Atlantic 10 foe Richmond Spiders, 3-3 record is a bit deceiving having lost games against the likes of Wichita St, 53-56, Cuse 71-74 (OT), College of Charleston 90-92(OT). They won their last game beating Temple on a neutral court, 61-49. Their starting front line in the last game goes 6-7, 200, 6-7 215 and 7-0, 250. Strong Rebounding for the Rockets will be a chore. I don't see a high scoring game.
Another Atlantic team Mason will be on the road. I like the Rockets playing stronger teams this season, I just hope Coach K continues to play his bench as he has done so far this season. I wonder why Edu only got only 5 mins last game ? Going to need him to play more minutes I believe against the Spiders, especially against their starting 7 footer.
The Richmond center is a transfer from Lafayette College in the Patriot league. My son graduated from Lafayette and we still go to a lot of games. Quinn the center is a pretty good big…7 footer. Watched their game against Syracuse and he doesn’t really shoot as much as in the past but he is a decent big. The Patriot league is not bad…Buchner and Colgate a always got…Colgate did beat Syracuse this year. After watching Richmond they are going to be a tough opponent. Btw, we saw Lafayette beat Rutgers last year and I thought Quinn was the best player on the floor.
Richmond will be tough. They've only lost very close games to good teams and beaten some solid schools by double digits. Mooney runs a version of the Princeton offense with lots of cutting, backdoors and motion. UT will both need to execute defensive fundamentals, have good ball pressure and active hands to disrupt Richmond's flow, and still find a way to defend bigger guys in the post. We may have some advantages with speed and ballhandling on our offensive end.
Overall, lots of tough losses for teams on UT's schedule. George Mason is off to a slow start against good comp. Vermont has played a brutal road heavy schedule and lost most of their games with a couple near miss upsets. N Iowa looks beatable. Marshall seems to have turned it around and is playing well. That will be a tough game as we've beat them up recently and revenge may be a factor.
In the MAC non-conf play lots of teams losing late leads and missing upset opportunities. I often record MAC non-conf games and do a quick watch skipping through the commercials and slow parts. Watched OU and EMU both blow late 2 possession leads against Michigan. Buffalo blow a late lead over undefeated Drake. Kent just lead Charleston (who has an at large worthy early resume) on the road all game only to have their last 4 possessions go turnover, missed shot, missed shot, turnover and lose by 2. Akron lead a strong Nevada team on a neutral court all game but blew a 7 point lead in the final 4 minutes getting outscored 13-2 to close the game. As usual the MAC is handful a bad possessions from having it's better teams with the non-conf wins that keep you in the at large convo.
A final schedule ??? small chance UT gets their P6 matchup by filling an opening in Virginia's schedule caused by a cancellation after that terrible mass shooting that killed 3 football players. UVA-N Iowa game was cancelled and both UVA and UT have an open spot on their schedules the week of Dec 10th. Both teams' coaches have UW-Green Bay and Wisconsin roots so there's some connection. However, that is exam week and the schools may choose to keep it open. TK stated that the Lourdes game is a place holder and in the unlikely chance a P6 school has a cancellation and agrees to play us, then UT will drop Lourdes.
(11-23-2022 10:10 PM)Springboromark Wrote: [ -> ]Atlantic 10 foe Richmond Spiders, 3-3 record is a bit deceiving having lost games against the likes of Wichita St, 53-56, Cuse 71-74 (OT), College of Charleston 90-92(OT). They won their last game beating Temple on a neutral court, 61-49. Their starting front line in the last game goes 6-7, 200, 6-7 215 and 7-0, 250. Strong Rebounding for the Rockets will be a chore. I don't see a high scoring game.
Another Atlantic team Mason will be on the road. I like the Rockets playing stronger teams this season, I just hope Coach K continues to play his bench as he has done so far this season. I wonder why Edu only got only 5 mins last game ? Going to need him to play more minutes I believe against the Spiders, especially against their starting 7 footer.
Charleston just beat Kent, Kent’s first loss. Good measuring stick for us.