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Chuck Landon: Dominant defense digs Herd out of hole
As DeAndre Kane exited the media room after the post-game press conference, he left one last message behind.
"We're baaaaack," he said.
It certainly seemed that way during Marshall's dominating 63-44 beat-down of Tulane Wednesday night.
Granted, one win does not a season make. What was significant about this victory, however, was how it was achieved.
The defense was back.
After taking a hiatus during a four-game losing streak, Marshall's defense reappeared with a vengeance against Tulane holding the Green Wave nearly 23 points below its 66.8 scoring average. And, remember, this is the same Tulane team that scored 63 points in the second half of an 80-74 win over SMU only eight days ago.
Tulane is no slouch offensively, but Marshall's defense made the Green Wave look like one while holding it to 40.0 percent field goal shooting, including 29.4 percent from 3-point range.
"Defensively, I thought we were really good," said Marshall coach Tom Herrion. "We were as patient defensively as we've been."
The rebounding also was back.
The Herd had been out-rebounded twice during the four-game losing streak, losing the battle of the boards to both WVU and Memphis. And don't forget the 40-40 standoff in the loss to UAB.
But Marshall resumed its domineering ways against Tulane, pounding the glass for a plus-23 advantage and actually doubling the Green Wave's total, 45 to 22. Why, the Herd nearly had as many offensive boards (20) as Tulane had total rebounds.
"It was good to see us get back to our identity tonight," said Herrion, referring to defense and rebounding.
That just leaves one phase of the game. ... offense.
Well, guess what?
It was back, too.
That certainly wasn't the case early in the game when Marshall's offense was so stagnant the Herd missed 15 of its first 20 field goal attempts. But, then, it suddenly got untracked. In fact, the Herd made eight of its next 14 shots to trigger an impressive run.
The catalyst?
"Defense," answered Herrion. "Our defense created our offense."
Allow Damier Pitts to elaborate.
"We're a transition team," said the senior point guard. "We want to get out and run. But we have to get stops first. We can't get in transition if we're taking the ball out of bounds all the time."
Well said.
That defense and the subsequent transition continued during the first 8:30 of the second half, as Marshall made seven of its first 11 shots to take control of the game.
"We finally got some easy baskets in transition," pointed out Herrion. "And some easy putbacks. We shared the ball better. I thought we really ran our offense.
"We moved better. The players moved. The ball moved. The offense moved.
"We opened up the floor. It created better spacing. We played with some flow, some freedom."
All that had been missing from Marshall's offense during the four-game losing streak.
But just like the defense and rebounding, the offense was back Wednesday night. And it's no coincidence. This Marshall team has to play solid defense and dominate the boards in order for the offense to be effective.
The four-game losing streak demonstrated that. But it was the dominating win over Tulane that proved it unequivocally.
Maybe Kane is right.
Maybe Marshall is back.
With back-to-back road games coming up at Tulsa and UCF, he'd better be right.
Chuck Landon is a columnist for The Herald-Dispatch. Call him at 304-526-2827 or email him at clandon@herald-dispatch.com.
