November 6, 2009

RedStorm open season with a win over OU-L

Rio Grande --- The University of Rio Grande RedStorm men's basketball team began the 2009-10 season against Ohio-Lancaster in the Giovanni's Pizza Tip-Off Classic on Friday night at the Newt Oliver Arena. The RedStorm defeated the Cougars by a 96-80 score. 

Rio Grande (1-0) started a bit slowly, struggling with 12 first half turnovers. Despite the turnovers, Rio shot 10-of-22 from three-point land in the opening half to jump out to a 47-36 lead at halftime.

The RedStorm played much better in the second half, committing only five turnovers after halftime. Rio cooled a bit from long range in the second half, but still managed to connect on 40 percent (14-of-35) from beyond the arc for the game.

Rio placed five players in double figures led by sophomore forward Bud Teer (Cleveland, OH) with a double-double of 16 points and 16 rebounds. Teer scored 12 of his 16 in the second half. Senior guard P.J. Rase (Wheelersburg, OH) added 14 points (all in the first half). Rase went 4-of-7 from three-point land in the game. Freshman forward Daniel Marti (Valencia, Spain) chipped in with 13 points in his collegiate debut while sophomore guard Brad Cubbie (Dayton, OH) and freshman guard Florian Schneider (Samswegan, Germany) tallied 10 points each. Fellow freshman point guard Tony Harris (Cincinnati, OH) narrowly missed double figures, scoring nine points in his first college game. He led the RedStorm with five assists. 

Ohio-Lancaster (0-1) battled hard to keep the game close in the first half despite a poor shooting effort. The Cougars made only 13-of-41 attempts (31.7 percent) in the first half and only 2-of-11 (18.2 percent) from long range.

The Cougars were sloppy in the second half, committing 12 of their 20 turnovers in the final 20 minutes. The visitors played hard and put up a good fight, but, in the end, could not handle the RedStorm. Ronnie Edwards led the Cougars with 22 points and eight rebounds in a losing effort. Andy Schmitz added 15 points to go along with eight rebounds and four assists. Eric Bohman chipped in 11 points. 

Rio Grande head coach Ken French was pleased to get the win, but knows his team still has a lot of work to do. "I say incomplete right now on a grade," French said. "We've got a lot of things to work on. It's a W, we're not going to give it back; I thought we played well in phases."

French praised sophomore guard Kyle Rase for the way he played in the game. "I thought Kyle Rase (Wheelersburg, OH) was the best player we put on the floor tonight, as far as what we were asking and what we were looking for," French said. "I thought he played extremely well." 

"We had some guys that stepped up and played well, we just couldn't put it all together and I'm hoping that we'll be able to bounce back and play better tomorrow because if we don't we're going to get our head handed to us," French added. 

Rio was able to clear the bench, giving everyone some valuable minutes on the floor. "We've got to try to get everybody involved, we've got to be deeper, we've got to play a lot of people because of the style that we're going to play," French said. "Right now, we don't have a rotation, so we're still searching. " "Anybody can move up and down the rotation at any moment, we're as coaches still evaluating and trying to figure out, this is a whole new style. We're not banging it inside and going inside out like we were and you can almost count on one hand our post feeds tonight. It's an adjustment."

Rio will face former American Mideast Conference foe Cedarville, ranked No. 15 in the NAIA Division II Top 25 pre-season poll on Saturday in the final game of the weekend. Tip-off is set for 4 p.m. Stretch Internet will have play-by-play coverage beginning at approximately 3:30 p.m.

"Cedarville is loaded. They are a very good team" French said. "They're a national tournament type team in NAIA Division II, they gave Cumberlands all they wanted tonight, came up on the short end so they got a bad taste in their mouth." 

"They will come out and hit us right in the mouth and if we're not ready we'll get our head handed to us like I said," French added. "We've got to be ready to play. It's going to be a great test for a young ball club."

Cedarville (0-1) lost the opening game to NAIA Division I pre-season No. 14 University of Cumberlands (2-0) by a 90-85 score. 

Cumberlands and OU-L will play on Saturday with the tip-off set for 2 p.m.