Monday, August 20, 2012

Major pleased with Bahamas trip


The 49ers men's basketball team wrapped up its two-game trip to the Bahamas last week with two easy victories against two of the country's "all-star" teams. 49ers coach Alan Major was happy with how things turned out, but warned to take the opposition "with a grain of salt." Here are a few of Major's observations from the trip:

-- Not having center Chris Braswell (broken foot) playing gave more playing time to red-shirt freshman Mike Thorne, who averaged 11.5 rebounds in the two games.

"Mike's a little green from not playing last season, so this was his first real competition in a while," said Major. "He rebounded really well."

-- The trip also gave Major a chance to look at the team's four freshmen. "I liked the young guys' effort," he said. "(Denzel) Ingram ran the team well and distributed. Willie (Clayton) and Darion (Clark) gave us energy and rebounded. Ivan (Benkovic) had some stretches where he shot it well."

-- Major said senior forward J.T. Thompson doesn’t appear to be favoring either of the knees that he had surgery on before he transferred to Charlotte from Virginia Tech. Thompson missed the past two seasons after injuring both his knees in the preseason.

“His knees are fine,” said Major. “But he’s still getting his wind. But he’s going to really help us. He’s got this sense of calmness on the floor that I hope rubs off. He’s not out there feeling like he has to prove himself.”

-- Major said sophomore point guard Pierria Henry made his presence felt in the first game, starting a rally by being disruptive on defense and hitting a few jump shots.

“That’s the next step for Pierria and something he wasn’t that comfortable with last season,” said Major. “He’s got to recognize when the shot is there for him, then step up and knock it down.”

-- Sophomores Terrence Williams and E. Victor led the 49ers in scoring in each game, something Major hopes happens often next season.

“They had good off-seasons and it showed,” Major said. “They’re rounding out their games and that’s good to see.”

 


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good practice time. Go Niners!

Anonymous said...

Question for you David. I noticed the Observer pimped UNC-chapel hill's exhibition game against Winthrop. No mention was made about the Nationally 3rd ranked Charlotte 49ers HOME exhibition game over the weekend. Is this what Niner fans can expect again? Pimping the damn team located over 2 hours away just because the sports editor and some of the Observer sports staff went to that school, while trying to keep the success of the local team a secret?

Absolutely pathetic excuse for a sports department. Perhaps the Observer should spend more time trying to simulate the Raleigh News and Observer and help uncover some of the fraud, cheating, and lies that have been coming out of the athletic department in chapel hill if they have such a desire to report on their alma mater so much.

Anonymous said...

10:48 - Good luck with that. The Charlotte Observer will never, under any circumstance, give the Charlotte athletic department anything that even begins to resemble equal treatment to UNC-CH.

Imagine this scenario: It's January 2020. The Charlotte 49ers football team, having ran through a weak C-USA to an undefeated season, make the 4-team playoff only because they are the only undefeated team in the country. They pull a monumental upset over LSU in the semifinal, and pull an even more monumental upset over Southern Cal to win the national championship. The next morning's Observer features a front page that is completely filled with 1 story about how the Democratic Party's presidential frontrunner is the only choice America should consider. Turning to the sports section, the front page features a huge article previewing the UNC-CH basketball team and their upcoming ACC opener against Wake Forest that night, along with articles about the speculation that Roy Williams might finally retire this year, and the upcoming game between West Charlotte and Olympic, each of which has their best player committed to playing for UNC-CH next year. But what about the football national championship game? There is a little 300-word article about it on page 12C. But there are 4 posts about the game in "The Gold Mine" blog.

Sound about right?

Anonymous said...

J@10;48

That is so absurd. You know damned well the O will not still be around in 2020

Anonymous said...

yep

A said...

Is anyone ever grateful for the news coverage that we DO receive? Serious question. I am not disagreeing with the fact that the Observer could do a much better job, I just think we could have it a lot worse. Honestly, I was surprised last year when I saw see we had our own blog. Sometimes I come on here to get more information then what's on charlotte49ers.com and NinerNation. Seems like we are lucky to have a reporter covering our events(david scott) and that most schools don't. Do JC Smith, Winthrop and Queens College feel shafted because they NEVER receive coverage from their local paper?Probably. Look at Los Angeles for example. Do you think CSU Northridge, CSU Fullerton, UC Riverside, Loyola Marymount, Pepperdine, Cal Poly, Long Beach St complain because they are never mentioned in the LA Times? Maybe. USC and UCLA get all the attention from the LA Times. it's the same exact thing with UNC and the Observer. It sucks but it's reality.

Anonymous said...

I think the comparison between the Observer and the LA times is flawed. The Los Angles paper covers the teams in Los Angles and may or may not favor the "big name" schools. I kind of doubt they cover Cal or Stanford (non LA schools) much more than Long Beach State or the others you cite.
Chapel Hill has always been the favored university for Charlotte Observer coverage. State and Wake are in the same league. University of South Carolina is comparable to Chapel Hill in many areas of athletics and gets no play despite being many miles closer to Charlotte.
Yes, their coverage of Charlotte athletics could be worse, but their sports coverage in general could hardly be more biased toward the Baby Blue and that is just poor journalism.

Anonymous said...

Anon 126, I don't think you understand.

The blog is nice, but it is also an excuse to keep the Niner success stories isolated solely for Niner fans. The perfect example is the example given in one of these comments. The Ob server carried on and on about the UNC soccer team playing at Winthrop, thus rallying support and following for UNC. The 49ers, ranked 3rd in the Nation in the only poll out at the time, played a scrimmage game at home and no mention was made of the game, before or after (I'm not talking about the blog).

Other dramatic examples of this behavior in previous seasons have included the Observer's refusal to write about a Niner Golf Team that was ranked Number 1 in the nation after coming off a 3rd place NCAA finish, not printing an article after one of our victories over a top 10 basketball team, their refusal to ever print Niner pregame articles, even when playing a home game on National TV against a ranked opponent (happened numerous times), a refusal to print the fact a Niner baseball team had the longest winning streak in the country, etc, etc, etc.

Anonymous said...

Why aren't there any App fans in the comments section today?