[zaga_fan]

I went over and played a quick game at the sportsplex.
There was some really stiff competition but luckily I was playing with my buddies that played HS ball at Riverside - They really carried me through some tough stretches.

Anyway...
Clay played a 1-3-1 and really packed it in on Perry's bigs all night.
Either one of them was double-teamed at all times and when they swung the ball to the weak side they did well at shifting the zone to the other side.
This left Perry with WIDE OPEN 3s all night and they simply couldn't convert. They were 1/17 from behind the arc in the first half (The one that they made was a buzzer beater by Johnson at the end of the second).
btw - that 3 by Johnson was HUGE! Clay led by 5 at the break.

Second half opens up and Braxton had a quick surge to get the Commodores' first seven points and they took the lead. Clay put the clamps down again, forced some turnovers, got some easy buckets and they started to pull away again.

I think Spurlock waited too late to start the full-court press, but he knows his team better than I do, and it obviously worked out for him. They pressed some in the first half but it wasn't a full on press, it was more of a soft full-court man-to-man. Perry got two turnovers right off the bat and the second one ended in an alley-oop. It cut the lead to one and big plays like that down the stretch can really change momentum.

Dalton with two big charges late in the game. They definitely looked like flops but he could have run a clinic on how to set up and take one to the chest. He stood his ground and got his feet lined up both times, then he sold it. Matt Day made a living off of them on the defensive end.

Overall, I think Coach Marcum had the right game-plan and he had his team in a position to put the game away with under 4 mins to go in the 4th but they just came up a little short. My only problem with Clay tonight is that they had their big man at the top of the key with the ball in his hands for almost the entire last minute of regulation - surely with the shooters and ball-handlers on their team they could have drawn up something a little more effective than what they ran.

but hey - good teams find ways to win games that they shouldn't have won in the first place.

I'm sure Clay will compete hard in their next game and Perry has their hands full with the Bulldogs on Friday.

Everyone try to watch the Ladies Invitational tomorrow - it should be a good game.