February 15, 2017 at 1:24 p.m.
Tigers trounce Hodag hoops 70-48
Tigers trounce Hodag hoops 70-48
The Tigers raced out to a 39-22 first-half lead and the margin hovered around 20 points much of the second half. Coach Derek Lemmens said it boiled down to some of the same issues that have hounded the Hodags (10-8, 6-4 Great Northern) all season - defensive lapses and poor shooting - and he pointed to the team's conditioning.
"Fatigue has become an issue," he told WHOH-FM after the contest. "You can see it. We're just a tired team. We don't have the same legs as everyone. We have yet to get our legs. I don't know if we can condition before playoffs well enough to keep up with these teams, but we do have to work a little harder at getting in better shape, because when the legs go, that's when we're not cutting, that's when we're slow to the spot. One thing we have to improve is we have to improve our legs. We just have to improve our ability to just continue to go up and down the court and not get fatigued."
Backcourt pressure also got to the Hodags, as Marshfield used a full-court press to generate turnovers and help build their lead.
"We talked about pressure breaking and what we needed to do, and yeah they are fast, but I thought a lot of those were execution errors," Lemmens said. "We never backpedaled. We didn't pass fake. We didn't do those things that take away their speed by making them a little hesitant. We never did any of those things. When you don't use those types of actions against a pressure D, it just makes the pressure that much deadlier. We knew they were short-cutting routes. We just played right into their hand."
Owen White scored 24 points for Rhinelander, 15 of which came after halftime. Matt Reinthaler had eight and Junior Howard chipped in six.
"I think guys need to move a little better off Owen, but we missed some bunnies," Lemmens said. "We're continuing to miss shots. We're just not a hard team to guard when we don't make shots, missing open 3s thing like that. Teams can take a little more risk. We came out flat and it just kind of spread through the whole team."
The Tigers finished with five players in double digits. Ethan Posteluk and Reed Miller combined for 20 of the Tigers' 39 first-half points and finished with 16 and 12, respectively. Alec Henson scored 12, Grant Michaelis had 11 and Brant Bohman chipped in 10.
"It also just shows how many gaps we have defensively, how flawed we are defensively this year," Lemmens said of Marshfield's balanced scoring. "They have a lot of weapons, but I think a lot of that, unfortunately, can be attributed to our defensive effort."
Lemmens paused for a moment when asked what positives his team could take away from the contest.
"Just a little more experience for us, just another team that challenged us and we just have to continue to grow," he said.
The Hodags are home Friday night to take on Antigo in a contest that has significant seeding implications for the WIAA tournament, especially after the Red Robins clipped Medford 63-62 Tuesday night at Sheldon Fieldhouse. It will be Antigo's first game in Rhinelander since the infamous stall game last March when the Robins upset the Hodags in a playoff contest 14-11. Rhinelander defeat Antigo in overtime 68-61 Jan. 17 in Antigo.
"We'll have to continue to defend the 3-point line," Lemmens said looking ahead. "We have to continue to take care of the basketball, finding open gaps and moving well without the ball. We're just not moving well without the ball."
WHOH-FM's Ben Meyer contributed to this report. Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
Comments:
You must login to comment.