Hampton Preview

BG Men's basketball now moves along to the Detroit portion of the event they are in...the gotprint something or other.  Anyway, it is not a tournament in the sense that we can't actually, you know, win it.  But, there are two games at Calihan Hall--one of the classic old-school venues in college basketball.

The opponent for game 1 is Hampton.  It is at 5 pm Monday, and then we will either play Detroit or Loyola-MD on Tuesday at a time yet to be determined.

Hampton is a long-time member of the MEAC and this year they are making their move into the Big South Conference.  That's a move up in the sense that the MEAC is the 32nd ranked conference and the Big South is 26th.  (Winthrop, Radford, High Point (Tubby Smith), Charleston Southern, Gardner Webb, Campbell, Liberty, UNC Ashville, Longwood, Presbyterian).

Hampton won the regular season MEAC title last year and then lost to North Carolina Central in the final and went to the NIT.  Even with the move up, they are picked 4th in the Big South.  They have made the postseason for five straight years.  The Pirates have made 6 NCAA tournaments.

We've never played them.  BG beat Campbell from the Big South last year by 6 on the road at their multi-team event.

They have four starters back from that team.  They are 1-2.  They have a win over a non-d1 opponent and then they lost to VCU and Cal, both away.

So, that VCU is a common opponent.  Hampton lost by 12 to them.  BG lost by 11.  Both teams lost the margin with a late run.  They took much better care of the ball then BG did, but did not shoot the ball well at all.

In fact, for their first two games, they are the worst shooting team in the country, but it's still early.  They are making 36% of 2FGs and 16% of 3FGs (d1 games only) both in the bottom ten.

They do OK taking care of the ball, are good on the offensive boards and OK getting to the line.  They are below average on defending the shot and forcing turnovers, are very good on the defensive boards and very bad in terms of fouling and putting teams on the line.

Again, they've played decent competition to date.

The Pirates are a guard driven team.  Their leading scorer is Jermaine Marrow, a 6'0" Jr.  He is a stat stuffer.  He's averaging over 24 a game, and scored 25 and 26 in their games against VCU and Cal.  He's shooting 43% and 36%, which is not too bad and better than last season.  Also, about five assists per game (and a 1:1 A/TO) and 4 rebounds.  (All games for individual stats).

Their other star guard is Kalin Fisher, a 6'2" SR.  He's scoring 12.3 on 36% shooting and 0-for-9 from beyond the arc.  He is second on the team with 6.3 rebounds.  Both of them are outstanding FT shooters and Hampton is shooting 80% as a team, 14th in the country.  (They finished last year #25 in the nation, so that's not unexpected).  Greg Heckstall, a versatile 6'6" R-JR F is leading the team with over 7 rebounds per game.

They are not tall.  There are a couple of big guys on the team, but they don't play much.  In terms of effective height, they are 242nd in the country.  (BG is 99th).

On a neutral floor, this one could be interesting.  BG should win, but Hampton has a veteran coach and they are used to winning.  It will be an empty arena for that one, which is always interesting.