Liberty picks up its 3rd straight win, defeating Presbyterian, 71-51. Here’s our rapid reactions:

  1. With the win, the Flames move into sole possession of first place in the Big South at 9-2. Liberty is a half a game ahead of both Winthrop and UNC Asheville who are both 8-2. Winthrop is at Radford and Asheville hosts Charleston Southern Wednesday night.
  2. It was a slow start for the Flames who fell behind 11-3 at the 2nd media timeout of the game. The team may have come out a little bit flat following their consecutive 30 plus point wins over Longwood and Campbell on the road last week. Not to mention Presbyterian was just 1-9 in Big South play coming in to the game.
  3. The Flames have now won 3 straight games by at least 20 points.
  4. Liberty has held 5 straight opponents under 62 points and 8 straight below 65. The Flames entered the night with the #26 scoring defense nationally, holding its opponents to 63.3 points per game.
  5. Liberty started the game 0/8 from the floor and had 1 point at the first media timeout. The struggles continued, as the Flames started 1/14 from the field. For some reason, the team has struggled shooting at the Vines Center this season. Liberty entered the game shooting 37.9% from the field at home compared to 50.2% on the road in conference play. The Flames went on a 22-2 run to seize control of the game.
  6. The Flames went 80 consecutive minutes of game time without trailing until the Blue Hose opened up with a lead in the early minutes of the game. Liberty led or was tied wire-to-wire against Longwood and Campbell.
  7. Liberty forced 16 first-half Presbyterian turnovers and had 11 steals. It led to a 20-5 advantage in points off turnovers for the Flames in the first half. The Blue Hose finished with a season high in turnovers with 26. It’s also ties a season high in turnovers the Flames have forced. The Flames also forced 26 turnovers against Indiana. Liberty scored 37 points off turnovers compared to PC’s 9 points off Liberty’s 6 turnovers.
  8. Ryan Kemrite had 15 points on 4/8 shooting from the field and a perfect 4/4 from the charity stripe.
  9. Myo Baxter-Bell led the team in field goal attempts with 14. He converted those attempts into 19 points. He’s starting to become a legitimate low post threat for Coach McKay. He had season/career highs in points, field goals, and field goal attempts.
  10. Georgie Pacheco-Ortiz quietly had a very solid game. The true freshman point guard finished the game with 6 points on 3 field goal attempts. Most impressively, he had 6 assists and 0 turnovers in 29 minutes. He led the Flames who had 20 assists on 26 made field goals.
  11. The Flames are back in the Vines Center for a 7pm game against Radford on Saturday.

Notable quotes:
Ryan Kemrite – “If you ask Coach, he’d say, ‘what success?’ He hits us with the, ‘is this all you want, are you satisfied?’ We have a great group of guys they have high character, and we want more than this. We want more than just a couple wins, a win streak, or just a good regular season. We want to win the conference tournament, we want to win in the NCAA Tournament. We have bigger dreams than just a couple wins back to back.”

Myo Baxter-Bell – “Defense is something we hang our hats on. Sometimes we struggle when shots aren’t falling, we tend to let up on the defensive end, but tonight I think we did a really good job of playing defense when shots weren’t falling.”

Coach McKay – “Myo is very good in space. He has very good hands, he’s a skilled player, and he’s really unselfish. Getting him some touches is terrific, and what happened tonight that I love is he wasn’t in foul trouble. It’s a sign of growth, and I think he was very significant in our cause tonight.”

Coach McKay – “It’s a process. I’ve been through this 1 or 2 times, and you want your team playing its best basketball towards the end not the beginning. All the stuff that happened in November, we were 5-8 in the non-conference, and we struggled. We struggled against really good teams. I see where we’re going. I’ve got a vision for it. In order for us to get there, I know to compete with Asheville and to compete with Winthrop, and some of the other teams and coaches in this league, you better be ready. Fortunately, I think, we are improving, we have a commitment to that. I just want to make sure we’re detailed in that process.”