Men open up the Scott Pera era Friday night at Tudor against Eastern Kentucky.
The women are on the road at the Grand Canyon Lopes (not sure why the women are the Lopes and the men are Antelopes).
I'm excited to see how the men do this year. We could be surprisingly much better than people expect, or it could be a transitional year. But either way, I do think the men will get better as the season goes on because they don't have a lot of players with D1 experience.
My prediction for a starting lineup is 5 out of the following 6 - Ako Adams/Connor Cashaw/Bishop Mency/Robert Martin/Austin Meyer/Tim Harrison. Against bigger teams, I think we might start both Meyer and Harrison over Mency. Against smaller teams, Mency might get the start with probably Meyer starting over Harrison? Those 6 plus A.J. Lapray and Najja Hunter will be the main 8 in the rotation, with Miles Lester, Malik Osborne and Dylan Jones rounding out the top 11.
Eastern Kentucky could be decent and has a talented post player in 6-9 junior Nick Mayo. Defending talented post players is always an issue for Rice basketball squads so I'll be curious to see how Meyer and Harrison do against him. EKU also has a strong sophomore guard in 5-11 Asante Gist, but he didn't play in their exhibition win. Another guy they're counting on to be a big contributor is 6-8 transfer Jackson Davis, someone I know we recruited pretty hard out of high school (he went to Butler, but then transferred to EKU after 2 years at Butler). Davis, like Gist, didn't play in their exhibition game. And they lost a starter to a knee injury in that exhibition game, so they may be testing out some new lineups just like Rice.
The Rice women are probably playing a slightly less talented opponent in GCU, but they are on the road. And unlike the men, the women haven't been able to avoid the injury bug in the preseason. We have 3 players redshirting due to injury (Shani Rainey, Kendall Ellig and freshman Temi Alao). Plus 6-9 transfer Nancy Mulkey has to sit out the year so we only have 10 healthy players (and I had heard the 6-2 freshman post from Indiana was also hurt but maybe I had the wrong freshman identified?).
There is still a lot of talent for the women and it will be interesting to see how the Ogwumike sisters do after transferring from Pepperdine. I'll predict a starting 5 of Wendy Knight/Erica Ogwumike/Lauren Grigsby/Nicole Iademarco/Gabby Ozoude, with Olivia Ogwumike, freshman Sydne Wiggins, Tayler Bennett, and Gabrielle Stanton coming off the bench. Hopefully freshman Alexah Chrisman is healthy because Ozoude is really the only post player this season for the women unless Iademarco can bring her game inside more this season.
(This post was last modified: 11-10-2017 06:32 AM by Fort Bend Owl.)
[quote='Fort Bend Owl' pid='14763026' dateline='1510279322']
Men open up the Scott Pera era Friday night at Tudor against Eastern Kentucky.
The women are on the road at the Grand Canyon Lopes (not sure why the women are the Lopes and the men are Antelopes).
I'm excited to see how the men do this year. We could be surprisingly much better than people expect, or it could be a transitional year. But either way, I do think the men will get better as the season goes on because they don't have a lot of players with D1 experience.
My prediction for a starting lineup is 5 out of the following 6 - Ako Adams/Connor Cashaw/Bishop Mency/Robert Martin/Austin Meyer/Tim Harrison. Against bigger teams, I think we might start both Meyer and Harrison over Mency. Against smaller teams, Mency might get the start with probably Meyer starting over Harrison? Those 6 plus A.J. Lapray and Najja Hunter will be the main 8 in the rotation, with Miles Lester, Malik Osborne and Dylan Jones rounding out the top 11.
Eastern Kentucky could be decent and has a talented post player in 6-9 junior Nick Mayo. Defending talented post players is always an issue for Rice basketball squads so I'll be curious to see how Adams and Harrison do against him. EKU also has a strong sophomore guard in 5-11 Asante Gist, but he didn't play in their exhibition win. Another guy they're counting on to be a big contributor is 6-8 transfer Jackson Davis, someone I know we recruited pretty hard out of high school (he went to Butler, but then transferred to EKU after 2 years at Butler). Davis, like Gist, didn't play in their exhibition game. And they lost a starter to a knee injury in that exhibition game, so they may be testing out some new lineups just like Rice.
The Rice women are probably playing a slightly less talented opponent in GCU, but they are on the road. And unlike the men, the women haven't been able to avoid the injury bug in the preseason. We have 3 players redshirting due to injury (Shani Rainey, Kendall Ellig and freshman Temi Alao). Plus 6-9 transfer Nancy Mulkey has to sit out the year so we only have 10 healthy players (and I had heard the 6-2 freshman post from Indiana was also hurt but maybe I had the wrong freshman identified?).
There is still a lot of talent for the women and it will be interesting to see how the Ogwumike sisters do after transferring from Pepperdine. I'll predict a starting 5 of Wendy Knight/Erica Ogwumike/Lauren Grigsby/Nicole Iademarco/Gabby Ozoude, with Olivia Ogwumike, freshman Sydne Wiggins, Tayler Bennett, and Gabrielle Stanton coming off the bench. Hopefully freshman Alexah Chrisman is healthy because Ozoude is really the only post player this season for the women unless Iademarco can bring her game inside more this s
Players told me last night your starting 5 is correct minus Harrison.
I checked out Massey's website for his preseason predictions. He had the men fifth in C-USA and 16-13 for the season, while the women were seventh and 17-11 for the season. I should point out that Massey's preseason ratings depend rather heavily on the previous season's results and won't account for interseason changes until a few games are played. Ken Pomeroy's system seems to adjust better for changes in the offseason, and he has the men ranked ninth in C-USA (he doesn't rate women's basketball).
Quote:Shani Rainey is redshirting due to injury this year. So. forward Kendall Ellig and Fr. forward Temi Alao will also miss the season due to injury. Fr. guard Sydne Wiggins is expected to miss time to start the year as well
Wow, the women are going to be really thin to start off the year. I wonder if they can try to recruit any athletes from other teams to join their squad? I think we've had volleyball players help out in years past.
Utah Valley ended up losing but not by a ton. They play at Duke today. Pretty tough start to the season for them. I'll assume they have several more BYU transfers.
The women basically played 6 players (Chrisman off the bench played 11 minutes, Bennett 3 and Ozoude just 1). That's going to be tough to sustain. Nice to see Stanton with a breakout game for them. She's a solid recruit who hasn't played a ton her first two years due to injuries. I think originally she was going to go to Arkansas but got hurt her senior year of high school too. Maybe she's finally healthy?
BTW, it could be a very solid year for CUSA women's basketball. WKU beat 16th-ranked Missouri at a tournament at Iowa, and MTSU beat Vandy on the road so 2-0 start against the SEC. Nothing on the men's side of CUSA stood out to me as there were a lot of lopsided scores against inferior opponents.
