Chips Preview....and so it begins....

When last we saw the Central Michigan Chippewas, they were triumphantly leaving the floor at the Stroh Center, the Falcon's hearts impaled on spears after the #11 seeds picked up a road win and ended the BG season.

From there, it was a long off-season in Mt. Pleasant.  First, winning at BG and having a son who was third-team ALL-MAC was not enough to save Coach Ernie Zeigler's job.  He was fired.  Then, his third-team All-MAC son transferred to Pitt, followed by their second-best player, Austin McBroom.

Into this, the Chips brought a Big East retread in as Coach...Keno Davis.  (Falcon fans will hold their comments on the virtue of Big East retreads).  Davis was 28-5 in his only season at Drake and then 46-50 in 3 years at Providence with zero trips to the Big Dance.

As he arrived, he did what teams are increasingly doing, which was to find one of those guys who had graduated elsewhere--in this UNC-Greensboro--but still had eligibility left.  He landed in Mt. Pleasant due to the outstanding post-graduate opportunities there.  His name is Kyle Randall.  He's scoring 15.5 points per game which is 6th in the MAC, and has immeasurably (ok, it is measurable) helped CMU create a decent season out of what could have been much worse.

Now, he's playing a lot of minutes and shooting a lot, so it isn't like he's the most efficient shooter in the world, but on teams without a lot of options, somebody had got to shoot the ball. He is the best FT shooter in the MAC at 90%, so we want to keep him off the line.

Beyond Randall, it is a real youth movement.  The Chips have seven players averaging 20 minutes or so a game, and four of them are freshman, one is a sophomore and two are seniors.

Of those freshman, 6'8" John Simons was the most highly recruited and he is getting results.  He's scoring 9 points and leading the team with 5.2 rebounds.  Chris Fowler, a FR, is leading CMU with 5 assists per game.

Despite their youth, the team has been competitive this season.  They 7-6 with 1 non D1 win, and have a kenpom ranking of 216.  (BG is 196).  Like BG, they beat Wright State (except on a neutral floor) and beat a pretty good a good Niagara team in Mt. Pleasant and Pepperdine on the road.  Only one of their losses (Bradley) was a loss to a team with an RPI over 100--all of the other 5 had rankings inside the top 100.

Offensively, they score 1.01 points per possession, which is smack on the national average.  They are heavily reliant on the 3 to get those points.  They lead the MAC with 35.6% of their points on 3s.  They are 6th in 3-percentage, so we're talking about a team that gets those points by taking a bunch of shots.

They also maximize their free throw attempts...they are 4th in the MAC in shooting FTs and 3rd in FT%.

They do turn the ball over a decent amount (20.9%) and they are 8th in the MAC in offensive rebound percentage.

On defense, they are slightly more suspect.  They give up 1.04 points per possession, and they are playing a decent pace, at 67 possessions per game.  They have allowed at least 77 points in five of their last six games.    They do not defend the shot well, allowing an effective FG% of 53%, which is last in the MAC.  They also don't get turnovers--they are 9th in the MAC in that category.

They do a decent job on their own defensive boards (6th) and you don't get to the line against these guys---they lead the MAC in free throw rate against and they are 12th in the nation.  In fact, they have a +83 differential on free throws made for the year.

Unexpectedly, this looks to be a tough game for the Falcons.  CMU was not picked to excel, but they appear to be decent and they are at home.  BG has yet to win a road game this year, and while this is one they certainly could win, they would need to be able to exploit the CMU defense from the field, and that isn't in our wheelhouse.  The other option would be for this to be one of those nights when BG gets some defensive stops, and we'll hope to see one or the other.

BG has had a nice long break, during which they had the opportunity to try and get some things corrected.  Central's has actually been two days longer.  I don't know, coming off a long break, I get a bad feeling about this one.