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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 59034, member: 289"] DECEMBER Friday 12/2/11 6:30PM at the Carrier Dome Florida (Big East/SEC challenge) This is the best team we will face prior to the Big East Season. We’ve played the Gators several times in recent years. Back in 2005, we’d just blown out Bobby Knight’s Texas Tech team, 81-46 in Madison Square Garden in something called the “2K College Hoop Classic”. we figured a rebuilding Florida team would be quaking in their boots. But they beat us, 70-75 and went on win the next two national championships, making that look like a pretty darn good showing. But in 2008, we beat them, 89-83 and beat Kansas 89-81 in overtime in something called the “O’Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic” in Kansas City. It was quite a coup because those schools had, at that point, won the last three national championships. We beat them again the next year in the first round of this multi-year “Big East-SEC challenge down in Tampa, 85-73. This year’s Florida team looks to be their best since the national championship years. Last year they won the most games since their title years, going 29-8. They are the #8 team in the preseason writer‘s poll and the #10 team in the coach’s poll, (SU is #5 in both). Billy Donovan has lost his entire frontcourt but used a lot of players. Athletic 6-9 forward Patrick Young is expected to emerge as a star. He also has 6-10 Erik Murphy, 6-9 Cody Larson and 6-7 Will Yeguette. He has an outstanding backcourt back in Erving Walker and Kenny Boynton who scored 28.8ppg between them. Both are outstanding three point shooters. Donovan has recruited the Gatorade national High School Player of the Year, 6-3 Brad Beal, “a great scorer, solid all-around player and terrific athlete“. Donovan may go to a three guard line up to get Beal on the court. He has another good shooter in Rutgers transfer Mike Rosario who score 16.2 as a freshman and 16.7 as a sophomore in the Big East. How about a four guard line-up? Can Donovan figure out how to use all that backcourt talent? Can the big guys up front mature quickly? It seems like a great match-up with the Orange, who seem to have the similar strengths and questions. Tuesday 12/6/11 TBA at the Carrier Dome Marshall Marshall is an under-rated program. They have a solid history and have won 46 games in the last two years. They have four starters back from a 22-12 team. Per The Sporting News, they could be “one of the country’s sleeper teams this season”. Tom Herrion is one of those young coaches who can suddenly find himself a national celebrity with a good post season run. He had a successful tour at College of Charleston and a was an assistant to Jamie Dixon at Pitt and you know our problems with Dixon’s teams over the years. Coming off the Florida game four days before, this could be a “trap” game. 6-4 DeAndre Kane was the Conference USA freshman of the year after averaging 15.1 points and 5.6 rebounds. Senior pint guard Damier Pitts averaged 16.2 points and 4.7 assists. Herrion recruited two power forwards, 6-9 240 Robert Goff and 6-8 215 Dennis Tinnon to go with skinny 6-10 Nigel Spokes (220 pounds). Saturday 12/10/11 4 or 7PM at the Carrier Dome George Washington This team has improve from 9 to 10 to 16 to 17 wins in the last four years. Nonetheless they fired coach Karl Hobbs and replaced him with Mike Lonergan, the Vermont coach, who won 126 games in his six years there after taking over for Tom Brennan, who beat in the NCAA‘s back in 2005. Lonergan used to be a Maryland assistant and knows the area well. He’s taking over a 17-14 team and has top guard Tony Taylor, (15.0 points, 4.6 assists). 6-8 Nemanaja Mikic hit 44% of his three point shots. This is an Atlantic 10 team and they always have a little extra motivation vs. a Big East team. Saturday 12/17/11 6:30PM at North Carolina State An actual road game, against a future ACC rival, no less. The Wolfpack has terrorized our football team over the years, (we 0-6 vs. them) and the basketball team has given us plenty of trouble, as well. They beat us in the Dome the year before our national title, 68-82 with Julius Hodge, whom we had hoped to get, mocking out star, Preston Shumpert and creating a lot of hard feelings. They’ve been mediocre in recent years going 86-78 under the now fired Sydney Lowe, who never made it to the NCAA tournament. Last year they were 15-16, going 5-11 in the ACC. Sophomore forward CJ Leslie was a McDonald’s All-American two years ago and scored 11.0 with 7.2 rebounds as a freshman. He’s 6-8 206. 6-8 261 Richard Howell averaged 6.5 rebounds in just 18 minutes a game. Lorenzo Brown shot 42% from three point range. The Wolfpack will want to “Welcome” us to the ACC. Tuesday 12/20/11 7PM at the Carrier Dome Bucknell The Bison dirtied up our resume in 2005 with a 69-75 upset in the Carrier Dome. They could do it again. Last year they were 25-9, winning 23 of 25 games until losing to eventual national champion Connecticut in the NCAA’s. They have four starters back from that team and had the Patriot league’s best 6th man, Cameron Ayers, who will now become a starter. 6-11 center Mike Miscala averaged 14.9 points and 7.3 rebounds. Thursday 12/22/11 7PM at the Carrier Dome Tulane SU plays the Green Wave in both football and basketball this year. It took a last second field goal to beat a bad Tulane football team in the Super Dome. That should be the case with a bad Tulane basketball team in the Carrier Dome. The Green Wave hasn’t had a winning record in four years. Last year they got off to an encouraging 12-3 start, then lost 14 of their last 15 to finish 13-17. They are projected to be the worst team in Conference USA. Their best player is 6-5 Kendall Timmons, who averaged 17.0 points and 8.3 rebounds, a lot for a 6-5 player. Tulane loves to shoot the three, (which may be why a 6-5 player can rebound so well), and made 230 of them last year. 11 of their losses in that horrible stretch run were by 10 points or less so they may not be as bad as they seem. Last year, the 13 pre-Big East opponents, (excluding exhibitions), had an average record of 21 wins and 12 losses the previous season. Only three of the had had losing records and two of them were 15-17. Nine of the teams had won 20 or more games,. Three of them 27 or more games. It seemed like a very tough non-conference schedule but we aced it at 13-0, even if we had some close ones early. After we crushed Michigan State in the Garden, 72-58 the team became more confident and rolled to an 18-0 start, our second best ever. In fact, our record in the pre-Big East games the last three years is 38-1 with the one loss being on a desperation 70 foot shot vs. Cleveland State, (who had a very good team that year). This year the early schedule consists of opponents and potential opponents that averaged 16-16, (actually they were 234-245), last year. I don’t really see a team that’s got the kind of big, veteran line that could give our young big men a lot of trouble. But look out for Oklahoma State, Florida, Marshall, NC State and Bucknell. [/QUOTE]

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