News and Notes
- The game at Liberty will be the first of 12 televised
games for the Tribe this season. The game will be televised regionally on the
Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), while also being available nationally on
ESPN3.
- Monday's contest will mark the fourth time in the last
three seasons that the Tribe and Flames have met. Last season, the teams split
a pair of games with each winning on the other's home court.
- W&M will face three Big South teams on the road this
season, starting with the Flames on Monday night. W&M also travels to High
Point and Radford. The 2012-13 campaign marks the third straight season that
W&M has played three Big South opponents.
- Both sophomore
Marcus Thornton and senior
Matt Rum average
double-digits against Liberty for their careers. In two games last season,
Thornton averaged 16 points per game, while Rum is near an 11-point average
over three career games vs. the Flames.
Scouting Liberty
The Flames are coming off an 84-42 loss at Richmond in their
season opener on Friday night. Liberty returns three starters and a trio of
double digits scorers from last season's team that finished the year at 14-18
overall, including a 9-9 mark in the Big South. Dale Layer is in his fourth
season at the helm of the Flames' program and owns a 48-48 mark in Lynchburg.
Against Richmond, junior college transfer Davon Marshall led
the Flames with 12 points and five rebounds. As a team, Liberty shot just 26
percent (13-of-50) from the field and 21.1 percent (4 of 19) from 3-point
range. Richmond outrebounded the Flames, 48-30, while shooting nearly 50
percent from the floor and knocking down 10 3-pointers.
Junior John Caleb Sanders is the Flames top-returning scorer
at 11.6 points per game. He scored 12 points in each contest against W&M
last season and for the year was a 36.3 percent 3-point shooter, hitting nearly
two per game. Senior Antwan Burrus, who missed the opener against Richmond, is
Liberty's top returning rebounder at 6.3 per game to go along with a scoring
average of 11.2 points per game last season. Against W&M, Burruss scored 14
points and pulled down six rebounds in Williamsburg, before finishing with 10
points and seven rebounds in the second meeting in Lynchburg. Tavares Speaks
also returns for Liberty after averaging 10.2 points per game last season.
W&M and Liberty will play for the fourth time in the
last three seasons. The Flames lead the all-time series, 4-2, after the teams
split meetings in 2011-12. Liberty won in Williamsburg, 75-72, before the Tribe
tallied a 65-64 win in Lynchburg as part of the 2011 2K Sports Classic
Subregional.
W&M Against the
Big South
W&M is 95-54 all-time against the Big South and has
played nine of the 12 teams in the conference. The Tribe has played Big South
foe VMI the most among league teams with 116 meetings between those programs.
W&M is 76-40 all-time against VMI and a combined 19-13 against the rest of
the Big South. Liberty leads the all-time series with W&M at 4-2. The Tribe
will play a trio of Big South foes in 2012-13, all coming on the road.
Following the contest at Liberty, W&M will play its second straight road
game against a Big South foe when it travels to High Point on Nov. 17. The
Green and Gold will also trek to Radford on Dec. 8. It marks the third straight
season in which the Tribe has played three games against Big South opponents.
Three-Headed Scoring
Monster
The Tribe's top three returning scorers of sophomore Marcus
Thornton and juniors
Brandon Britt and
Tim Rusthoven put on a display in the
Tribe's 69-51 season-opening win over Hampton. The trio combined to score 59 of
the Tribe's 69 points (85.5 percent), while shooting 61.3 percent (19-of-31)
from the floor. Thornton led the way with 24 points on 7-of-11 shooting,
including a 6-of-9 effort from 3-point range, while Rusthoven and Britt tallied
18 and 17 points, respectively.
Success in Openers
With its victory over Hampton on Nov. 9, W&M continued
its success in home openers through the years, especially under head coach Tony
Shaver. The win marked the ninth time in Shaver's 10 seasons that the Tribe
opened the home slate with a victory. In fact, since Kaplan Arena opened in
1970-71, the Tribe is 32-11 (.744) in home openers at the facility. This season
marked the first time since 2005 that W&M opened a campaign at home. With
its victory over the Pirates, the Green and Gold improved to 25-3 when opening
the season at home, since 1970.
Thornton On Fire
Sophomore guard
Marcus Thornton was on fire from 3-point
range in the season-opening win over Hampton. He knocked down a career-high six
3-pointers, including five in the second half, on his way to leading all
scorers with 24 points. The six 3-pointers tied for the ninth most in a single
game for a Tribe player in school history. It marked the most triples for a
Tribe player since Thornton's teammate junior
Julian Boatner hit six at Old
Dominion on Feb. 26, 2011. Over his last 10 games (the final nine of 2011-12
and the 2012-13 opener), Thornton is shooting 48.9 percent (22-of-45) and
hitting more than two 3-pointers per contest. Last season, Thornton ranked
sixth in 3-point shooting in CAA games only at 39.1 percent (27-of-69). With
his 6-of-9 outburst against Hampton, he upped his career 3-point percentage to
36.1 percent.
Helping Hand
A trademark of the Tribe's offense has been its ability to
share the basketball, and it was evident in the College's season-opening
victory over Hampton. W&M dished out 20 assists on 22 made field goals. It
marked the 23rd time under head coach
Tony Shaver that W&M dished out 20 or
more assists in a game, and the first since Feb. 19, 2011 when the College
tallied 22 assists in a victory over Radford. The Tribe is 16-7 (.696) when it
dishes out 20 or more assists in a game under Shaver. The last time W&M
produced back-to-back games of 20 or more assists came during the 2007-08,
while they last had three straight 20-plus assist games in 2003-04.
Bounce-Back Britt
After struggling during his sophomore campaign, junior
Brandon Britt spent countless hours in the gym during the offseason and is
poised for a bounce-back year in 2012-13. The Chesapeake, Va., native enjoyed a
stellar opening game of the season, scoring 17 points on 5-of-8 from the field
and 7-of-9 from the free throw. He was also great with the basketball, dishing
out four assists compared to just one turnover, while equaling his career-high
three steals. Also against the Pirates, Britt scored his 600th career point and
tops the current Tribe roster in career scoring with 608 points.
