By Paul Gotham
The second full week of Atlantic 10 conference play finds the La Salle Explorers (1-2) looking up at most of the competition. If that position is to change, Dr. John Giannini’s Explorers will need more performances like Saturday’s 63-50 defeat of the George Washington Colonials.
In particular Giannini needs senior center Steve Zack to replicate his work against George Washington and then some.
“Frankly, we want more from Steve,” Giannini said during the weekly A-10 conference call. “If Steve gets near that 100 percent level of focus and intensity, we’re a much better team. That’s not an easy thing to do. To never relax, to never let up, but we need that from Steve.”
The senior center dominated Kevin Larsen holding GW’s best post threat to zero points on two field goal attempts in 32 minutes.
“Steve’s job against Larsen was really impressive,” Giannini added. “For a guy like Larsen to not get the ball and not to be able to score is an incredible accomplishment because he is a high-level player with a big, strong body.”
Larsen came into the game averaging 12.7 points a game hitting 51.1 percent (69-of-135) from the floor.
“Larsen just wouldn’t play physical with him,” George Washington coach Mike Lonergan stated. “He really manhandled Kevin and our front line.”
Larsen went into the game with 11 double-digit scoring performances including his previous four games and nine of his last ten.
Zack also grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds to his counterpart’s eight, blocked two shots and had one steal.
“It was his rebounding, his defensive presence,” Lonergan continued. “He sorta dominated the game in other ways. He led the league in rebounding last year. You gotta box him out.”
On the other end of the floor, Zack tallied six points and dished out two assists without committing a turnover. What doesn’t show up in the box score are the numbers of occasions where Zack’s passes led to an assist.
“Whether we’re playing 1-3-1 or whatever, he can come out and relieve pressure by being a big target,” Lonergan noted. “Sometimes he doesn’t play the prettiest game. I don’t think our players respect him enough, but he’s a terrific player. I’d love to have him.”
“Steve’s very unselfish, and he knows where to look with the ball,” Giannini explained. “He knows his strengths and his teammates’ strengths. Steve’s IQ is very, very high. Steve’s going to look at the basket and look at certain places depending upon what he knows is best. He does have that very high IQ and will make good decisions. Wherever Steve is looking it’s usually going to be the right place.”
Five of Zack’s rebounds came on the offensive end, part of a 13-rebound effort on the offensive glass. The Explorers converted that into ten second-chance points.
Zack and the Explorers will look to continue their winning ways when they travel to Dayton on Wednesday to take on the Flyers (3-0). UD’s Archie Miller doesn’t need any introduction to the member of the 2013-14 A-10 All-Defensive team.
“He’s a very intelligent defender, a shot blocker around the basket,” Miller said. “He makes it very, very hard around the basket for people.”
“From an offensive perspective, you find very rarely a front court guy who can move around and pass the way he does…He’s also developed a nice low-post game – a jump hook over the left shoulder where he can score the ball.”
La Salle returns home to play Fordham (0-3) on Saturday.
“If he gets an opportunity to post up, he will,” Fordham head coach Tom Pecora said. “If he gets an opportunity to step on the perimeter, he’ll do that as well. There’s quite a balance in his game, a great versatility.”
“In this day and age in college basketball, there are only a handful of players who are true back-to-the-basket players,” Pecora said when talking about Zack. “When you have the ability to score in the paint and at the same time step away and turn and face, it can make you a really difficult matchup. So many teams will switch screens, at least one through four if not one through five. When you do that there is going to be a mismatch. The better players take advantage of those.”
Zack’s output against GW was his seventh double-digit rebounding performance of the season. A year ago, when he averaged 9.5 rpg, the 7-0 center corralled 10 or more boards in 17 contests.
“We need Steve to be at his best all the time,” Giannini said. “The reason why we’re 1-2 is because we haven’t always been at our best. We need more consistency from our whole team.”
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