Quote:
Originally Posted by Queens_NYC
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.
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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.