Missed Shots, Poor Defense Hurt Chatham

The Chatham Cougars lost at Parsippany High School on Tuesday night, 56-43, in a game that featured poor defense, an inability to make shots and excessive turnovers by Chatham.
 
From the start, though, it looked as if the Cougars would be up for the challenge, as they showed good ball movement and played very physical inside. Kevin Giannattasio looked strong inside, grabbing eight rebounds to go along with eight points leading Chatham to a speedy 11-3 lead.

"I think [the fast start] was a little deceiving," Head Coach Todd Ervin said after the game. "I don't think we played very well and they had a lot of wide open shots that they missed."
 
But any success that the Cougars had ended there as Parsippany went on an 11-0 run in the second quarter and never looked back.
 
Chatham continued to have chances in the quarter and continued missing shots. They continued to get rebounds, but failed to sink fast break opportunities and Parsippany went into the half leading, 21-16.
 
The third quarter showed much of the same, as Chatham could just never get on a run.

"Just a poor effort, poor performance. That about sums it up," Ervin said.

The Cougars' poor play, combined with Parsippany's strong offense—senior forward Manny Udoh scored a career high 28 points—made for a tough night for Chatham.

"We missed a lot of easy buckets tonight," Ervin added. "Hopefully we can get back to practice, but I don't know with the weather the next two days."

Leading the Cougars was senior forward Chris Conroy, who scored 20 points and recorded six rebounds in the loss.

Chatham will face Madison at home at 7 p.m. Thursday.