There are a lot of great college basketball tournaments every late-November: the Maui Invitational, the Battle 4 Atlantis, etc. When the Wooden Legacy organizers announced that its 2019 field of 8 schools would include both Penn AND Arizona, HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel had no choice but to request a media credential/buy a plane ticket/check out his 2 alma maters in person. He expected to see a total of 6 separate games (3 involving the Quakers and 3 involving the Wildcats) but due to some travel nightmares and wild finishes he only saw 3 games during the weekend. We began with Part 1 earlier this week:
https://hoopshd.com/2019/12/06/hoopshd-at-the-wooden-legacy-part-1-of-3
We now turn to Part 2 of our coverage featuring the Sunday morning game between Penn and Long Beach State.
I was hoping for some pregame pastries or bacon/eggs…but the pickings were slim for 10:30AM on the West Coast so a Rice Krispie treat and some water was the best that I could do. Even though the 49ers’ campus is only 12 miles due west of the Anaheim Area it must have been a little too early for a holiday weekend…which is why it appeared that there were approximately 100 people in attendance! Let’s huddle up and start the show:
Penn SR AJ Brodeur (making his 100th career start) is so reliable that you just know he will fill up the stat sheet every single time that he steps onto the court: he made 2 layups and a dunk to finish the 1st half with a quiet 6 PTS…but also had 5 AST/4 STL/3 REB/1 BLK. 1 reason that Brodeur was able to record so many AST was the offensive balance all around him: after Jarrod Simmons knocked down a pair of early FTs he became the 9th different Quaker to score in the 1st 9 minutes of the game! The shooting star was FR Max Martz: he only scored 20 PTS during the entire month of November but knocked down 4 shots from behind the arc off the bench against the Beach en route to 14 PTS in the 1st half. If he can develop some consistency from game to game then he will become a super-sub in no time at all:
Long Beach remained competitive due in large part to SO Chance Hunter. He made almost every type of shot you can imagine: a layup and a hook, then a 3 and a long jumper, and finished it up with an old-fashioned 3-PT play. His 21-PT 1st half tied his career-high for an entire game and he almost outshot Penn single-handedly from the FT line (3 for Hunter and 4 for Penn):
My personal highlight of the 2nd half was when a loose ball come my way. 1 of the perks of sitting in a near-empty arena is that I could slowly walk over to the ball/pick it up/pass it back to the ref (no photo available)! Some UCF players also dropped by to check out a bit of the action before preparing for their own game against Charleston:
Martz knocked down yet another 3 in the 2nd half, leading his team to a huge 31-8 advantage in bench scoring. The Quaker starting guards dominated in the 2nd half: Ryan Betley/Jordan Dingle/Devon Goodman only scored 9 1st half PTS combined but exploded for 36 in the 2nd stanza. They made layups and threes and the passing was near-perfect: the team had 21 AST on its 1st 23 FGs! Dingle could be 1 of the best 2nd half players in the nation: he had 10 1st half PTS combined vs. Arizona/Long Beach State but a ridiculous 38 after halftime in those 2 games. Hunter was the exact opposite, following up his great 1st half with an airball on his 1st possession after halftime and ended up with only 3 measly 2nd half PTS. Penn coach Steve Donahue must have been impressed as his team scored a season-high 95 PTS (their most since a 99-93 win at Brown in the 2018 regular season finale) in a 16-PT win to finish off their trip to Anaheim:
I am still unsure how I feel about the alternate grey uniforms…but if it helps them make 15 threes every afternoon then let’s go grey!
The sparsely-attended postgame press conference gave me an opportunity to pose a couple of questions. I asked Brodeur about his own 1st month as a college freshman and how impressed he was with his 2 freshman teammates who led the way that day (Dingle/Martz combined for 38 PTS). He explained how the college game is a different speed than high school and that most college freshmen are not used to simply being 1 option rather than the main man. He said it is easy to get sped up and make some mistakes: they are still learning but you can already see their growth:
My inquiry for Coach Donahue was whether his team’s hot 3-PT shooting (5th straight game with 11+ 3PM) would impact his offensive strategy going forward. He responded that his team had struggled with 3P% the past 2 years but that this year’s success has allowed them to avoid taking a single mid-range jumper so far this season. The key in his mind is putting pressure on your opponent at the rim, which is why he thinks that Brodeur is as good an all-around player as anyone in the country at any level. That is high praise but also factually accurate: the senior stud leads the Quakers in almost every single stat category and allowed his team to compete with Arizona in their previous game:
Hope you enjoyed Part 2, please check back later this weekend for Part 3.