Gordon scores a 105-89 win over Curry

Eric Demers (19 points) on his way to the basket

Freshman David Massillon gets a layup

(Wenham MA) The points were flowing.

The defense? Not so much in the second half.

But when you build up a 36-point lead, some unpleasing defense in a second half isn’t fatal.

Gordon downed Curry, 105-89, on Saturday afternoon in a Commonwealth Coast Conference game at the Bennett Center.

The Scots (5-1) have now won four straight.

AJ Terry (12 points) sails to the hoop

Ahead for GC are three home games (Western New England, Colby, and Johnson & Wales) in the next seven days.

The big difference in this season’s Gordon team is their commitment to playing zone defense.

“I hate the zone,” said GC coach Tod Murphy after today’s game, “but I hate losing even more. In order to get our five best players on the court we had to use it.”

Senior Garrisson Duvivier saw the new defense as a work in progress: “We still have a lot of work to do on the zone, but we’ve done pretty well using it so far.”

There have been no complaints about the offense. “We’ve got a very explosive offense team,” explained Coach Murphy. “If we play better defense than we did tonight I think we can compete with anyone.”

Jake Haar (12 points) lines up a three

The Scots did give up a ton of points but most of them came after GC had a 72-36 advantage with 12:41 remaining.

At that point the Gordon coaching staff remembered the New Testament verse that starts, “Blessed are the merciful……….”

The Gordon reserves finished the game and during that segment the Colonels (0-7) went nuts from long range and had a 53-point final 12:41.

“The idea of the zone defense is not only to keep our best players in the game but also to prevent/defend the three-point shot,” said Coach Murphy. Obviously, the 53 points, many coming from downtown, didn’t settle well with the coach.

But the bigger picture was that when the starters played, the visitors struggled mightily.

Garrisson Duvivier in traffic

The Scots were up, 10-0, after three minutes and, 25-3, after eight minutes. The lead at halftime was, 52-24. There were few defensive issues that I could see.

Curry’s sixty-five points in the second half is a nice change for them. How blessed we are to regularly have competitive teams!

How would you handle these numbers? Curry is 2-80 over the last 3+ seasons. They have now lost 55 consecutive Commonwealth Coast Conference games. Last win in the CCC was against Salve Regina in February of 2015. The Colonels have now lost thirty straight games.

Luke Meyer chases a loose ball

That is why is was good to see them happy/excited over their team’s second half performance.

All the Scots in uniform played and everyone scored.

Junior AJ Terry is an exciting player to watch. His hustle is noticeable. He made a great save of a ball going out-of-bounds that set up an Eric Demers’ triple. AJ set a career high in points (12).

Gordon figured out early on that they could get to the basket for high-percentage shots. They ended up with forty-eight points in the paint. That’s smart basketball.

Freshman John Saxe eyes the basket

Eric Demers was the leading scorer with nineteen points in limited playing time. Today’s points give the GC junior (1168) which moved him past Jered Stewart and Andrew Ellrod into 14^th on the Gordon career scoring list.

Coach Murphy: “We’ve had a good start to the season but we haven’t played any of the top teams yet. We have been getting production from a lot of different players.”

Last time Gordon played Curry at the Bennett Center, Garrisson reached 1000 points.

Today was my first in-person look at the team as the pictures will show. I expect, Lord willing, to attend the three upcoming home games.

Social News: Jason Dempsey and Taylor McSherry are now engaged. Taylor was a terrific soccer player for the Scots. She is an assistant soccer coach at Bentley.

Box from the game

(All of the pictures above and below will enlarge considerably if you click on them.)