A day after winning the Atlantic 10 Co-Player of the Week award, Pierre made 2 of 10 shots from the field and scored five points. He also had eight rebounds, five turnovers and one assist.
“I’m upset I wasn’t able to be there for my team tonight,” Pierre said. “They all huddled around me throughout the game. I don’t plan on having that happen (Saturday). I need to be ready. I’m not going to let the team down Saturday.”
Pierre averaged 13 points and 13 rebounds in two games last week. He had scored in double figures in the seven previous games.
Ohio connection: The Flyers have two players from Ohio, Jordan Sibert and Ryan Bass, who's out for the season because of concussion problems.
Davidson has four players from the Buckeye State: Brian Sullivan, Peyton Aldridge, Jack Gibbs and Jordan Barham. They all play key roles, though Gibbs, the team’s second-leading scorer, missed the game with a knee injury
A fifth player, starter Tyler Kalinoski, was born in Cincinnati and moved to Kansas when he was 3. His grandpa was an Ohio State track and field athlete.
“We’ve managed to be successful in recruiting Ohio the last few years,” Davidson coach Bob McKillop said, “and if you look at the history of Davidson basketball, over the years, a number of players from Ohio have come our way. Probably the greatest of all was (Canton native) Dick Snyder, who had a 13-year NBA career and had his number retired. He was recruited for football by Woody Hayes at Ohio State, and Lefty Driesell managed to secure his service from Ohio to come down here.”
Miller connection: McKillop remembers Archie Miller's older brother, Sean, now the coach at Arizona, attending one of his basketball camps in Long Island, N.Y., when he was 10.
“I’ve known the Miller family and have watched Sean and Archie grow up and become outstanding collegiate players and now magnificent college coaches,” McKillop said.
McKillop credited John Miller, Archie and Sean’s dad, for teaching his sons how to coach and praised the job Archie has done this season.
“It started last year when he responded to the adversity of being backed against a wall, backed into the corner, and turned that around,” McKillop said, “and got those guys believing and advancing as far as they did and winning the way they did. To continue that this year, obviously there are some chapters in his history that he’s taking and using them this year.”
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