There are so many ways to evaluate play against an NAIA team and for the most part it's difficult:
- Did we rebound well or did they rebound poorly?
- Did we shoot well because of bad defense or because we found our range?
Those kinds of things.
It's like when you watch an inner-squad scrimmage and you're not too sure about how excited to be.
And I am not going to get caught up in the "great potential" discussion for the young players off the bench yet (though Ashworth's line looks really good).
But in spite of Ashworth getting credited for 7 assists and the rest of the team having 11, the amazing assist (in my mind) was Zapala's pass to McChesney. Not because of the beauty of the pass - and it was a pretty pass - but the fact that he called the play beforehand. I have no idea how to show a clip of the game, but if you re-watch it Zapala had his back to the basket with Liam in front of him at about the 3-point line. Zapala caught Liam's eye, nodded his head to the baseline, Liam caught the nod and broke to the basket ending with a reverse layup.
You just don't see that kind of 1-on-1 communication often.