Basketball Interlude---Men's Basketball Preview

As football heads into the last stages of the season, we get ready for basketball season in what will be the last year at Anderson Arena.

Our first goal for the year on this blog is to never to use the word venerable.  You have to have dreams.

Anyway, for most of the offense season, I have been thinking that a shortage of post players would hamper our team.  It seemed like the half-court, inside-out, post-heavy attack was what we wanted to play under Coach Orr.

From what I have been hearing and reading from the scrimmage, it appears that we have a different way to play.

To begin with, the players who left the program since last year were all bigs:  Otis Polk, Erik Marschall and Marc Larson.  These were the last players left from the Dan Dakich era,  and time will tell, but it is possible that the last four years have been a transition period between a motion offense, and a speed and length based offense.

Coach Orr now has his own players in the program.  Let's see who they are:

First, in terms of post/power players, we have two.  Cameron Black, a true Fr, but a player who looks to be able to run the floor in ways we haven't seen from big men in the past, and Torian Oglesby, a 6'7" JUCO transfer.

I think it is safe the say that everyone is excited about Cameron Black.  BG has not had a true, consistent big man in many years, and Black was already turning heads in the scrimmage.  If he ends up being as good an athlete as he appears to be, he could be very difficult to defend in the MAC.  Coach's son, too, by the way.

Oglesby is somewhat of an unknown quantity, but I assume his role is to provide depth on the inside and his JUCO numbers look promising for that.

Second, we have swing players....6'6" to 6'8" and long.  In his group, we have Scott Thomas,  A'uston Calhoun, James Erger, Craig Sealey and Danny McElroy.  This is is the most players we have had with this skill set that I can remember, and this is where I think the team really needs to get production, given the lack of a true post.

This set of players is built around Scott Thomas, who is our best returning player and someone who is expected to earn all-MAC honors.  He led last year's team in scoring and steals and was second in rebounding, steals and assists.  He's a very solid player on both ends of the floor.  If he can become a consistent shooter, he can be as good as any player in the conference.

The open but exciting question is A'uston Calhoun, who had a huge game in the scrimmage, and has certainly set the nation's tongue to wagging.  He showed the ability to drive to the hole as well as hit jumpers in the mid and long range.  He is a R-So who played in only a couple of games last year and is someone we haven't seen much of.  He is from Southfield, where he was a pretty good HS player.  A scrimmage is just a scrimmage, but there are openings in the starting lineup and if he can play across from Thomas and create all those opportunities, we will be much more effective on offense than we have in the past.

I do have to say that it is very odd.  Here's a guy with an apparently high skill level who got virtually no minutes last year, which is why the question is open.  (Note added, 11/3:  I see that Calhoun was actually ineligible for the second semester, which I had forgotten or not known.  Anyway, if you follow to this Blade story, you'll see Coach Orr talking about Calhoun's skills which we are seeing now).

Beyond that, Erger played 23 games and increasingly more as the second half of the season came.  He looked pretty solid, though, and I think there's reason to think he can contribute off the bench.  Danny McElroy played less as the season went on and was suspended for a while, but showed some ability in HS and I'd like to think he is a future contributor, too.  Finally, Sealey is a freshmen and is also highly regarded and a potentially strong player from the wing.

Third, guard is where we have the most players back.  Both Joe Jakubowski and Dee Brown are back, and they got almost all of the starts last season.  Also, Jordan Crawford is back, and freshmen Anthony Henderson.

Jakubowski is certainly a very solid PG.  He gets his share of assists.  He isn't the kind of PG who can create things everytime down the court, though he does have a pretty good jumper and a nice running move to his left that he uses to get to the basket.  If BG does end up pushing the ball and running more than they have in the past, this will be a huge opportunity for Jakubowski to make plays in his senior year.  If he can help us make baskets in transition (and take care of the ball), that would be a huge contribution.

Dee Brown was the second leading scorer and best 3-point shooter on last year's team.  He is a tough player who improved a lot from his first year to his second.  If there is similar improvement this year, he could be very effective.  Even without that, he is the right kind of guard for us to have, especially on the defensive side.

I think Falcon fans will be interested in seeing the progress of Jordan Crawford, too.  Crawford is a charismatic player who seemed to get less playing time as the season moved on.  He is very small, but does not play afraid and showed the ability to create opportunities and hit the long shot on a kickout.

[Note:  somehow I brain-farted on Luke Kraus from Findlay.  He played in 17 games, and seemed to come on at the very end, including a very strong game against Ohio U and a start in the MAC tourney game at WMU.  He should be able to increase his participation this year, and is a player we can look to for the future.]

Anthony Henderson is a nice get for our program, and I think he will develop into a very good MAC player.  Not sure how much time he will see this year, but with Jakubowski graduating, there are minutes available in the coming years.

I guess when I look at that, we have more talent that I though we might have.  We certainly appear to be deeper than we might have been in the past.  The biggest issue is that we have unproven quantities in the post and across from Thomas on the wing.  If they develop as we hope, then this team could be better than what we are being predicted for.

A couple notes.

First, Coach always says we want to play inside out.  I think the assumption is that means feeding the ball into the post, letting the post player draw double teams, and then kicking the ball out to the wing. Coach made reference last year to another way--one we are not terribly familiar with given our skill set over the past few years--driving the ball to the lane and then kicking it out for the jumper.  It seems that we are developing the kind of players where we can do the latter.  (I hope it also helps us in our painful inability to score against the zone).

Second, it appears that we want to run the ball more, off misses and maybe off made baskets.  Now, I've heard this before, in fact, we say it every year.  This year, maybe it is true.  As a fan, it would certainly be nice to have some exciting transition play.  Our half court game can be a little dry.

There is a challenge to that, and it is one that I worry about with the loss of our three post players.  In order to run a fastbreak, you have to get the rebound, and we'll need all of our players to contribute on the inside to rebounding.  Scott Thomas is proof that you don't have to be tall to rebound, but it doesn't hurt.  Anyway, we'll need to watch how effective we are on the boards.

And that brings us to defense....the cause of the missed shots.  I am sure regardless of what we are, we will want to play strong half court defense and get stops.  Being long and quick certainly helps in that regard.  I am sure that Coach would like to be able to mix the man to man and 2-3 zone and defend the 3 better--BG was the worst in the MAC in that regard last season.

In the final analysis, I think this team has a shot to be better than 5th in the East.  My MAC Preview will be up tomorrow, but there are other teams with question marks in the East and I think this team has the capacity to surprise.  With only one senior, I think we have the ability to be very, very good next season.