Seton Hall/Louisville
Spot play here. Seton Hall rebounds off their worst performance of the year into their best performance of the year yesterday, and they’ve played the Big East’s two worst defenses back-to-back the last two trips to the court, now into a quick rebound against the Big East’s best defense and a team coming off their worst offensive performance. I played Louisville on the road here back in the first meeting this year with success, so rather than go after the revenge angle here, gonna stick with Louisville with the addition of Blackshear. Complacency is the theme. Seton Hall’s been extremely complacent against zone defenses this year, especially those that look to pressure out of it, and it showed the first meeting. If they can hit shots tonight, hey, they stick around. But if they can’t, not sure this is a game. Louisville took Pope completely out of the game the first meeting, and when you can do that, it’s usually a good night. Seton Hall doesn’t look to attack much, really just as simple as either getting Pope the ball or taking an outside shot, and after a good performance yesterday, I should get some decline today. With Louisville, I’d be happy if they did in fact go zone tonight. They’ve been playing a bit more man-to-man as of late since Blackshear has gotten into the mix b/c of the match-up problems that they can get out of it, and I’m OK with that as well. The pressure they put on the opponent’s guards is ruthless, and exactly what I want here going against a Seton Hall team that hasn’t seen much half court pressure that last couple times out. Also helps that Seton Hall’s only games they won on the road within the conference came against Providence (twice) and Rutgers.
Texas San Antonio/McNeese State
Interesting game here in what’s basically a re-match of last year’s Southland title and automatic bid, which was won by Texas San Antonio. Let’s take this back a year. About this time last year, Texas San Antonio was playing for a chance just to get into the conference tournament. Trailed by 10 at the half to UT Arlington, put on a furious comeback, got into the tournament, found themselves down by 14 late in the first round game, again staged a comeback, won that game, then won two more games, including beating the conference champ and #1 seed McNeese State last year in the final. Fast forward to this year, both teams lost key parts at the guard position. Looking at the year that McNeese State had, they rebounded off last years disappointment rather well, and actually held a 10-2 record in the conference this year, beat SEMO in the bracket-buster at home, then the unthinkable happened. They blew the conference, lost their last four games, and limp into this game on a four game losing streak. Turn the other way? Nope. Had a few injuries occur, and the team isn’t deep enough to plug somebody in there. They’ve ended this season playing 7, sometimes 8 guys in a fast paced environment. Not only that, the one key injury came to the worst possible person in the lineup, Rudy Turner. He’s the senior leader, motivator, leads the team in both offensive and defensive rebounding, and their best interior defender. Rebounding is the key here. Texas San Antonio’s a 99% zone-based defense. They utilize a ton of different styles of it, whether they’re in a match-up zone or a few different zones that just use different principles. They rebound horrendously out of it, so those second chance points favor McNeese State here tonight. Now, Texas San Antonio returns everyone from last year, aside from their most important part (their PG was a mega-beast), and it seems as if they struggle in the slower pace settings where McNeese likes to keep the game played. When McNeese got into the conference tournament last year, they played to a 59, 71, and a 64 possession gameplan (the 71 came against Texas State who was the 5th fastest team in the country). This is actually the slowest team that he’s taken the court with at McNeese State, so I wouldn’t be shocked to see that # dip a bit tonight. In addition, this Texas San Antonio team is 2-5 in games below the 67 possession mark this year. The two victories come against the two teams that went at it this morning with a lined total of 107 (won those games by 2 and 7 points). When you lose your Senior PG who handles the ball on 29% of your possessions, assists on 34% of them, is your best defender and your lone source of getting to...