Blugolds hit Wall in second half
December 10, 2008
A game-ending 33-10 run--puncuated by Eric Wall's stunning dunk--led third-ranked UW-Platteville to an 83-54 win over visiting UW-Eau Claire Wednesday.
The Pioneers improved to 8-0 overall and 2-0 in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference thanks to that run that extended the Pioneers lead from 50-44 with 12 minutes to play.
Wall's backdoor cut and feed from Charlie Lohoff led to a flush of the rim for the 6-5 sophomore that brought the surprised Bo Ryan Court crowd of 1,028 out of their chairs. His throwdown made the score 68-50, effectively putting the game out of reach with 6:21 to play.
"I've been waiting to do that all," he said. "I was cutting toward the basket and Charlie made his penentration. I had good footing underneath me, and I just went up and did it. It definitely surprised people, as I don't know if anyone was looking for it. I don't know if even I was looking for it. It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing."
Pioneer Coach Paul Combs said, "Eric made a nice cut to the rim on a broken play, and he got a nice pass. We always talk about that scoring pass. Eric will get the credit, but the pass out of the trap and the pass to make the plays are equally important. Dunks are always crowd favorites, but I was most pleased with our defense. We turned them over 13 times in the second half, which was a big factor."
UWP forced 21 total turnovers, while committing just 11 in a game pitting the WIAC's two highest scoring teams. The Pioneers shot 58.8 percent, while the Blugolds made 50 percent of their shots.
The deep Pioneers out-scored the Blugolds 37-16 off the bench, with super sub Mike Shaw continuing his torrid start. The junior guard scored 23 points, making 6-9 three-point attempts, to lead all scorers. Shaw is averaging 17.3 points per game off the bench, shooting 54 percent behind the new arc.
Center Jeff Skemp made 8-11 from the field and scored 20 points, grabbing six rebounds, dished out four assists and blocked a pair of shots. Charlie Lohoff also had a solid all-round game with 10 points, six reboundsd and seven assists, while Wall came off the bench for 10 points.
Colin Boone was the lone Blugold in double figures with 14 points, making 6-8 from the field. Dan Beyer had seven points, five rebounds and three blocks but fouled out in 23 minutes of play. The Pioneers scored 29 points off of Blugold turnovers.
"Our defense fueled our offense," Wall said. "In the first half, we had trouble getting stops, and the second half we got those stops to fuel the offense."
UWEC, now 4-3 overall and 1-1 in the WIAC, was the last team to beat the Pioneers, knocking them out of the conference playoffs with an 84-80 first-round upset.
"It was in the back of our minds, but we didn't want to get too hyped up about it," Wall said. "We didn't want to go out there and think revenge. We just wanted to go out there and play ball."
Combs said the hectic schedule of four straight road games and the last week of classes took attention away from the revenge factor.
"We didn't really have to talk a lot about last year," he said. "Frankly we've been so busy with traveling, getting our legs back under us and getting ready for the next game. It was in the back of our minds. That was a really gut-wrenching loss, and it cost us a lot of opportunities in the post-season, but we're a different team; they're a different team; and it's a different season. We wanted to focus on the task at hand and play Platteville basketball."
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