By Dave Morrison
Bob Bolen’s Mountain State program hasn’t rolled to a 200-22 record since the start of the 2003 season by playing shabby defense.
Wins 199 and 200 to start the 2009-10 season, however, are exceptions to the norm.
The Mountain State defense sputtered at times Thursday in a 112-82 win over Ohio Valley.
Against Davis & Elkins (an 89-78 win) it was downright invisible.
But the Cougars did turn up the defensive intensity in the second half of Thursday’s win, a good sign heading into today’s 2 p.m. matinee matchup with Maryland Bible College.
“We made a few adjustments in practice to try to do something about the defense,” Bolen said. “I thought we did some good things in the second half (against OVU) and hopefully we’ll get better as the season goes on.”
Maryland Bible returns three players, including 6-foot-1 guard Terry Hosley, who averaged 19 points per game. He had 25 against MSU last year.
“They push the ball,” Bolen said. “This will be their first game, so what we did is reviewed last year’s film. They are really uptempo but we definitely have a height advantage.”
While the defense was suspect against OVU — especially in the first half — the offense was clicking on all cylinders.
Aldridge had 22. Alvin Mitchell had 21. Winston Robinson came off the bench with 16 and sparked a second-half that saw better defense played all around. Point guard Barry Wellington tripled his point production from game one to game two with 15. And Lee added 10.
MSU hit on 45-of-82 shots.
The Cougars outrebounded the Fighting Scots 51-21.
The Cougars show five players averaging in double figures, led by Nick Aldridge, who is scoring at a 31-point per game clip and is also averaging 10 rebounds.
Alvin Mitchell, who was 5-of-6 from three-point range in his last outing, is averaging 18 points and 6.5 rebounds and Wellington and Robinson 10 points per game.
Big Paul Sturgiss, at 7-foot-8 the tallest man playing college basketball in America, made his Cougar debut and had eight points, five rebounds and four blocked shots.
