Thursday, November 11, 2010

Howard Preview

So, the Falcon men's basketball season starts tomorrow night, as BG heads to our nation's capitol to take on the Howard Bison.  They are, for whatever it is worth, the Bison and not the Bisons.

The Bison play in the MEAC conference, which is ranked as the second worst conference in college basketball and often supplies a team to the game formerly known as the play-in game.  With that in mind, we see that the Bison were 7-25 last year and 6-10 in their conference.  Their final RPI last year was 330 (out of 345).

There is no way to sugar coat it.  They were not very good last year.  They were last in the MEAC in offensive efficiency and were terrible shooting the ball, and were second to last in the MEAC in defensive efficiency.

From that team, they graduated Curtis White (their most efficient offensive regular) and Paul Kirkpatrick.

Now, looking ahead to this year's team.

First, the Bison have gone and gotten a new coach.  He coached for 3 years at Hampton where he was 50-44, and resigned.  He said he had other professional opportunities....sometimes that is code....anyway, he spent last year coaching (I swear to God) the Libyan National Team.  You make your mind up.  He was set to be an assistant at DePaul before the Howard opportunity came up.

(The Libya thing is actually interesting.  They were hosting the FIBA Africa championships and Nickleberry joined two other DC-area guys in helping them field a team as hosts.  They finished 11th out of 16).

Facing a team with a new Coach is a challenge, as always.  You don't really know what to expect.

Anyway, on paper, their best player is Calvin Thompson.  This is a case in point for why traditional basketball stats don't tell the whole story.  Thompson averaged 12 points per game last year and is projected 2nd-team ALL-MEAC.  However, he was a very inefficient player, used up a lot of shots to get to those 12 points and turned the ball over almost 20% of the time he had responsibility for a possession.  He is a terrible 3 shooter, but still launches them.  Bottom line is that it is hard to win like that.

Their best returning and most efficient player is Dadrian Collins.  His points per 40 minutes were almost equal to Thompson's, (he was a freshman last year, all-MEAC rookie) and he is an average 3-point shooter and that gives him an edge over Thompson.  I would suspect you will see him play a larger role this year.

Another sophomore who is back is Mike Phillips who was their leading rebounder as a FR last year and was also All-MEAC rookie.  They also have one senior in Kyle Riley, who was injured most of last season and could be more productive this year if healthy.

Their top newcomer (Boyomo) is out for the season, and their other newcomers are not highly touted, though that remains to be seen in actual game play.  They do have a 6'10" freshmen (Leary) who was not highly recruited.

So, if you want a pitch on how Howard could win this game, I'd tell you that they have a new Coach and two sophomore players who are likely to be much improved this year, as well as a senior who can contribute if healthy and they are playing at home and likely to be looking to get off to a good start.  They rarely play at home early...

But I think BG should win this game.

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