Poets poised for playoff run

whittier college men's basketball drew menez nathaniel easternman SCIAC berth, Sports - By Joseph Marlitt on Thursday, February 16, 2012 - 02:01

“Make sure you rebound!” Poet Head Coach Rock Carter repeatedly said, as his players ran through practice. The team has been running full court drills, simulating rebounds and quick transitions.

For a team that just clinched a berth in the SCIAC playoffs, it is one of the few things that the Poets need to work on.

“I think that our system and the way that we space the floor is not set up for us to have high rebounding numbers,” Carter said. “That being said, it is a team mentality, an attitude that the guys need to have. Converging on rebounds quickly and as a team is how we make up for our system; we can’t only rely on athleticism.”

Carter’s team ranks last in SCIAC in their defensive rebounding rate, but it hardly has the Poet faithful worried. The Poets are 8-3 in SCIAC and 16-6 overall thanks to a fast paced offense built around their players’ talents. Because what they may lack in rebounding and size, they make up for in speed and athleticism.

“We get the tempo of our game straight from our players, who know how to use their abilities,” Carter said. “The system is built around them.”
Whittier is averaging nearly a league high 87.4 points per game this season and giving up a league high 74.9, a 12.5 point margin. Only Claremont-M-S, who stands at 10-1 in SCIAC, top that margin at 13.5 points. But the real difference is Claremont is only averaging 72.5 points per game.

“We want the game to be played at a fast pace,” senior forward Drew Menez said. “We want to get the other team out of their comfort zone. We try and do that by out-running them and wearing them out.”

The high-octane offense dazzles, but the Poets’ success this season starts on the defensive side of the ball. And on the part of the court farthest from the basket they are defending.
The Poets have made a living by using pressure defense to force turnovers from the opponent. Whittier averages a SCIAC 13 steals a game, which only tells half the story. The next highest is by Claremont-M-S who are averaging 7.6. The pressure either forces the opponent into a steal or a turnover. The Poets boast a turnover-margin of 8.18, and nearly six more than the next team in SCIAC.

“We have an athletic enough team this year to use full-court pressure effectively,” Carter said. “Players like [junior guard] Willie Mebane, [senior guard] Kelley Johnson and [senior guard] Greg Preer are really instinctive players and they understand their roles in the defense and are quick enough to make important plays.”

The Poets also benefit from knowing their offensive identity and making the most of it. The Poets run through their two forwards, with the league leading scorer in Menez and the league’s third best scorer in senior forward Nathaniel Easterman. The two combine to average nearly 33.8 points per game. At the helm Johnson knows how to get his players the ball. He leads the league in assists with five per game and also leads the league in assist/turnover ratio with a margin of +3.4.

“With only nine guys on the team, we are very tight knit and have a lot of trust and confidence in each other,” Menez said. “No one on the team is a straggler.”
Easterman has come through in a big way late in the season for the Poets, averaging 19.8 points per game over his last six contests, including 28 against Redlands.
“I have been feeling healthy and confident, and I am just trying to make the most out of the situation I am put in,” Easterman said. “I try and look for the cutter every time I get the ball, but if it is not there I know my job is to score.”

When Menez struggles the Poets struggle, as the last two losses came when Menez scored 5 points against Pomona-Pitzer and 9 points against Claremont M-S. Conversely, Whittier defeated Claremont-M-S behind Menez’s season high 23 points.

“[Menez] gets his shots every game, and those games where he has struggled have just been a matter of not finishing,” Carter said. “We have a lot of guys who can score, and the guys know to find the hot hand.”

At 8-3 in SCIAC, the Poets still control their own destiny when it comes to home-court advantage in round one of the playoffs. The Poets are in a tie for second place with Pomona-Pitzer, the team they fell to at home by 1 point, and still face the Sagehens for a second time. With two winnable games versus Caltech and La Verne, their fate may rest on their ability to rebound from that loss.

“We will play better defense against the Sagehens, and the shots will fall for us, we know that,” Easterman said.