Drake
 

Don't sleep on Drake.


#137 in Kenpom

Just played their first game tonight

They Just hit 17 three's on 59% shooting.


Scored 86 points on 66 possessions which is 1.30 ppp

This is a very high level and high competition buy game.

Gotta stay focused and ready.

This is definitely loseable and not a cake walk. Hopefully the players understand that. I'm confident Brannen does, but good luck convincing college kids a school named Drake is actually a competitive squad and not a bottom feeder.

I like it. Somewhat competitive team where we have to play well but, at home we should win by 10-15 points. I like these games.

Brannen definitely knew how to line up a schedule that will look good to the committee. Gotta execute though.


I like that its another game we can use to improve. Need to pull this one out though.

Drake is decent. Legend predicts a UC win.

The team Drake beat, Kennesaw State, was the #339 Ken Pom team last year.

While their shooting numbers were stellar regardless of opponent, they're going to be defended by a different caliber of basketball player against us.

They start 4 true sophomores and 1 RS transfer sophomore from Siena. They go 5'11, 6'2, 6'3, 6'5, and 7'0. Their best returning big (6'7 forward Tremell Murphy, 10 ppg) will be entering the 2nd game of a 5 game suspension for an offseason incident. They also have a 6'10 transfer center from FGCU who won't be playing as well.

The only other frontcourt player that saw the court in their first game was a slim 6'7 German skill player who played a very limited role last season.

I think as long as we don't have an abysmal shooting game with excess foul trouble, we win by 15-20 points.

Oh we should win. But if we shoot poorly and they don’t, it could be interesting

I think Drake will be a good test for us and also allow us to see Brannen's system. OSU was a tough team to start against, especially for a team learning a new system.

Drake has their own 7-footer who can shoot threes and is just as athletic as our two guys. They also can play small and potentially force Vogt/Sorolla out of the game. If they do that, it could really test our depth as we only really played 1 guard off the bench against OSU.

As long as we stick with Vogt/Sorolla, we aren't going to have the dominant rebounding/defensive center we generally had under Cronin and that may make it harder to beat teams like Drake.

Williams and Scott should have a chance to shine, Drake doesn't have anyone who matches up to them athletically. They need to get to the basket on offense and rebound on both ends.

Pretty much every Drake player is at least a capable 3.-point shooter If they get hot from 3, we need to be able to keep up. The Drake plan offensively will probably be to spread the floor and drive the ball. Defensively I imagine the plan to beat UC is just don't let Jarron beat you. Somebody else needs to step up and be a threat.

I'd just like to point out, because you keep repeating this, that Vogt is a very solid rebounder. Career 22 DR%. Was at 24.5 vs OSU. Comparatively Brooks was 17.4% for his career (19.4 last year). Last year Vogt had a 12.4 OR%. Brooks' career was 12.1.


Sorolla cannot rebound. Also they won't get near the offensive boards because they're not set up on the block all game. It's a lot harder to grab an offensive board when you're 15 feet from the rim.

As Justin says, we should win but it could be interesting.

Your bringing up their lack of size brings up my biggest concern. We can't just beat smaller teams with our size and athleticism anymore. We only have 2 elite athletes playing significant minutes (Williams and Scott) and only one more on the team (Diarra). Our 7-footers have nothing athletically on their 7-footer.

Fans wanted a team of basketball players, not athletes and Brannen has brought that. But that means we need to be able to run excellent offense, because we aren't going to have the fallback of beating up teams on the boards. If we run offense like we did against OSU, then Drake is going to have a pretty good chance.