Friday, November 11, 2011

Observations from N.C. Central

-- Last season, coach Alan Major would look to his bench and often see one or two scholarship players available and a couple of walk-ons. In Friday's 73-57 season-opening victory against N.C. Central, Major used nine players, seven of whom played at least 17 minutes. After the game, Major was apologetic about not getting more guys more playing time.

-- Here's what three of the new players are going to bring this season: Freshman point guard Pierria Henry -- toughness on the perimeter and a nose for the ball; small forward DeMario Mayfield -- energy and a surprisingly good shooting touch; freshman forward E. Victor Nickerson -- the ability to knife through the basket to the rim.

-- Central coach LeVelle Moton saw all those 3-pointers the 49ers made in an exhibition last week against Belmont Abbey and figured they'd try to duplicate that. "We wanted to guard the 3-point line and make them make tough 2's," said Moton. "That was the game plan."

-- If Charlotte's next foe Central Michigan is familiar to some long-time 49ers fans, it's because Charlotte beat the Chippewas in the first round of the 1977 NCAA tournament on the way to the Final Four. That was the 49ers' first-ever NCAA tournament victory. Central Michigan will no doubt be looking for some payback Tuesday in Mount Pleasant (if anyone remembers).

-- Charlotte plays five of its next six games on the road. A game Nov. 22 at Halton against East Tennessee State is the only home game in that stretch.

-- N.C. Central's Dominique Sutton (a transfer from Kansas State) put on the one of the worst displays of free-throw shooting imaginable. He missed his first 10, then finally hit one to go one-of-11.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will athletic officials drop the curtain before the next home game? Nobody sits in the second level anyways. It looks better when they do it for women's basketball and volleyball.

Russell S said...

I have family zone tickets in the upper level endzone and there were several hundred of us up there last night. What are you talking about??

Dustin said...

Anonymous @ 9:54:

What game were YOU watching? My season tix are upper-level, and my section was pretty darn populous.

Anonymous said...

The score is not vindictive of reality. UNCC struggled against a measly NCCU team. And you wonder why UNCC gets no respect?

Alex said...

Anonymous 11:33: Thanks for reading the Gold Mine blog and for your support of Charlotte 49er basketball.

Anonymous said...

There were 7,121 in attendance.

That's hardly "no one sitting there."

Anonymous said...

12:09
Inflation.

Anonymous said...

I actually thought attendance was strong for a game against a team like NCCU.

anon 11:33,

You are a clown. We would have won by 20 if we hadn't fooled around in the last 30 seconds. Despite a poor start, the Niners controlled the majority of that game. It was far from struggling.

Matt Murrow said...

12:23

There were 7100+ fans there. Stop trolling this blog.

Anonymous said...

12:41
WOWWW... 20 points?! Impressive. Have you booked your tickets for the conference tournament?

Anonymous said...

anon 12:56,

As long as you come with ;)

If you watch basketball you know that 20 points is a substantial lead. Duke only beat Belmont by 1 and UConn beat Columbia by 13. Would you argue that the #6 and #4 squads are bad teams because they didn't beat their lowly opponents by 50? A win is a win.

Anonymous said...

Anon 1:14 wins. Not to mention the number of role-players who played their FIRST GAME in Charlotte last night. Not saying they'll win it all... just saying some of these posters are obviously uninformed.

Someone posted these numbers elsewhere from some home openers from around the state/league:

ECU - 4600
App - 1689
George Washington (A10) - 3300
Wake Forest - just over 6000

Charlotte against NCCU - 7121

Matt Murrow said...

To add to the attendance numbers:

GT: 2,590
Miami (FL): 3,600
Clemson: 6,000

Anonymous said...

How come there is no story on the Observer website about the Division I basketball team in Northern Mecklenburg that has actually played a nationally relevant game in the last 5 years? Davidson ripped off 111 points, on 11/11/11, no less.

Not even a box score from our "local" paper. But UNC on a boat gets like 5 writers writing stories.

FAIL

Anonymous said...

I'm sure all the trolls who come on here and post anonymously are Ivy League graduates and C.E.O's of their own companies. Oh wait, I forgot that anyone with an actual reason for living doesn't waste time acting like a bratty adolescent. BTW 11:33, you need to look up "vindictive", so as not to use it when you mean "indicative" . Not too late to get that GED!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 3:55 -- You do realize this is a story about CHARLOTTE, not UNC, right? Go home to Davidson and get ready for an old-fashioned butt-whooping on December 10 in Halton Arena.

49RFBN said...

Anon 11:33

"The score is not vindictive of reality."

Vindictive? Really?



Enough said.

Anonymous said...

A number of freshmen and transfers played their first game for the Niners last night. They did quite well considering. I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do this year.

NCdirtdigger said...

I like the way Nickerson goes to the hoop. I like that the niners kept going to Braswell. I thought the defense was less than impressive. As was some of the decision making. But from such a young club, it gives me hope that Coach Majors is headed in the right direction.