The nation's No. 1 team gave its home crowd a scare in its home opener Tuesday night at CFCC, surviving a tough test from Hillsborough en route to a 77-73 victory.
Ricardo Ratliffe led the way as he often does, totalling game highs of 36 points (on 13-17 shooting) and 11 rebounds. He was unstoppable inside and stepped out for three 3-pointers, all of which seemed to come at the most opportune of times. CF made it extremely nerve-wracking in improving to 4-0, but the Hawks are good and wins are wins. CF turned it on when absolutely necessary, and that's what good teams do. It'd be more convenient for us on the sidelines if they'd turn it on a little sooner, but in the end there's a final score, and you either have more points or less.
"They did what they had to do," said head coach Tim Ryan. "At the end we had to get stops, and that's what we did."
A few other players of note: Travis Johnson scored 11 points and did an admirable job defensively against second-team All-American Faisal Aden. The Hawks star got 34 points, but needed 31 shots to do it and made only 3 of 10 from 3-point range. Johnson forced a couple of final-minute misses from Aden that would have changed the game.
Josh Proctor was limited to 6 points in 22 minutes due to foul trouble, but made 2 late steals and turned one into a breakaway dunk that represented the highlight of the evening. Fellow big man Jeff Neal also had some good moments, totalling 6 rebounds in just 9 minutes and converting a pair of crucial putbacks off the offensive glass.
CF got a good look at what teams will throw at it Tuesday. Lots of backcourt pressure, lots of sagging in on Ricardo and forcing guards to hit shots. Good to know that CF can win games under those conditions, because they'll play under them again.
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