Box Score LAHAINA, HI – The Swords took on another team who had great touch from behind the arc in the Tennessee Volunteers and fell 86-60 in the third round of the 2011 EA Sports Maui Invitational.
Chaminade senior
Matt Cousins (Santa Rosa, CA/Cardinal Newman) finished up a solid tournament scoring 17 points and 5 rebounds, with 9 of those points coming from the charity stripe. Junior
Bennie Murray (Fairfield, CA/ Will C. Wood) added 13 points in 34 minutes of action. Fellow junior,
Waly Coulibaly (Bamako, Mali/Patterson Prep) had 6 rebounds to lead CUH.
Tennessee got out early on the Swords in the 7
th place game, leading 14-2 with just over five minutes gone in the opening half of play. The Vols extended the lead to 45-25 at the half as Tennessee shot 6-10 from three in the first half.
The Volunteers hot-shooting continued from behind the arc in the second half and with just over six minutes left to play in the game, Tennessee was shooting 15-23 from behind the arc, good for 65%. The Vols finished 15-27 from three.
Senior
Rickey Clayborn (Chicago, IL/ E. Chicago finished with 10 points and 3 rebounds, while point guard
Lee Bailey (Detroit, MI/Detroit Country Day) had 12 points and 2 steals in the loss.
The Swords were much more competitive rebounding the basketball this morning as the Vols had 36 rebounds to CUH's 31. Chaminade connected on 5 of 19 three's for the game (26%). The Swords shot 35% from the floor on the game while Tennessee shot 57%.
Coach Bovaird commented on his team going forward: “All these guys, I think we have a multi-dimensional team. All these guys have the ability to -- we're going to shoot the ball better. We saw some things. You know,
Rickey Clayborn is a guy I haven't seen a lot in preseason because he's hardly practiced. But he showed some unbelievable ability in there. All these guys are going to be effective players on. On a given night, it wouldn't surprise me if Bennie has 25 points or whatever. But we're going to have a very diverse team, and we're looking forward to our Division II schedule now. This isn't our big hurrah for the year. These guys, our two seniors, Matt and Rickey, they want to go out on top. They're going to be our leaders for this year.”
Junior
Bennie Murray commented on the experience of the 2011 EA Sports Maui Invitational: “Yeah, I agree with Matt. We had high expectations this year. Coming in, we believed that we could win it all. We looked at these teams like any other team. It's definitely a learning experience. It's a privilege to play against some of these teams that are here that you always see on TV and stuff, so you've just got to learn from it.”
Jordan McRae led the Volunteers with 25 points, going 5-7 from three.
Chaminade's next opponent is Hawaii Pacific on December 4th. The Swords will play the Sea Warriors at 3:00 PM HT at Moanalua High School.
The Swords fall to 2-3 with the loss, while Tennessee improves to 3-2.
