Cincinnati Christian Thread....

[HarrisburgFlame]

we're going to kick some butt tonight.

Let's go Flames!

[HarrisburgFlame]

48-32 Flames...

[realist]

Newsbreak: UNCA hanging with Wake 50-44

[HarrisburgFlame]

7:49

LU 62 CC 47..

let's finish this thing off strong!

[realist]

that didn't last long 67-47 wake

[HarrisburgFlame]

76-50 Flames...3:42 left in the game...

Vines Center sounds empty.

[HarrisburgFlame]

FINAL

Liberty 88
CC 54

Look out UK!

[Sly Fox]

OK, we've sent the NCCAA team down. Let's keep using these glorified scrimmages tonight & against LC to get ready for the tough road ahead.

[lustudentrep]

Vines was empty...maybe 300? Tough first half, guys didnt play well AT ALL, no effort, 2nd half was a diff game, played defense and ran them out of the gym..why we cant come out like that i dont know? Still a little worried about this team, but yes they are young, very young.

[flamesfan710]

Yeah...Jerry Edwards noted the lack of people in the VInes a couple times tonight...he mentioned the fact that the students had gone home for break...it will be better once we all get back to the mountain

[PAmedic]

Flames Pick Up Home Opening Victory Over Cincinnati Christian

November 21, 2005 · Lynchburg, Va.

The Flames netted 12-unanswered points midway through the second half to put away a pesky Cincinnati Christian team as Liberty picked up its first victory of the season in an 88-54 win over the visiting Golden Eagles, Monday evening, at the Vines Center.

Liberty (1-1) jumped out to a quick seven-point lead in the opening minutes as a jumper by Eric Bigby (Jr., F, Meade, Md.) put the Flames up 15-7 at the 14:55 mark. However, Cincinnati Christian (4-4) was able to keep things close over the next five minutes as Donnie Fishburn pulled down an offensive board and got the stick back to pull Cincinnati Christian to within three, 21-18, with 9:31 left to play before the half.

The Flames quickly answered back as a jumper by Russell Monroe (So., C, Alma, Mich.) capped off a 7-0 run to give Liberty its first double digit lead of the evening at 28-18 with 5:15 left play before the intermission, while the Flames pushed it to as much as 14 points before a three-pointer with 30 seconds remaining in the half trimmed the lead back to the 11-point halftime lead, 36-25.

The Flames seemed like they were going to roll to the victory as a three-pointer by Evan Risher (So., G, Fort Worth, Texas) gave Liberty an 18-point lead, 53-35, with 13:44 left to play. But the Golden Eagles didn’t quit as Cincinnati Christian scored nine of the game’s next 12 points and trimmed the lead back to 12 points, 56-44, on a lay-up by Piotr Poprocki at the 9:41 mark.

The margin remained the same over the next two minutes as the two teams traded three-pointers back and forth with Poprocki knocking down one from the top of the arc to cut the lead back to 12 points, 62-50, with 7:43 left to play.

However, the Flames scored the game’s next 12 points and opened up a 24-point lead as Rell Porter (So., F, Pittsburg, Texas) picked off a pass and feed it to Anthony Smith (Fr., G, Plano, Texas) for a fast break lay-up to cap the game-sealing run. The Flames continued to dominate over the remainder of the contest, holding the Golden Eagles to just four points over the last seven minutes of the game to seal the team’s first victory of the season.

“We have the pieces as we showed tonight, but we lack the experience,” stated head coach Randy Dunton. “We lack so much chemistry and focus, so we really have to execute.”

“I am glad for a kid like Russell Monroe to have evenings like tonight. He needs to get experience and tonight he showed what he can do at this level. This is a group of great kids. They need to get some experience and some competitiveness going. But they want to succeed and they showed that tonight.”

Larry Blair (Jr., G, Charlotte, N.C.) paced the Flames with 23 points and a career-best 10 assists, while Damien Hubbard (Jr., F, Boyce, Va.) recorded his first double-double at Liberty with 14 points and a game-high 10 rebounds.

Monroe turned in a career night with career highs in points (15), rebounds (8) and blocked shots (3), while Jeremy Eck (Jr., C, Stafford, Va.) came off the bench to score 10 points to help the Flames shot 56.7 percent from the field (38-of-67)

Cincinnati Christian finished the game with two double-figure scorers as Justin Bilyeu led the team with 14 points, while Poprocki added 13 points and five rebounds.

The Flames will begin a brief two-game road swing on Friday as they travel to Lexington, Ky., to face sixth-ranked Kentucky in hollowed Rupp Arena with the tip-off set for 7 p.m.

evidently a nice night for Monroe:


Russell Monroe scored a
career-best 15 points
and added a career-high
eight rebounds agaisnt
Cincinnati Christian on
Monday evening.

[PAmedic]

Well- we got the tuneup outta the way.
Blair played well again, and add in a double/double for Hubbard- hopefully these guys keep improving and by the time we get to the BSOUTH schedule we'll have something!

[PAmedic]

and here's the view from the 'wrap:

Flames win at home over Golden Eagles

By Ted Allen
Lynchburg News & Advance
November 22, 2005

Liberty University junior guard Larry Blair is equally gifted at motivating his team and entertaining the crowd.

Whether he is giving an encouraging word or feeding a fast-break pass to a teammate, or blocking a shot, sinking a 3-pointer or finishing a breakaway with a one-handed jam, he’s a catalyst for positive change.

During a break in the action in the second half of Monday night’s home opener against Cincinnati Christian, Blair had his teammates and many in the sparse pre-holiday crowd hooting spontaneously to generate some excitement in the Vines Center. Most of LU’s students are out of town for Thanksgiving and only 673 fans were on hand to see the Flames play the National Christian College Athletic Association program.

“That’s what I try to do, I try to excite the team and crowd all my life,” Blair said. “God has blessed me with that gift and I take advantage of it fully. I just try to do the things to lead the team by example, as well as vocally, to do anything to give us a lift.”

His vocal and athletic leadership helped spark the Flames to finish on a 26-4 spurt and run away with an 88-54 victory, nearly as decisive as Friday’s 35-point season-opening loss at Virginia.

“Blair’s a great talent,” said Flames coach Randy Dunton, who evened his career record at LU at 46-46 with the win. “The thing I appreciate most about Larry right now is his commitment to help his team develop, even though it’s an inexperienced group. He’s doing an unbelievable job of being a teammate now.”

Dunton pointed to Blair’s career-high 10 assists as an indicator of his unselfishness. He also scored a team-high 23 points, made five steals and blocked three shots, which tied 6-foot-11 sophomore center Russell Monroe for the team lead.

“Russell played great,” Blair said. “That’s what we asked of him coming in. There was no one on the court who could match his size. That was the game plan from the jump, to get him the ball as many times as we could.”

Liberty improved to 12-3 in home-openers at the Vines Center and evened its overall record at 1-1 before traveling to Kentucky on Friday for another tough Division I test.

“Considering the competition and the big size difference, I should have put up some decent numbers,” said Monroe, who recorded career highs in points (15), rebounds (eight) and blocked shots. “Playing a game like this gives us more confidence. I’m looking forward to the challenge of playing against some really good big men and helping to make me get better.”

Dunton was pleased with the post play of both Monroe and freshman forward Damien Hubbard, who finished with 14 points and a team-high 10 rebounds in 37 minutes.

“You see a lot of tools out there,” he said. “(They’re) capable of doing things that the big kids we’ve had the last couple years couldn’t do.”

Early on, Hubbard completed a three-point play and scored a layup off an inside feed from Evan Risher to give the Flames their first lead at 7-5. Moments later, Blair capped a steal with a breakaway dunk that aroused the crowd, if only briefly.

LU closed the first half on a 6-2 run. Monroe took a pass from Blair and sank an inside turnaround before Blair swished an 18-foot turnaround from near the top of the key. Hubbard then rejected a perimeter shot by CCU’s Luke Davidson and came up with the loose ball by diving on the floor before outletting the ball to Risher, who sent a bounce pass across the lane to Blair on transition for a layup.

The Flames started the second half on an 8-2 run, with Rell Porter scoring on an offensive putback of a Blair baseline miss, and Blair punctuating two straight breaks with uncontested layups.

After the break, the Flames forced a turnover with a halfcourt trap as Blair intercepted the pass and dished to Hubbard on transition. He sent an alley-oop pass back to Blair before finishing the break with a power putback and a 44-27 advantage.

Defensively, the Flames forced 24 turnovers and turned many of them into transitional baskets, with a total of 24 assists on the night. Liberty held CCU to 33.9 percent shooting for the game while the Flames hit at nearly twice that rate (56.7 percent) on their shots.

“Their bigs kind of changed the shots for us,” Eagles first-year coach Mark Harden said. “You don’t shoot the ball the same with a 6-11, 6-10, 6-9 guy coming. They changed more shots than they blocked, which led to our poor shooting.”

And the Flames were without Justin Holland, their best on-ball defender sidelined with a groin injury, and 6-foot-8 freshman forward Doug Stewart, who broke his thumb in the loss at UVa. LU also got 10 points from backup center Jeremy Eck in just 13 minutes, 8 points from Eric Bigby and seven points each from Porter and Risher.

Whereas Liberty is trying to elevate its program by playing perennial powers such as Virginia and Kentucky, the same is true for CCU by taking on the Flames, the first Division I team it has faced this year.

“At our level, we really feel like we want to win a national championship and it’s games like today that kind of get us ready for that,” Harden said.

The Eagles are extremely young with no seniors and only four juniors on a 12-man roster. They won three NCCAA national titles and finished as runners-up twice in the 1980s and made the tournament field last year.

Justin Bilyeu led the CCU (4-4) with 14 points, including four 3-pointers. Piotr Poprocki, a junior from Poland who recently returned from a back injury, added 13.

[PAmedic]

anybody have an injury report on Holland (groin) and Stewert (thumb)?

*let me be more specific: I can see that they're hurt: whats their prognosis(es) and/or time frame?

[TDDance234]

If Doug didn't play, he must have been hurting. Dude is a gym rat. He's picked on me quite a bit in LaHaye Student Center in pickup games, ha.

If Russell would do more than just stand with his hand up, it's going to be a long season for the rest of the Big South.

Good to see the new guys playing well. If Hubbard can match Leo's contribution, we'll be in good shape.

[SCAR]

Justin Holland may try to play this Friday. He did dress out for the first time but didn't see the floor. Doug Stewart was held out as a precaution and truth be told wanted to play last night. He also suited up but his thumb was heavily taped up. I tried to play with a broken finger once and it really made for bad play as a point guard. I think Doug's play won't be affected as much but he will have to protect it from getting slapped a lot. That will be painful whenever someone hits his hand thats for sure.

[PAmedic]

so these two will both be back within a week? sounds good!