Niastri
Two Time Iggy Award Winner: Edwards for Three!
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- Aug 28, 2011
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I was typing out my Monmouth Thoughts post and realized half of it was actually about Houston. I decided to start a new thread.
We really need everybody healthy for the Houston game. It is going to be a serious grind, and then we have two more games the next two days. Then we play Tennessee less than a week later. If we play our best players 28 minutes and a bunch of reserves 12 minutes, and the reserves can hold their own, it will give us a much better chance of winning the last five minutes of what should be a close game against Houston. Houston is very talented and very highly rated, but in their only close game they really only played 7 guys, and two starters, Sharp and Flemings, played 35+ minutes. Cenac and Tugler both are somewhat foul prone, and Houston doesn't really have anybody they want playing when either of those guys are out. In fact, of the 5 players Houston has that are listed at forward or center, all of them foul out on average every 40 minutes. And that is against mostly cupcakes. By comparison, only 4 Syracuse players have that rate of fouls, three of them reserves. Only Freeman has consistently been in foul trouble among the starters, and we have Souare, Betsey and White to replace him if he has trouble. Houston doesn't have quality depth they trust. We have some serious advantages we might be able to exploit using comparative depth levels.
Houston's lack of depth won't help us as much in the first game of a long set of games, unless we can throw very fresh players at them late when they are fatiguing. Alternatively, if they are forced to play reserves in order to maintain energy levels, hopefully our second unit can win those matchups and push a lead or close a gap. Our depth might be our biggest advantage. But it can't work if both Betsey and Freeman are limping around.
We really need everybody healthy for the Houston game. It is going to be a serious grind, and then we have two more games the next two days. Then we play Tennessee less than a week later. If we play our best players 28 minutes and a bunch of reserves 12 minutes, and the reserves can hold their own, it will give us a much better chance of winning the last five minutes of what should be a close game against Houston. Houston is very talented and very highly rated, but in their only close game they really only played 7 guys, and two starters, Sharp and Flemings, played 35+ minutes. Cenac and Tugler both are somewhat foul prone, and Houston doesn't really have anybody they want playing when either of those guys are out. In fact, of the 5 players Houston has that are listed at forward or center, all of them foul out on average every 40 minutes. And that is against mostly cupcakes. By comparison, only 4 Syracuse players have that rate of fouls, three of them reserves. Only Freeman has consistently been in foul trouble among the starters, and we have Souare, Betsey and White to replace him if he has trouble. Houston doesn't have quality depth they trust. We have some serious advantages we might be able to exploit using comparative depth levels.
Houston's lack of depth won't help us as much in the first game of a long set of games, unless we can throw very fresh players at them late when they are fatiguing. Alternatively, if they are forced to play reserves in order to maintain energy levels, hopefully our second unit can win those matchups and push a lead or close a gap. Our depth might be our biggest advantage. But it can't work if both Betsey and Freeman are limping around.
