MBB Preview

Well, here we go.

Let's catch up.  In 2019, BG played in (and lost the MAC title game to one of the best teams in the MAC in recent memory).  In 2020, BG was picked to win the MAC and was the #2 seed in the tournament.  And then it was cancelled.  In 2021, BG was picked to finish first again, finished 6th in the regular season and, with Justin Turner injured and barely able to play, BG led with 5 minutes left before a 12-2 Zip run closed the Falcons out.

I think it's safe to say that last season was disappointing.  Of course, with COVID it was weird and sucked...but the overall performance of the team (10-8 in MAC) was just not what we had hoped.  

Big picture, BG has 3 straight winning seasons for the first time since Dakich was here.  That's not great or everything we want, but it's something.  We need to be competitive every year to eventually eliminate 1968 and you need to be in it every year.

I'd say there are three things from last year that you can note as we return from last season.

First, Justin Turner left and was a first-round draft pick in the G-league, Westchester Knicks.  He is our all-time leading scorer and you saw how lost we were in the last two games when he was injured and unable to play effectively.

Second, is that the story improved considerably after that.  Daeqwon Plowden and Trey Diggs agreed to come back for one more season, which was huge.  It's a complete re-building year without that.  They join a strong set of returnees for BG...Kaden Metheny, Caleb Fields, Josiah Fulcher are all back, along with Cam Young and Chandler Turner.  That's actually a decent seven-man rotation.  Also, I understand we are expecting the healthy return of Matiss Kulackovskis...if so that's an 8-man rotation.  (Swingle left, along with Jacob Washington).

So, here's the third thing....Huger had 28% of the team's minutes come off the bench last year, which was below the national average of 31%.  At the same time, we had 10 players average 10 minutes or more per game, which is a relatively deep rotation.  (For comparison, the number was 7 for UT.

So the third thing is that BG did something they have not done previously...they went out and got 5 transfers.  That's a wow.  Obviously, with the changing winds of college basketball, that's going to be a trend moving forward...but in the meantime, it was a big move for the Falcons.

Here's who we have:

So, those are all guys who were in DI rotations and contributing...so now, we have 13 players capable of playing, including Kulackovskis.  (I am also not aware if Samari Curtis has his waiver to play).

Also, there is FR Ubong Abasi Etim, a 6'9" F with a 7-foot wingspan who played on a really good HS team in Arkansas.

So, the obvious question is, how are all these guys going to get minutes.  One possible answer would be for BG to amp up the tempo, especially without a traditional post player and play fast and pressure on both sides of the ball, which would lead to needing more guys overall.

We shall see if that happens, but it remains the single thing I wonder about with this team.

Blue Ribbon picked us #7 in the MAC and kenpom, which has traditionally hated us, has us #5.  Kenpom thinks we will go 19-11 and 12-8.

I would think 19 wins would be reasonable.  We have Ohio Wesleyan (DII) and Carlow (NAIA-lost 67 out of their last 69 games), as well as Western Carolina (#311), Chicago State (#357, usually the worst team in D1) and Norfolk State (#306) and Robert Morris (#284 in country).  BG play one P5-team...at Ohio State, and three other competitive games, Milwaukee (#119), Oakland (#193) and @Duquesne (#181).

As we all know, though, the real challenge is to win in March.  It's all that matters, if we want to forget 1968.  For my money, they are 7 teams in the MAC that could win it, with 6 of them from the former East Division.  BG needs to be gelled and using depth to its advantage.  I'm hopeful we have as good a shot by then as anyone to knock down the wins you need that weekend.