Half a dozen SoCon teams play one or another teams from this weak DIII conference, the USA South. The question is “why”?
Averett is the cream of the crop: they led the USA South going 18-9 overall and 11-3 in conference. So they are the near unanimous pick to finish 1st of the 11 team conference again this year.
http://www.usasouth.net/sports/mbkb/index
But a better measure of their strength/weakness may be their performance against teams from the “mighty” ODAC, also DIII: they were only 3-4 against ODAC squads last year, including losses to Randolph-Macon, Bridgewater, Lynchburg and Guilford.
They return their top 3 players, and 7 of their top 8. Those top 3 players each made All USA South – 6’2” 200 G Trevor West now a Sr., and 6’2” 202 G Charles Bryant, now a Jr., made first team and 6’5” 250 Carter Jones, their Center, now a Sr., made Honorable Mention. They are an experienced team led by 4 seniors and a junior.
But face it, DIII is a whole other universe: Averett has 1 guy 6’5”, 2 guys 6’4” and 1 guy 6’3”. Nobody else on the squad is over 6’2” except for freshman Malik Ford. Malik is listed at 6’9” 287, but he was cut from both his middle school and high school teams every year until his senior year when he finally hung on to score 7.9 points and 4.4 rebounds in a small school league. Malik, meet Peter Jurkin, Nigel Holley and Toriano Stokes.
How on earth are they going to rebound or shoot against a team that goes 7’0”, 6’8”, 6’8”, 6’7” and 6’7” and has vastly superior athleticism?
The gap in size, speed and skill is so huge that it affects everything about the contest: how you can guard them and overplay them, the moves that will work, the shots and passes that you can get away with. It just builds bad habits that you can’t repeat against DI teams. And by the second half your squad is usually so overconfident that they get sloppy, start trying for ESPN highlight moves and just trading baskets. It is really not good preparation for Green Bay. Then there’s the PR effect: if we don’t absolutely crush them, then we look bad. If we do, it’s a big “so what”. I could write the posts for some of our grumpier members myself. What can we learn from playing them?
Although Kennesaw struggling to scrape past USA South member Piedmont by 7 points in 2013 was a good early sign that their much hyped recruiting class was a total bust. And UTC just opened against Covenant, 7-7 and tied for 8th in the USA South last year and picked to finish 10th of 11 this year. They won by 28, 91-63.
For the record: Averett doesn’t make many 3’s (5.1 per game on .321 shooting). They rebound extremely well (+6.7, 39.6 vs 32.9) against primarily DIII competition. Their rebounding margin of +6.7 is 26th best of 410 DIII schools.
http://www.ncaa.com/stats/basketball-men...eam/151/p1 They score 70.59 to their opponent’s 66.93. They have an 0.8 assist to t.o. ratio, and a -1.5 t.o. margin, as well as -1.7 steals margin. If they can get the ball up the floor against us, then we are not trying hard enough.
Six of their seven man rotation returns:
Trevor West, 6’2” 200, Sr. G, 32.7 min., 13.0 ppg, .362 from 3 (38 makes), 3.9 rpg, 3.8 assists, 2.7 t.o.’s, 1.1 steals
Bradley Robinson 6’4” 180, Sr. G, 33.0 min., 12.4 ppg, .338 from 3 (52 makes), 5.4 rpg,
Charles Bryant 6’2” 202, Jr. G, 27.4 min., 10.9 ppg, .143 from 3, 8.1 rpg, 2.3 t.o.’s, 1.3 steals
Carter Jones 6’5” 250 Sr. C, 26.4 min., 10.0 ppg, .000 from 3, 6.8 rpg, 2.3 t.o.’s, 1.2 blocks
James Contreras 6’0” 160 So. G, 23.5 min., 6.9 ppg, .143 from 3, 3.1 rpg,
Devontae Pannell 5’5” 140 Sr. G, 16.8 min., 3.8 ppg, .320 from 3 (16 makes), 2.1 rpg
Hope that we manage to stay focussed, don't look ahead to Green Bay, play hard and take care of business here.