Sunday, January 07, 2001
Miami 71, Marshall 54
Coles gets hot, then Marshall gets smoked
By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer
OXFORD — Miami coach Charlie Coles is 57 years old. He has had heart problems. But he's not the type to back down, or sit down, when someone tells him to. Marshall coach Greg White found that out Saturday.
Late in the first of half of Miami's 71-54 victory over Marshall, White looked down the sidelines to Coles and shouted: “Sit your (butt) down, Charlie!”
Coles did not. He headed straight up the sideline to ward White. He got to halfcourt before Miami forward Alex Shorts pulled him back.
“I wasn't going to box Greg White,” Coles said. “I just wanted to make sure he could hear me. I don't know why, because I wasn't saying anything ...”
Miami had a 15-point lead at the time of the incident, which came with 1:29 left in the half. The RedHawks pushed it to 19 by halftime and were never challenged in the second half by Marshall, the favorite to win the Mid-American Conference this season.
“It fired us up,” Shorts said.
Coles regretted the incident but not the result.
“In my mind, our team has had no fight in them,” he said. “Driving to the game, I was already getting a little out of bounds. I tried to stop myself. (The incident) wasn't good.”
White also regretted what happened.
“Charlie's a great guy,” White said. “He's the dean of the league. I guess he doesn't like guys talking back to him.”
Certainly not in the heat of the game when he's trying to end a four-game losing streak. Coles has tried more conventional motivation methods, but they haven't worked lately. This one did.
“The effort was good (today),” Coles said. “Real good.”
Marshall came in 8-1 and had lost only to UC, 79-75 on the road. But Miami buried the Thundering Herd in the last 10 minutes of the first half. That allowed Miami to push a 14-12 lead to 35-16 at half.
The Herd, which came in averaging 81.6 points a game, was 5-for-22 (22.7 percent) in the first half and had committed 12 turnovers. Miami hit only 14-of-39 (35.9 percent) in the half, but the RedHawks committed only one turnover.
“They had that surge to go up at the end of the half,” White said. “That was pretty much the game.”
Miami has been prone to second-half collapses, but Marshall never got closer than 16 in the second half.
Miami got major contributions from several players:
• Shorts had a game-high 17 points and seven rebounds.
• Jason Grunkemeyer had 16 points, four re bounds, three assists and no turnovers.
• Point guard Doug Davis had 13 points and no turnovers. He hit back-to-back 3s early in the second half to deflate a Marshall rally before it started.
• Freshman Julius Johnson had the best game of his Miami career: 12 points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals. He also held Tamar Slay, the MAC's top player, to five first-half points.
• Rich Allendorf had a career-high 10 rebounds and held Marshall's other star, J.R. VanHoose, to one field goal in the first half.
“We need a lot of guys to contribute,” Grunkemeyer said. “It's not like it was in the past when one guy like (Wally) Szczerbiak could carry the team.”
Marshall played without point guard Travis Young, who missed the game with a foot injury, but no one could have predicted Miami would blow out the MAC favorite.
“The key for us is to build on this win,” Grunkemeyer said. “We had a good win ver Notre Dame, then we lost four straight. We can't let that happen again.”
The trick, Coles showed, is to keep fighting.
Miami Notebook
Women: Toledo 70, Miami 64
MARSHALL (54)
fg ft rb
min m-a m-a o-t a pf tp
Williams 34 2-5 1-2 1-5 2 2 5
Vanhoose 39 4-9 5-9 4-10 1 2 13
Slay 39 6-13 1-1 0-3 1 2 15
Burgess 31 4-12 0-0 2-3 0 2 12
Jackson 34 1-4 0-0 0-4 3 2 2
Wright 15 0-3 5-6 1-3 0 3 5
Wuller 1 0-0 0-0 0-1 0 0 0
Evans 6 1-1 0-0 0-0 0 2 2
Armpalu 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
_______________________________________________
TOTALS 200 18-47 12-18 8-29 7 15 54
_______________________________________________
Percentages: FG-.383, FT-.667. 3-Point Goals:
6-19, .316 (Slay 2-6, Burgess 4-11, Wright 0-2).
Team rebounds: 7. Blocked shots: 2 (Williams,
Jackson). Turnovers: 18 (Vanhoose 6, Jackson 4,
Slay 3, Williams 3, Wright 2). Steals: 4 (Slay 2,
Burgess, Williams).
MIAMI (71)
fg ft rb
min m-a m-a o-t a pf tp
Shorts 29 8-14 0-0 1-7 1 3 17
Allendorf 29 2-6 1-1 5-10 0 3 5
Grunkemeyer 35 4-14 8-9 0-4 3 1 16
Johnson 33 5-14 2-2 4-5 4 3 12
Davis 39 4-7 2-2 0-2 2 4 13
Jameson 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Drake 1 1-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 2
Helmers 1 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Seals 10 0-4 0-0 0-2 0 0 0
Edwards 8 1-3 0-0 2-3 0 0 2
Ensminger 14 2-4 0-0 1-2 1 5 4
_______________________________________________
TOTALS 200 27-68 13-14 13-35 11 19 71
_______________________________________________
Percentages: FG-.397, FT-.929. 3-Point Goals:
4-17, .235 (Shorts 1-1, Grunkemeyer 0-6, Johnson
0-3, Davis 3-5, Helmers 0-1, Seals 0-1). Team
rebounds: 2. Blocked shots: 1 (Edwards).
Turnovers: 7 (Allendorf 2, Johnson 2, Ensminger,
Jameson, Shorts). Steals: 9 (Davis 4, Johnson 3,
Shorts 2).
__________________________________
Marshall 16 38 - 54
Miami 35 36 - 71
__________________________________
Technical fouls: None. A: 3,357. Officials: Mike
Foote, Dj Carstense, Keith Herring.
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Miami 71, Marshall 54
