's Hassan Whiteside and Greg Oden in the same sentence Saturday night.
That was especially true after Groce watched the 7-foot freshman come within one blocked shot of a triple-double in the Thundering Herd's 60-53 win over Ohio before 2,515 at the Charleston Civic Center.
Whiteside had a whopping nine blocked shots, tying the MU record set by Latece Williams against Charleston in 2000 and Omar Roland against Tennessee-Chattanooga in 1990. Whiteside yanked down 17 rebounds and scored 14 points, including two critical 10-footers that helped fend off a Bobcat rally.
Groce is in his second year at Athens after spending four successful seasons on the Ohio State staff. He got to develop Oden, among others, so he knows a thing or two about talent.
After Whiteside's 29-minute reign of domination, he knows a thing or two about the native of Gastonia, N.C.
"I told our staff when I saw him on film, after the first half of the Lamar game, I said he might be the best defensive center I've seen on film or in person in the last few years in college - just me, personally," Groce said. "And the guy I kind of compared him to, defensively, was Greg."
Whiteside electrified the small but energetic, mostly pro-MU crowd with his rejections, and those swats were, shall we say, diverse.
He victimized six different Bobcats. He once surprised Tommy Freeman, the game's leading scorer with 16 points, at the 3-point line. He got Reggie Keely three times - and the third time, Keely appeared to have designs on dunking on the big man.
"He was talking to me, but I just kept on playing," Whiteside said with a trademark smile.
Whiteside also "welcomed" Indiana transfer Armon Bassett back to college basketball after a year's hiatus. Bassett suffered an 0-for-9 outing in his first game in an Ohio uniform, including two swats - one in which Whiteside came out of nowhere and blocked the ball with a nearly sidearm motion.
Whiteside altered a few other shots and made the Bobcats think twice about everything - and did it while staying out of foul trouble.
"He's learning he doesn't have to block every shot," said MU coach Donnie Jones. "He changed a bunch of them, and he never left his feet. The biggest thing he did tonight, instead of him being off balance all the time, he had everybody else off balance. They didn't know if he was jumping or if he was standing; they didn't know what he was going to do.
"So he had them in-between all the time guessing, which was important. That's where he's going to grow as a shot blocker, just understanding his length and his size."
That played a major role in the Herd holding the Bobcats to 25.9 percent shooting, 22.6 percent in the first half when Marshall (4-1) built a 34-21 lead. The MU basketball team's defense yielded exactly one point more than the Herd football team did a few hours earlier at Texas-El Paso.
But the Bobcats (4-1) didn't go quietly, cutting the Herd's 14-point lead to four. The first and most pressing instance came when Freeman buried one of his four 3-pointers to cap a 9-0 run, in a stretch where Marshall missed four shots and committed five turnovers.
It looked like another one was on the way when Shaquille Johnson struggled while penetrating into the top of the lane. Johnson just did get the ball to Whiteside, who flicked in a hook shot at the shot-clock buzzer to put MU up 49-43.
After the Herd missed two front ends of the one-and-one, Whiteside calmly hit a 10-foot jumper to put Marshall up 51-44. The Bobcats cut the lead to four twice more, but those were answered by MU free throws.
"He hit some really big shots, and Hassan's got a really good face-up jumper," Jones said. "I'm comfortable with him shooting those shots. The one at the buzzer was a tough shot, and he's got great confidence."
Whiteside's rebounds included six on the offensive end, and he helped the Herd outmuscle the Bobcats on the boards 48-38.
BRIEFLY Whiteside's personal best in blocks, at any level? Twenty-five, he says, in a game last season at The Patterson school. ... Wilkerson still managed 10 points and seven rebounds in his limited 21 minutes. There were 46 fouls called in the game, with Ohio having Kenneth van Kempen foul out and Marshall finishing with Wilkerson, Damier Pitts and Tirrell Baines with four fouls. ... Chris Lutz's struggles continued, as he went 1-of-7 from the floor and 0-for-3 from 3-point range. That makes him 8-of-37 overall and 4-of-24 from behind the arc.
Reach Doug Smock at 304-348-5130 or dougsm...@wvgazette.com.
Marshall (4-1)
Player FG FT R A P
Darryl Merthie 3-7 2-2 3 1 9
Damier PItts 2-9 2-3 4 1 7
Ohio coach John Groce didn't have much trouble putting Marshall's Hassan Whiteside and Greg Oden in the same sentence Saturday night.
That was especially true after Groce watched the 7-foot freshman come within one blocked shot of a triple-double in the Thundering Herd's 60-53 win over Ohio before 2,515 at the Charleston Civic Center.
Whiteside had a whopping nine blocked shots, tying the MU record set by Latece Williams against Charleston in 2000 and Omar Roland against Tennessee-Chattanooga in 1990. Whiteside yanked down 17 rebounds and scored 14 points, including two critical 10-footers that helped fend off a Bobcat rally.
Groce is in his second year at Athens after spending four successful seasons on the Ohio State staff. He got to develop Oden, among others, so he knows a thing or two about talent.
After Whiteside's 29-minute reign of domination, he knows a thing or two about the native of Gastonia, N.C.
"I told our staff when I saw him on film, after the first half of the Lamar game, I said he might be the best defensive center I've seen on film or in person in the last few years in college - just me, personally," Groce said. "And the guy I kind of compared him to, defensively, was Greg."
Whiteside electrified the small but energetic, mostly pro-MU crowd with his rejections, and those swats were, shall we say, diverse.
He victimized six different Bobcats. He once surprised Tommy Freeman, the game's leading scorer with 16 points, at the 3-point line. He got Reggie Keely three times - and the third time, Keely appeared to have designs on dunking on the big man.
"He was talking to me, but I just kept on playing," Whiteside said with a trademark smile.
Whiteside also "welcomed" Indiana transfer Armon Bassett back to college basketball after a year's hiatus. Bassett suffered an 0-for-9 outing in his first game in an Ohio uniform, including two swats - one in which Whiteside came out of nowhere and blocked the ball with a nearly sidearm motion.
Whiteside altered a few other shots and made the Bobcats think twice about everything - and did it while staying out of foul trouble.
"He's learning he doesn't have to block every shot," said MU coach Donnie Jones. "He changed a bunch of them, and he never left his feet. The biggest thing he did tonight, instead of him being off balance all the time, he had everybody else off balance. They didn't know if he was jumping or if he was standing; they didn't know what he was going to do.
"So he had them in-between all the time guessing, which was important. That's where he's going to grow as a shot blocker, just understanding his length and his size."
That played a major role in the Herd holding the Bobcats to 25.9 percent shooting, 22.6 percent in the first half when Marshall (4-1) built a 34-21 lead. The MU basketball team's defense yielded exactly one point more than the Herd football team did a few hours earlier at Texas-El Paso.
But the Bobcats (4-1) didn't go quietly, cutting the Herd's 14-point lead to four. The first and most pressing instance came when Freeman buried one of his four 3-pointers to cap a 9-0 run, in a stretch where Marshall missed four shots and committed five turnovers.
It looked like another one was on the way when Shaquille Johnson struggled while penetrating into the top of the lane. Johnson just did get the ball to Whiteside, who flicked in a hook shot at the shot-clock buzzer to put MU up 49-43.
After the Herd missed two front ends of the one-and-one, Whiteside calmly hit a 10-foot jumper to put Marshall up 51-44. The Bobcats cut the lead to four twice more, but those were answered by MU free throws.
"He hit some really big shots, and Hassan's got a really good face-up jumper," Jones said. "I'm comfortable with him shooting those shots. The one at the buzzer was a tough shot, and he's got great confidence."
Whiteside's rebounds included six on the offensive end, and he helped the Herd outmuscle the Bobcats on the boards 48-38.
BRIEFLY Whiteside's personal best in blocks, at any level? Twenty-five, he says, in a game last season at The Patterson school. ... Wilkerson still managed 10 points and seven rebounds in his limited 21 minutes. There were 46 fouls called in the game, with Ohio having Kenneth van Kempen foul out and Marshall finishing with Wilkerson, Damier Pitts and Tirrell Baines with four fouls. ... Chris Lutz's struggles continued, as he went 1-of-7 from the floor and 0-for-3 from 3-point range. That makes him 8-of-37 overall and 4-of-24 from behind the arc.
Reach Doug Smock at 304-348-5130 or dougsm...@wvgazette.com.
Marshall (4-1)
Player FG FT R A P
Darryl Merthie 3-7 2-2 3 1 9
Damier PItts 2-9 2-3 4 1 7
Shaquille Johnson 1-4 6-6 3 4 9
Tirrell Baines 1-4 0-1 6 0 2
Tyler Wilkerson 3-6 4-6 7 0 10
Antonio Haymon 1-3 0-0 1 1 2
Chris Lutz 1-7 1-2 1 2 3
Hassan Whiteside 7-11 0-4 17 0 14
Nigel Spikes 2-2 0-1 0 1 4
Team 6
Totals 21-53 15-25 48 10 60
Ohio (4-1)
Player FG FT R A P
Devaughn Washington 0-6 3-5 7 0 3
Steven Coleman 1-4 1-2 5 2 3
D.J. Cooper 5-11 3-4 3 2 15
Kenneth van Kempen 1-3 0-0 4 0 2
Tommy Freeman 4-8 4-4 0 0 16
Armon Bassett 0-9 4-4 3 3 4
Ivo Baltic 0-1 2-4 5 1 2
Jay Kinney 2-9 0-1 2 1 4
Reggie Keely 2-7 0-1 3 0 4
Team 6
Totals 15-58 17-25 38 9 53
Halftime: Marshall 34-21. 3-point goals: Marshall 3-14 (Merthie 1-2, Pitts 1-4, Johnson 1-2, Wilkerson 0-1, Haymon 0-2, Lutz 0-3). OU 6-26 (Washington 0-1, Coleman 0-1, Cooper 2-6, Freeman 4-8, Bassett 0-6, Baltic 0-1, Kinney 0-3). Fouled out: van Kempen. Attendance: - 2,515
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