Despite loss to University, Morgantown’s Dave Tallman happy to see bench excel

MORGANTOWN — It was halftime Friday when Morgantown head coach Dave Tallman decided his team needed a breath of fresh air.
After losing the previous two games, the No. 6 Mohigans laid an egg in the first —half against No. 4 University, scoring just two points in the first 11 minutes of play and trailing 27-10 at the break.
When Morgantown returned to the floor for the second half, fans noticed something was a bit different than usual — freshman Marquis Mauney, sophomore Carson Poffenberger and junior Mac McMillen, who all began the game on the bench, had entered the starting lineup.
“Our freshmen team is annihilating everyone, our JV team is annihilating everybody, and we have guys that are playing extremely hard, so I kind of had that in the back of my mind — if things didn’t go well in the first half, we were going to get some other guys a look,” Tallman said.
The trio of reserves weren’t the only ones to see significant action in the second half for the Mohigans — 14 players saw the court for Morgantown, with seven of the nine that came off the bench contributing to the scoring.
In the end, the spark wasn’t enough — Morgantown fell 55-41 —but the effect of the Mohigans’ bench couldn’t be denied. The backups earned 28 of the team’s 41 points and recorded 21 of their 32 rebounds.
McMillen tallied nine points, the team’s second leading scorer behind starter Alex Rudy (10), while Poffenberger led all rebounders with eight boards. Sophomore Jaheim Felton added four assists to lead the team.
“I was very pleased by the effort of those guys in the second half. We won the second half by three points and that’s something we can build on,” Tallman said.
“I told the guys in the locker room, you can either play or you can’t. They came off the bench and weren’t intimidated and they played with a lot of enthusiasm. It was refreshing.”
Poffenberger attributes the bench’s tough play to a lack of apprehension on part of his teammates. The pressure of their role is reduced, allowing them to slide into the game more comfortably and perform.
“We come in with no fear, honestly. We come in, and University is a good team, don’t get me wrong, but us younger guys, we have nothing to lose,” he said.
“We’re expected to get beat by 40, so we go in there and we play our butts off and we do what we can do. We ended up playing good.”
McMillen said every player should be expected — and able — to step into a key role at any given time, and that for the team to rebound from its slump and compete in big games, more critical performances from the reserves may be needed.
“You have to find the hot hand — the person that can step up each game. Each time, that’s going to be different. Sometimes it will be the starters, sometimes it will be the bench players,” McMillen said.
“But we have to find that hot hand each game, and that will help with the scoring a lot. We have to feed off that momentum and get going early and often.”
Morgantown moves to 8-6 with the loss, and will return Tuesday as it hosts Brooke at 7:30 p.m.