Men’s hoops notes

    • The Flames returned to the HTC Center for the first time since their 4 game run to the Big South Tournament Championship last March. Obviously, the return trip was not as enjoyable for Coach Layer & the Flames this time around. Liberty will return to the HTC Center again in just over a month as it plays host to the Big South Tournament Championship once again this season.
    • Antwan Burrus surpassed the 1,000 career points milestone last Saturday against Presbyterian. Combined with his 15 points Wednesday night against Coastal, Burrus currently has 1,024 career points which puts him 22nd on Liberty’s all-time scoring list. Assuming just 1 postseason game, at his current pace of 12.3 points per game, Burrus will finish 19th in Liberty’s annals with 1,147 career points. John Caleb Sanders continues to move up the Flames’ scoring charts as the senior guard surpassed Julius Nwosu for 14th place. JC will have a difficult time reaching 13th, as he sits 123 points behind Chris Caldwell.
    • Reserve guard Ethan Layer will miss an extended period of time with a back injury. Layer was averaging 1.8 points in 8.2 minutes played per game this season.
    • Hopefully you caught Casey Roberts’ comments in our postgame interview video post from Thursday. Definitely some interesting food to ponder from his remarks. He sounds frustrated, which is to be expected from someone who started 11 games and averaged over 16 minutes per game a season ago compared to just 6 minutes per game this year. But is there more behind his comments?

    • In the same postgame interview post, I asked Dale Layer about turnovers at inopportune moments continually hurting the Flames. He shrugged that suggestion off, and instead praised Coastal’s performance. I did not think about it at the moment, but after having some time to digest it, not only did Liberty turn the ball over on consecutive possessions in the final 2 minutes of the game, Coastal outscored Liberty 17-9 in points off turnovers including 3-0 in the final 2 minutes. Turnovers were a story of the game especially considering how they continue to creep up as a problem in each loss. Perhaps Layer is tired of answering questions about turnovers, or maybe he does not want any blame to rest on his players’ shoulders.

Lady Flames drop heartbreaker
The women’s basketball team dropped a heartbreaker Thursday night in double overtime in the Vines Center to High Point, 94-89. With the loss, the Flames are tied with the Panthers at 8-3 for first place in the Big South, but High Point has now swept the season series and will own the tiebreaker should it come into play. HPU is just the 3rd Big South team to sweep the 2-game regular season series from Liberty with Carey Green as head coach, a span of 15 seasons.

Football recruiting update
Signing day is on Wednesday, which means there’s plenty of recruiting updates to get to.

  • Prospect T.J. Widner made his 2nd visit to Liberty last week. Widner, who is being recruited as a tight end by the Flames, holds offers from San Diego and Wagner. The Chandler, Arizona native has also reportedly picked up interest from the University of Arizona.
  • Liberty had been pursuing Monty Fenner out of Chesapeake, Virginia’s Oscar Smith High School very hard, but the defensive back prospect committed to Towson on his official visit last weekend. He announced his final 3 of Towson, Liberty, and JMU prior to committing.
  • The Flames did pick up 3 commitments this week from TJ Avery, Lucas Irons, and Avery James bringing the total number of commitments (that we are aware of) for the class of 2014 to 10.
  • Safety prospect Cam Jackson is expected to take a visit to Liberty this weekend. Jackson, whose lone Division I offer is from Liberty, was visited by Turner Gill earlier in the week.

Be sure to check LibertyFlamesNation.com frequently over the next several days as we will bring you full coverage of all the signing day activities.

Walt Aikens not going to combine
After a successful week at the Senior Bowl where Walt finished with 3 tackles, he, unfortunately, did not receive an invite to the NFL Draft Combine.

4 assistant coaches’ titles changed
Coach Gill announced changes to 4 assistant football coaches’ titles this week – Josh Bookbinder – Linebackers coach, Joe Dailey – Pass Game Coordinator/Quarterbacks coach, Jamaal Fobbs – Special Teams Coordinator/Running backs coach, and Robert Wimberly – Defensive Coordinator/Safeties coach.

FlameFans thread of the week
This week’s FlameFans thread of the week is Signing Day 2014 where all of FlamesNation can go to discuss all of the day’s events.