Christopher James

Couple of quick hits while last night’s Maryville College game is fresh in the mind.

The road jerseys I mentioned last night on Twitter were worn because they’re all the Scots have left. MC coach Randy Lambert said the win over Milligan was the third straight game his team was clad in black at home. The Scots home whites set in the washing machine for a couple days and became, in Lambert’s words, “permenantly creased.”
Lambert said he expects to have the jerseys back today after sending them off to Bristol to be steamed. Maryville’s final home game is against Piedmont on Feb. 20.

It’s stunning to think this year’s team could be in danger of missing the NCAA tournament. Remember, it was last year’s squad that had the problems. MC started off 4-6, but went unbeaten in the New Year to rally its way into the postseason. This year’s team returned nearly all the major players and even added wing Ben Williamson. The Scots flirted with a top-25 ranking.
Yet, back-to-back losses last week made all those expectations look silly. Last night’s performance was a return to what we expect from MC, but will it be enough to secure a bid? Winning out now must be a given.

Now this looks famaliar.
Maryville College opened up a 52-26 halftime lead on Monday night against Milligan by being aggressive and scoring in bunches. The Scots (17-4) had runs of 8-0, 12-0, and 17-2 in just the first 20 minutes.
Those offensive outburst weren’t so much about 3-point shots (Maryville made just four) but by getting to the rack and the free-throw line. The Scots are already 14-of-17 at the line after shooting just 19 foul shots in that narrow loss to the Buffaloes (9-15) in Johnson City last month. Greg Hernandez and Eryk Watson have 11 and 10 points respectively for the black-clad Scots. Milton Stanley has nine, mostly on drives.
Maryville coach Randy Lambert has also done plenty of platooning as he said he might last week. Seven Scots are in double-figure mintues. Stanley’s second group has proved to be the quicker group up and down the floor, earning him some easy baskets and Brandon McGill a fast-break dunk.

Tara Heyboer, who tore the ACL in her right knee Dec 2, will be able to return for a fifth year if she wishes, MC women’s basketball coach Todd Wright told me. The sophomore, who was averaging seven points in six games off the bench, played in less than a third of the Scots scheduled contests this year, making her eligible for a hardship waiver. The cutoff would’ve been nine games.

MC Sports Information

Heyboer

“If Tara is here for a fifth year and academically is having to stay a little bit extra at Maryville College to finish up her academics, there is a possibility, yes, that she would be able to get that year back,” Wright said.

Maryville College forward Tara Heyboer, a member of the Great South Athletic Conference’s 2009 All-Freshman team, is done for the season after tearing her right ACL in a 71-68 loss to Carson-Newman on Dec. 2.
“I just jumped up and went to pass and it popped,” Heyboer said Thursday. “I had a pretty good clue (it was torn).”

The sophomore from Seymour exploded onto the court last year, averaging more than eight points and five rebounds per game as a supersub off the bench. Heyboer had scored 42 points in six games this season before being sidelined. She will have surgery Dec. 23.
“I was just really upset and kind of felt bad for my team cause i couldnt help them anymore,” Heyboer said.

I got a chance to stop by Maryville College men’s basketball practice today and coach Randy Lambert told me he’s hoping his team can sneak into the D3hoops.com Top 25 with a pair of wins this weekend. Lambert said he believes his team belongs in the rankings despite not getting a single vote in the preseason poll.

“There are upsets all the time,” Lambert said. “Preseason ranking don’t mean much, especially at our level. There’s almost no regional crossover.”
The Scots (2-0) picked up one of those early upsets Wednesday, knocking off No. 21 Centre College (0-1), 72-70, in Danville, Ky. Six ranked teams have already dropped games in the first week, including No. 5 Richard Stockton.
A return to the rankings would be MC’s first since March 2, 2008, when it checked in at 19th with a 24-2 record.
Lambert and the Scots will host the first annual James C. Campbell Memorial Tournament this weekend, featuring LaGrange, Wabash and Webster. Maryville will play Webster on Saturday at 7 p.m. inside Boydson Baird Gymnasium before tackling Wabash at 4 p.m. Sunday.

Just who is Paige Sevier, anyway?
The junior transfer made a statement yesterday, hitting four quick 3-pointers in two minutes in her first game for Maryville College, a 66-54 win over Methodist University. Sevier is one of 11 newcomers on this year’s roster, several who have come on board from coach Todd Wright’s former stops at Oliver Springs High School and Roane State Community College.

“I played for (Wright) my freshman year and then he came here my sophomore year and then I came back to him,” Sevier said. “It was a big decision ‘cause I’m two and a half hours away from home now. It’s different from Roane State. It’s the community college and then coming here. But I like it.”
The sharpshooter knocked down 3’s at a 35 percent clip over two years with the Raiderettes, shooting nearly 40 percent from beyond the arc in 27 games last year. Sevier led Jackson County to the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association Class A semifinals as a senior in 2007, helping the team to 22 wins before falling to eventual state champion Gleason, 50-22.
Wright saw something in the 5-foot-8 guard then and he has her back on his roster now.
“She can play,” Wright said after Sunday’s win. “Hopefully people saw it today. She makes shots and she rebounds and plays pretty good defense. I recruited her at Roane State when I was there and she had a great career there for two years and has come over here and started adjusting and starting to fit in real well. I think she’s going to be a main weapon for us. There’s no question about it.”

Paige Sevier at Roane State

The MC men make it a clean sweep of Methodist. The Scots cruised through the second half, never being threatened. While the 3-point shooting remained a struggle, MC maintained control with some tough defense and fast breaking. The four triples are the fewest the Scots have had in a game in at least a year.

Hernandez finished with a double-double (25 points, 10 rebounds) and he had plenty of help as four of five starters posted double figures. Watson had 17, mostly in transition.

Maryville College isn’t bombing away, but the Scots are still just as explosive. A 21-point lead over Methodist is thanks in large part to 6-foot-6 center Greg Hernandez, who has 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting.

The 3-point trio of Wes Lambert, Jordan Damron and Eryk Watson have just 11 points combined. It’s OK because Hernandez has taken over. When the Monarchs pulled within 10 late in the half, Hernandez started flashing in the paint and running the break, scoring nine points in a 11-0 Scots run to end the period.

A little nervous in the first half, junior transfer Paige Sevier showed what she could do in the second, going for 16 points and four 3-pointers.

Methodist tried to collapse on Holder and Sevier cranked up the old inside-outside game. MC weather another run from the Lady Monarchs that tied the game, pulling away by getting the ball back inside to Harmon.

MC shot near 60 percent in the second half but finished with 23 turnovers. Wright admits that’s probably a side effect of his running style, but something the Scots need to clean up.

Despite all the talk of coach Todd Wright’s four guard, one post set, all the action has been in the paint in the first half. Maryville College leads 31-28, but post Ashley Holder has 10 points. Add rookie Laura Whitehead’s 3 and 4 from senior Alison Harmon, and that’s more than half the Scots’ scoring coming in the paint.

No doubt MC has been running it, but too often it has been running right into the defense. Point guard Alicia Brown twice dribbled right into the hands of Methodist’s Michaela Myers, who broke the other way for an easy layup. The Scots success hasn’t come from guard drives, but from perimeter passing capped by a sharp entry pass into the middle of the bucket, where Holder is feasting.
Also of note is Wright’s new, massive rotation. Four players have scored points in their first game for MC. Twelve players have seen the floor. I guess you need plenty of girls if you’re going to run like that.