RTC Live: Legends Classic Finals
Posted by rtmsf on November 27th, 2010
Games #43-#44. Back in AC for an ACC/Big East Challenge of a different sort.
The Legends semifinals produced two terrific games as Syracuse and Georgia Tech won two very closely fought contest. They will compete for the Legends Classic championship at 7:30 tonight at the historic Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, NJ. Fab Melo may be a work in progress, but Kris Joseph, Rick Jackson, and Baye Keita are feeling very good after beating Michigan 53-50, and are ready to go. The young Orange backcourt will have to beat the veteran trio of Brian Oliver, Iman Shumpert and Mfon Udofia. For Georgia Tech, freshman Danny Miller gave the Jackets just enough in their 71-61 win over UTEP, but he will have to do better against Rick Jackson and Kris Joseph.
Michigan and UTEP get a second chance at redemption as they clash for third place at 5:30 today. UTEP’s Julyan Stone and Randy Culpepper talked about leadership in the postgame press conference. Against the inexperienced charges of Coach John Beilein they will get a chance to show they get it. Coach Beilein said playing the next day is better than spending days looking at film and practicing for the next game. Michigan versus UTEP barely 24 hours after the semi-inal tip-off will test Beilein’s theory. Join us at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City for the consolation game and finals of the Legends Classic.
Recap
The Consolation game was no consolation to Coach John Beilien. Tied at 29 through the first half with a pace of 32 possessions, Michigan could not stop a 13-0 UTEP run to open the second half and dropped their second game of the championship bracket, 65-56. Was defense or offense to blame? UTEP notched those 13 points in 14 possessions (0.93 points per possession), hardly a ringing endorsement for the UTEP offense. Michigan meanwhile matched those 14 possessions and came away with zero points. That UTEP run took 5:40 off the clock and would total nearly 46.7% of the possessions in a typical Michigan half. Coach Beilein needed six more possessions than usual, and would have to figure out how to score almost 2.0 points in each of those possessions. It was not to be, though the Wolverines did manage to chew into UTEP’s lead several times over the last 15 minutes of the half and reduce the losing margin to nine. It took Michigan over 11 minutes to record their first field goal. They finished the second half with seven field goals and limited the Miners’ second chance opportunities, but that was too little too late.
If the consolation game was a defensive tug-of-war, the Championship game was a horse race. To paraphrase Coach Boeheim in the post game press conference “[Syracuse] finally found a team [Georgia Tech] that could play with us.” And he was right as Paul Hewitt’s Yellow Jacket squad jumped out to the lead from the first half tip off and held it through the last minute of the half. Credit Syracuse that did not fold when down by seven points. The two squads managed to post points per possession efficiencies of better than 1.10 on 32 possessions apiece. Brian Oliver had a career half, as he shot 7-13 (4-7, 3-6) to post 18 points before the break. Oliver finished with a game-high 32 points on 12-21 (6-11, 6-12) and 2-2 shooting. The Orange defense shifted their focus from Iman Shumpert to Oliver in the second half, with some effect. If they did not cut too deeply into Oliver’s shot efficiency, they did manage to make the senior guard work harder for his shots, and force his teammates, principally Shumpert and Mfon Udofia, to step up their production. The Orange used the first minutes of the second half to build on their lead and hold down a later Tech run. By the mid point of the period they built up a double digit lead that would remain more or less intact until the game’s final three minutes.
The all-tournament team:
- Darrius Morris, Michigan
- Randy Culpepper, UTEP
- Brian Oliver, Georgia Tech
- Kris Joseph, Syracuse
- MVP Rick Jackson, Syracuse
