MBB Game 26 at Charleston on February 14, 2019 at 7:00 P.M.

[EvanJ]

I'm going to start this topic early. I'm not saying we will get an at-large bid if we win our next 8 and lose in the CAA Final, but we certainly won't if we lose. This is our last chance at a good away win. Our best away win is at Stony Brook, who's 20-5 (19-5 vs. Division I) but 148th in the NET before yesterday. Grant Riller is second in the CAA and 26th in Division I at 21.2 points per game.

[daHUPride]

I am guessing the line at tip-off is a pick'em.

[Wags]

I'm going to start this topic early. I'm not saying we will get an at-large bid if we win our next 8 and lose in the CAA Final, but we certainly won't if we lose. This is our last chance at a good away win. Our best away win is at Stony Brook, who's 20-5 (19-5 vs. Division I) but 148th in the NET before yesterday.

This would have been an interesting year if they still had the Bracketbusters. A lot of unranked mids with some very good records this year (would have liked to see how Hofstra would've stacked up against a team like Wofford, Belmont, Murray State, Toledo or Lipscomb):

Vermont 19-5
Stony Brook 20-5
Lipscomb 20-4
Liberty 21-5
UC-Irvine 21-5
Hofstra 21-4
Charleston 20-6 (appropriately for this thread - and they've won 6 straight, so a really good test for HU on Thurs.)
Old Dominion 20-6
North Texas 20-5
Nothern Kentucky 20-6
Toledo 20-4
Belmont 19-4
Murray State 19-4
Wofford 21-4
UNC-Greensboro 22-3
Furman 20-5
Abilene Christian 19-5
South Dakota State 20-6
Texas State 19-5
New Mexico State 20-4

[stuball888]

Wags that’s a nice tournament with just these teams.

[HUSID74]

ESPN Pick Center gives us a 54 vs. 46 percent chance of winning this game; better than I would have thought!

[The Shadow]

Massey Ratings has HU at a 51% chance of winning at CofC, they predict a 74-73 win for HU. KenPom has HU at #67 and CofC at #116.

[EvanJ]

I don't pay for KenPom to get predictions, but the free rankings have us 5.04 points better. If you use the Sagarin's 3.11 for home court, then KenPom takes us by 1.93. The Sagarin and its components range from us by 0.07 to them by 1.35. SevenOvertimes gives us a 47.7 percent chance, and our next lowest is 80.1 percent at Delaware. RealTimeRPI thinks we're worse, with a 33.5 chance tomorrow and a next lowest chance of 52.5 percent at Delaware.

[Polito]

NU had a CAAT Championship game feel to me, and this one has the feel of the kind of game HU will have to win in the Semi's to get to the champ game - big game obviously, and a pretty tough road trip overall with UNCW right after.

Great test and challenge to this team late in the year in prep for the CAAT.

[HUSID74]

NU had a CAAT Championship game feel to me, and this one has the feel of the kind of game HU will have to win in the Semi's to get to the champ game - big game obviously, and a pretty tough road trip overall with UNCW right after.

Great test and challenge to this team late in the year in prep for the CAAT.

That's exactly what Joe said in his weekly comments. This weekend will be a great prep for the CAA Tourney...

[Wags]

NU had a CAAT Championship game feel to me, and this one has the feel of the kind of game HU will have to win in the Semi's to get to the champ game - big game obviously, and a pretty tough road trip overall with UNCW right after.

Great test and challenge to this team late in the year in prep for the CAAT.

That's exactly what Joe said in his weekly comments. This weekend will be a great prep for the CAA Tourney...

Schedule a scrimmage against another CAA team on Friday, and then it'll REALLY have that feel.

Charleston has been streaky this year. This will be an interesting test, not only because it's on the road (and in the same area as the CAA tourney), but because of the timing. When Hofstra won the first meeting at home this season, it concluded Charleston's worst stretch of the season (it was their 4th loss in 5 games). That period came right after Charleston had won 10 straight. Charleston hasn't lost since the Hofstra loss, winning 6 straight heading into this second meeting. As we know, a lot of talent on both sides. Everyone basically canceled each other out scoring-wise in the first meeting (Eli 26/Riller 24, JWF/Brantley 19 each, Taylor/Galloway 16 each, and so on). The difference after all of that was Ray's 14 points in a 14-point win. Might need Ray again or someone else (like Coburn? Or Buie?) to do that again tomorrow.

[HofstraMathew]

Line is a pickem right now.

http://www.vegasinsider.com/college-bas ... am/hofstra

[triplec2195]

Newsday shows us as a 2 point Dog. When's the last time we were a dog this year in the CAA? NE away? Yes I'll answer my own question and the only time.

[HUSID74]

ESPN now has us as 1 point underdog. Spread moved from us favored by 1 to even and now as a dog.
Big game for us to show out in enemy territory....GO PRIDE!

[Sctvman]

Andrew Miller, the CofC writer for the Charleston paper, said there would be nearly a dozen NBA scouts at the game tonight, looking at JWF, Pemberton, Riller and Brantley.

[HUSID74]

Wow, now ESPN has Hofstra as a 1.5 point fav...crazy fluctuations!

[EvanJ]

I use http://www.vegasinsider.com/college-bas ... gas/?s=278 which has us favored by 1.

https://gohofstra.com/news/2019/2/10/me ... swing.aspx is Hofstra's preview titled "MBB: Hofstra Heads South For Key Road Swing."

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... game26.pdf is Hofstra's Game Notes.

Charleston doesn't get many rebounds or blocks and doesn't shoot threes well. https://static.caasports.com/custompage ... m#team.ind has their statistics. Brevin Galloway is their third leading scorer at 8.2. We should be okay with allowing Riller and Brantley to combine for 40, but not 50, and we shouldn't let anyone else reach 15. Jaylen McManus (a sub averaging 19.2 minutes) averages 4.7. On January 24 hosting Elon, he attempted 4 shots, which were all threes, and made all of them to score 12. He scored 9 and 8 last week. In the three games in between on January 26, January 31, and February 2, he scored 10 combined. Galloway leads them in threes made and attempted. Galloway, McManus, and Zep Jasper (who was a starter and became a bench player when Marquise Pointer got healthy) shoot threes better than Riller and Brantley. Riller's three-point field goal percentage is down from .394 last season to .318 now, and Brantley's is down from 3.85 last season to .333 (exactly one-third) now. They both shoot twos well enough that their field goal percentage is over .500.

JWF is 16 points behind Bill Thieben for 6th, and Pemberton is 6 points behind Roberto Gittens for 19th.

https://cofcsports.com/news/2019/2/13/m ... -best.aspx is Charleston's preview titled "Valentine's Day Showdown To Showcase League's Best."

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... Notes2.pdf is Charleston's Game Notes. They list the 12 teams with three active players who have combined for at least 4,000 points. Brantley (1,755), Riller (1,624), and Marquise Pointer (792) rank Charleston 9th at 4,171. The top combination is three South Dakota State players at 4,789. JWF (2,029), Pemberton (1,234), and Buie (582) have combined for 3,845.

Charleston's kingkresse.com blog says the website expired last month.

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=236675 will have statistics.

Here's the CAA schedule tonight with all games at 7:00 P.M.

Delaware at Towson (favored by 2): Statistics at http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=240220 (on SNY)

Northeastern (favored by 6.5) at UNCW: Statistics at http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=235457

Drexel at James Madison (favored by 1): Statistics at http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=239839

[Wags]

Links for tonight:
https://twitter.com/HofstraMBB/status/1 ... 8274383873

[EvanJ]

http://defiantlydutch.blogspot.com/2019 ... eston.html is Jerry Beach's "I'll Be Quirky: College of Charleston." It has a great note that JWF broke Demetrius Dudley's Hofstra scoring record while in Division I, and both of them did it on February 9, with JWF doing it 26 years after Dudley. For the ninth time in 25 games, the William & Mary game was a score (93-87) Hofstra hadn't played before. The elite 2005-2006 team won 92-87 hosting UNCW in triple overtime on January 14, 2006. JWF has his second consecutive season with seven 30 point games. Neither Jenkins nor Stokes had a season with five 30 point games. Jenkins had four 30 point games as a senior.

https://holycityhoops.com/battle-for-ma ... theastern/ is titled "Battle for March Positioning Key Against Hofstra, Northeastern." It's by Sctvman, who has 10 posts here.

The score predictions from KenPom are:

Charleston 73, Hofstra 72
Northeastern 81, UNCW 73
Towson 68, Delaware 65
James Madison 75, Drexel 74

[EvanJ]

Both teams are starting their normal starters. The big news is that Vasa Pusica is not starting for Northeastern.

[daHUPride]

Wow, now ESPN has Hofstra as a 1.5 point fav...crazy fluctuations!

I think its because so little action on these games - I usually wait when we are underdogs as the spread usually gets larger towards tip off