PAINESVILLE, Ohio -- The Lake Erie men's basketball team hosted Great Lakes Christian College on Friday. The Storm would follow up their previous 122-point game with *only* 111 this time in a 57-point margin of victory over the Crusaders. The 111-54 final score puts Lake Erie at 3-1 on the year, their best start in six seasons.
Game Recap
Despite a horrid first half shooting performance from the Storm which included 18-50 (36%) from the field and 4-24 from deep (16.7%), they entered halftime up 26 points. The main reason? Take your pick: a) They shot literally twice as many shots as the Crusaders (50-25) due to 16 offensive rebounds; b) Their relentless pressure created nine steals, 17 turnovers in total, and converted 26 points off of them; or c) Their 15-straight-points from 7:34-3:33 expanded their 15-point lead to 30 in the blink of an eye. Whatever the main catalyst might have been, they played an excellent half of basketball, and similar to their previous game against Bryant & Stratton which ended in a 60-point Storm blowout, many starters play sparring minutes, with the team leader only reaching 16 minutes played.
The Storm had a clear emphasis of sealing the game straight out of halftime and not letting the Crusaders even get a glimmer of hope, as they started the 2nd period on a 13-0 run, expanding their lead to 39 in well under three minutes. Noticeably, Lake Erie recorded 19 assists in the 2nd period alone with just a mere five turnovers to add, simply outstanding across the board. For reference on where this team is at: last season the single-game high for the Storm was 23 assists against Ohio Dominican. This year in only four games, Lake Erie already has two 30+ assists games.
Analysis
The Storm dominated nearly every aspect of the game, most notably shot totals (96-57), rebounding (57-31), offensive rebounding (24-5), assists (34-11), steals (15-6), points in the paint (46-18), points off of turnovers (42-8), second-chance points (24-4), fast break points (37-12), and bench points (60-32). The only area where the Crusaders bested Lake Erie was the long-ball, as GLLC shot 33% on 15 attempts from three while Lake Erie hoisted 50 threes, making only 13 for 26%. This is really the only category that the Storm haven't shown as a strength this year, as they are now are 44-141 on the season for just 31.2%. Last year this number was at 34% but the team only attempted around 25 threes/game. Albeit a very small sample size, Lake Erie this season is generating north of 35 shots/game. Even if they aren't making them efficiently, simple math shows that if they crash the offensive glass and create more opportunities than other teams, even with poor shooting, they'll have a winning formula as they start to face tougher competition. And this is assuming that the three point struggles will continue although that would be a gross over-reaction to assume just four games into the season. Deep shooting fluctuates greatly and has great variance; even at the highest levels of basketball, inferior teams often beat more talented teams due to a good night from distance. The Storm have beaten their last two opponents by a margin of 117 points on just average deep shooting... imagine what this team is capable when they develop more rhythm from beyond the arc.
Leaders for the Storm:
Points (10+) -
Cameron Johnson (13),
Derrick Anderson (12),
Solomon Kuol (12), and
Caleb Piks (10).
Rebounds (5+) -
Griffin Turay (6),
Jake Leibacher (6),
Joshua Dames (6),
Caleb Piks (6),
Cameron Johnson (5), and
Solomon Kuol (5).
Assists (3+) -
Derrick Anderson (7),
Alan Swenson (4),
Joshua Dames (3), and
Kai Bloom (3).
Steals -
Kai Bloom (3),
Joshua Dames (3),
Griffin Turay (2),
Derrick Anderson (2), and
Trace Bishko,
Ronnie Leonard,
Aidan Filippini,
Todd Simons, and
Caleb Piks with one (1) each.
Blocks -
Todd Simons (1) and
Solomon Kuol (1).
Looking Ahead
The Storm will look to continue their winning home streak when the Clarion Golden Eagles visit on Tuesday, November 19th at 7:30 p.m. Clarion is 3-0 so far this season with victories coming over Bowie State, Fayetteville State, and Roberts Wesleyan. They have three players averaging 10+ points: 6'6 junior Cam Kearney, 6'5 redshirt sophomore Jeremy Smith II, and 6'5 redshirt sophomore Gavin Cote.
After the Golden Eagles, the Storm once again play host when Miami Middletown comes to town on Friday, November 22nd. The Thunderhawks are off to a rough start, beginning 0-6 so far with one of their losses coming to this very own Great Lakes Christian College team.
