There’s nothing like late-morning, mid-week college basketball giving us something to sweat while we grind through the work week. The Bears are sitting at an ugly 2-5 with a bad loss to D-II Clark Atlanta
The SoCon’s Mercer Bears host the Sun Belt’s South Alabama Jaguars at 11 a.m. ET this Wednesday morning.
.
Meanwhile, after a surprising run to the Sun Belt Championship Game last year, South Alabama is sitting at a similarly ugly 4-5 with a bad loss to D-II Mobile.
Yuck.
That said, any day game is a great game and I’m making this game a tad more interesting by laying some cash behind the struggling home squad.
Last year, South Alabama had a McCreary stopper in 7-foot big man Kevin Samuel, who was an excellent rim protector and dominant interior presence.
But Samuel graduated, and the Jaguars are uber-small without him. Nobody stands over 6-foot-10, they rank 303rd nationally in average height and starting center Thomas Howell is a 6-foot-8 walking question mark on defense – he’s allowed 13 points on eight post-up sets defended.
The Jags are getting cooked on the interior, ranking 308th nationally in 2-point defense (55.6 percent) and 315th in post-up PPP allowed (1.03), while allowing 33 paint points per game (37th percentile
Coach Richie Riley knew he would have to play a small-ball lineup in the post-Samuel world and had to adjust his defensive strategy.
So, he dusted off his old matchup zone defense, trying to compensate for his small defenders by zoning opposing big men. The Jags played zone almost the entire game against Maryland (57 zone possessions, four man-to-man) and most of the Jacksonville State game (37 zone, 31 man-to-man).
0 comments :
Post a Comment