Titan Preview

So, after a quiet week in the Nation, the Falcons prepared to tip off with the Detroit Titans on Saturday from Callahan Hall.

The key story line here is related to what I believe will be a resurgence of the Detroit program, led by Ray McCallum.

McCallum is very familiar to MAC fans.  He had a stellar career as a player at Ball State, leaving as the MAC's career scoring leader.  After a long stint as a Big 10 assistant, he was a highly successful coach at Ball State, making 2 Big Dance appearances, and then coached at Houston for four years.  The head coaching string ran out there, and he ended up part of the Kelvin Sampson debacle at Indiana, and then ended up being head coach at UDM.

The Indiana connection is important, because he brought two of the Hoosiers troubled but talented crew to the Titans, and they are helping with their year's resurgence.

Last year, they were, uh, not good.  They were 7-23 for the year.  They played at Anderson Arena, and shot 22% and scored 38 points on their way to the lowest point total against BG since the deadball era.

Things are looking better this year.  They have six wins ALREADY, and have a nice win over a pretty good WMU team.  Their losses are not bad either, including to Cal, DePaul and Michigan.  I suspect the only loss they'd really want back is to Tennessee State at home, but there were some injuries that day.

The resurgence is partly built on the power of transfers.  Eli Holman is a 6'10" post player who is a Hoosier refugee and a very good player.  He is averaging 15 points and 9 rebounds and shooting 62% from the field.  He missed three games, including the TN State loss.

Chase Simon, a CMU transfer is also averaging in double figures.

Add to that the return of Xavier Keeling, who missed all but 7 games last season, (14 PPG, 4 RPG), and you can see where the improvement is coming from.

Thomas Kennedy is back and scoring in double figures as well.

They play a slightly up tempo game from BG, but they are a very good shooting team with a 45% shooting percentage and nearly 50% as an effective field goal %. They are not reliant on the three--they lead the Horizon in percentage of points coming from 2FGs.  They get to the line a lot as well.

Defensively, perhaps the biggest achilles heel is that they give up tons of free throws, a weakness it will be difficult for our team to exploit.  Their defensive efficiency is just under one point per game, and they defend the FG pretty well (43%) and the 3 especially well (31.5%).

This is a good test for our team, especially on the road.  I think it is a tough matchup for us.  We're going to have to play our best defensive game of the season, and hitting more than an occasional FT would be great.  I think a key matchup is going to be inside, as Otis battles Holman, and Otis' ability to compete in the paint with a quality big man without getting into foul trouble will be a key element to our ability to compete.

I do think McCallum is going to win at Detroit--and there is no reason for Detroit to not be good--and that might be his ticket back out of town, but for now, it looks like he has the Titans headed in the right direction.