Isiah Thomas, 2-time NBA Champion, NCAA Champion, NBA Coach and Executive, (971 starts in The League and over 18,000 points) will be on the sideline at Anderson Arena.
Who will he be coaching? Indiana? DePaul? Illinois?
Nah. Florida International.
And if you check out the, uh, inconsistent life of Isiah Thomas, you will see that it has an odd kind of logic to it.
Without checking completely, I am pretty sure it is the first time two former NBA players will oppose each other as coaches on the AA floor. I'm not sure how many times it has happened in our conference, in fact. Coach Orr and Thomas did compete against each other "numerous" times, according to Coach Orr.
That's gonna be a weird site. Just sayin'.
There is a pretty strong BG connection to FIU. BG Athletic Hall of Famer Chuck Perry, for whom the Perry Field House is named, was the first President of FIU. The University was founded in the late 1960's as part of an effort to bring state higher ed to South Florida and reclaim an abandoned airport. I was at FIU 20 years or so ago, and there is a point where you are on campus, and you can see a sea of uninterrupted asphalt, and in fact the control tower was still up.
Here, Chuck Perry is actually on the control tower, surveying what would become FIU.
Coach Thomas has clearly walked into a rebuilding opportunity. They lost four starters of a 13-20 team last season, and they are struggling this season, too. They are 2-6 with a loss to UNC combined with big losses to Monmouth (29 points), Tulsa (22 points), James Madison (13 points) Murray State (13 points) and Eastern Kentucky (14 points).
Their only wins are over Florida Memorial (possibly also on an airport), and North Carolina Central.
They are #323 in the Sagarin rankings.
So, you know, you'd like to see a win for us in this one. As Coach Clawson said, "I don't know how this team looks past anyone."
There's a stats profile here, but here is the general idea.
They play an uptempo game, with 6 more possessions per game than BG generates. They are slightly better on the offensive boards, but don't shoot especially well. On a per possession basis, they are equal to Bowling Green thus far this year.
Similarly, their defense appears to be worse than BG's, but it is pretty similar on a per-possession basis.
This is an excellent example of using tempo-free stats to compare teams of different styles.
So, controlling the tempo is going to be important.
They have played a lot more this year, which is also an advantage for their team (and for UWM for what it was worth).
They are led by Marvin Roberts (small forward) and Phil Gary (point guard).
They get a lower portion of their scoring from 3-pointers than BG does, which to me indicates that BG had better lace up their ball defense, because these guys are going to the basket.
So, it will be an interesting/surreal night. Based on the body of work this year, you'd expect BG to be able to get their first D1 win against these guys, but I think they do present some style and matchup issues that could make them dangerous. (Further, NO ONE in the MAC plays this way, so we don't see it that much).
I did think BG pushed the ball a little more against UWM then I remember them doing last year.
Interesting side-note here too, when the Bulls won their first Eastern Conference Championship in 1990-91 they beat the Pistons in 4 games. Several of the Pistons walked off the court early, lead by Isiah Thomas; passing directly in front of the Bulls bench as they left... On that Bulls squad that beat them, current BGSU assistant coach, Dennis Hopson!
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