MBB Western Carolina Preview

BG MBB opens the games that count tomorrow in Cullowhee, NC against Western Carolina.

BG has played Western Carolina three times.  The first time was the last year of the Dakich era at the Oneida Classic in Green Bay and the second was the very first game of the Orr era, at the Peggy Cronin classic, presumably in Cincinnati.  Both were losses to a team coached by MAC giant, the late Larry Hunter.  BG also played them at the Stroh right before Christmas in 2018, when Mark Prosser coached them.  BG won that one 73-52.  This is their first trip to Cullowhee.

Prosser has moved on to Winthrop and the Catamounts are now coached by Justin Grey who had been an assistant at Winthrop before Pat Kelsey went to College of Charleston, opening on the job Prosser took to open up the WCU job.

He will coach his first game as head coach Tuesday.  Grey played at Wake Forest and then 12-years in Europe, just as Huger did.

They play in the Southern Conference (#14) and had one decent year in recent memory.  They were 19-12 in 19-20, with a kenpom of 156.

They were 11-16 last year and finished 9th in the SoCon.  They return one starter and three letterwinners from that team, have essentially turned their roster over and are picked 10th (out of 10) by their own conference poll of coaches and the media, Blue Ribbon and kenpom.

In their exhibition game, they beat Campbellsville Harrodsburg by 44.  That's probably not too revealing.

Their starters were:

• Cameron Bacote, grad transfer from Indiana State, scored 17 in the game.  Before being a Sycamore, he played at Maryland Eastern Shore.  Averaged 2.7 PPG for Indiana State last year.
• Tyler Harris, the one returning starter....6.9 PPG last year, 4.6 RPG.
• Marlow Gilmore, JUCO transfer, 9.6 and 5.5 in JUCO.
• Nick Robinson, grad transfer from Valpo where he averaged 9.1 PPG and 3.6 RPG.
• Joe Petrakis, 6'10" transfer from K-state where he was not a contributor.

They also played:

• Marvin Price, who started at OU, went to JUCO, was JUCO All-American.
• Vonterious Woolbright, JUCO HM All-American
• Madison Monroe, started at Oakland, went to JUCO, averaged 14 a game there.

So, as will be the cast very often in the cm8ing years, this team is largely a mystery, especially with a new Coach.  ESPN's power index has BG with a 62% chance of winning and kenpom has it at 79%.

It will be great to get back to normal at the Stroh Friday!