Frack Preview: Green Bay

So, part 2 of the Frack preview will cover the Green Bay Phoenix.  Green Bay was a tournament team last year, popping into the NCAA tournament by winning the Horizon tournament.  On the year, they were 23-13 and 11-7.  They were a #14 seed that got smoked by Texas A&M but who are we to talk?  They have played 6 tourney games since 1991...winning one...and BG....well, you know.

They lost 2 starters from that team, and are picked to finish 3rd in the Horizon.  Those two starters were both all-league players, but the Phoenix will bring 6 seniors onto the floor at the Stroh.

Their coach is named Linc Darner.  Last year was his first season at GB...before that he was a national DII champion at Florida Southern.  He has moved the Phoenix to an up tempo team.

This year, they are 1-1.  They beat Northland, a non-D1 team, and then they lost @Pacific in the 24-hour ESPN basketball challenge in a game that tipped off at 1 AM Green Bay time.  They played like it, losing by 18 points to a team that was picked 9th in the West Coast Conference.

They definitely play fast.  Last year, they played at 76 possessions and the Pacific game was 77.  The typical game was 69 last year and is 72 so far this season.

The starting lineup for the Pacific game included Charles Cooper, their 6'4" G who is a pre-season All-Horizon pick.  He really struggled against Pacific, but again, that might have been an anomaly.  They started 3 guards, FR Trevor Anderson, last year's Mr. Basketball in WI and the 8th leading scorer in the history of the state.

The frontcourt is 6'7" F Turner Botz (Sr) and 6'8 F Kenneth Lowe Sr.  They are both from a place called Little Chute WI.

They are a depth-based team, though.  Nine players played 10 minutes at Pacific and one played 9.  No one played more than 32, and that was Anderson, who led the team with 14 points.  Khalil Small, the other starting guard, had 13.  Botz had 8 rebounds, but they gave up 24 offensive rebounds, which is 44%.

The key point here is that there is reason to think that Green Bay is pretty good, and it will be our second game in a row against a team playing upbeat basketball.  We will have a slightly better idea by the time we play on Sunday because we will have seen them play on Saturday.  They certainly played poorly at Pacific, but that could be a bunch of things.  Even the Saturday game is a pretty quick turnaround for them.