By Max De Leeuw – Collegiate Staff
The Grand Rapids Community College men’s basketball team decisively beat Northwood University’s junior varsity team 91-55 on Nov. 22. The win puts the Raiders at 3-0 on the season.
Sophomore DeMarkus Stuckey led GRCC with 21 points and freshman Greg Flemming added 19.
The Raiders had a lot going for them on the night, finding holes in the Timberwolves’ defense and sinking a good mix shots.
“I think, especially in the second half, offensively we started getting out and playing at our tempo,” Head Coach TJ Carnegie said. “We’re not very big. There’s no secret to it. We play fast and that’s kind of the secret to our success, we just try to play fast and I didn’t think we really did that in the first half.”
The Raiders went into halftime leading 47-33, after trailing by three going into the half last game and still winning 84-64. The Raiders may be showing early signs of being a second-half team.
“It has been a trend so far,” Carnegie said. “I really don’t want it to be a trend We’re working hard to try to get that to be a 40-minute game and not a 20-minute game because you don’t ever want to just rely on being a second half team because if you don’t have it in the second half or if they do something tricky or neutralize it. But once we get this steady where we’re doing it for 40 minutes, I think we can be pretty good.”
Despite the large success of the game, Carnegie still sees room for improvement.
“I think there are some things that we can do to start the game a little bit better. I think that we didn’t get to the free-throw line enough today. That’s one thing that we really try to do. Normally we want to shoot 20 to 24 free throws a game and I don’t think we were anywhere near that.”
The Raiders only shot from the free-throw line nine times on the night, yet seized what small opportunities they did have, draining eight of those nine.
