Tuesday, February 23, 2016

OU Preview-ette

Won't be time for a full preview for tonight's game.  Basic deal is that the win at the Convo earlier this year will probably go down as the high point of the season.  Not only did BG beat a team on the road that has gone 8 and 3 in the MAC since then, but the Falcons also beat them by 16 points.  Their RPI is 82, and it is by far the biggest win for BG this year, with the next being EMU at 134.

Not much secret what is going on for BG, who have lost their last 7 games, the last four by double digit margins.  Just a really tough part of what has turned into a very tough season.

The obvious guy to watch is Antonio Campbell.  He's third in the MAC in scoring at 18.2 PPG, but that comes on shooting 59% overall and 44% from 3FG.  He's the most efficient scorer in the MAC and 2nd with 10.4 rebounds.  Dude is a stud and at 6'10" would be the kind of guy we have struggled to guard in the post.

This is where we stand.  OU is still in play for the overall title and only holding a bye by one game.  BG is down where we feared they might be when the year began.  That's important to remember, by the way.  Even if Jans had stayed and we had Austin and Dickerson, we wouldn't have (presumably) Lillard and Wiggins. (Update:  Or Ali or Alcegaire).  We'd still have struggled.  His big recruit, Jalone Friday, has red-shirted at Abilene Christian.  This was just set up to be a tough year, mostly from recruiting classes in the past, which we will look at over the off-season.  Anyway, point being that I still give the Huger team a passing grade for this year.  This was never going to be easy and I think that a couple of the younger players have made progress.  Looking at the patience Ball State showed in Whitlock (for example), let's see Huger build and make progress toward our ultimate goal.  We need stability, steady progress, and a center, not neccessarily in that order.


1 comment :

Ken said...

Informative. I agree with your assessment of where we stand too!