Post by eagledynasty on Dec 22, 2018 22:19:10 GMT -5
Nice win by the guys tonight. Coming out party for Ferguson, just absolute great game from him. Nych played well and Awad gave us some good minutes off the bench. First half was especially nice with very few turnovers. Good to see and hopefully a sign of things to come---maybe the team is starting to gel with all the new roles.
Heading into conference play, here's how I see it in terms of where everyone is at:
Radford: still the favorite, veteran, tough team. Couple of nice P5 wins. Not very explosive, have played a lot of close games, but have trouble seeing them lose more than 2-4 in the league which should be good for 1st.
Winthrop: SIU win makes me feel better about putting us here. Going to be a problem for teams to stop us with so many shooters and offensive weapons. Really deep team for a Big South team with a lot of interchangeable parts save for Ferguson. If we can keep turnovers down we should finish here and battle Radford. Will be prone to lose a couple we shouldn't though with turnover problems and the reliance on the 3 ball. But we shoot it really well....
GW: Nice win at Georgia Tech, but also have a couple bad losses. Feel like they have a nice ceiling when playing well. Perez is an impact freshman.
Presby: may be reaching here, but they've looked really nice against some of their P5 foes aside from a Dayton debacle tonight. Flagler and Hightower are two freshman who are going to be problem in the future (and now)---their new coach feels legit. However, they did drop 2 home games against Jacksonville and LIU-Brooklyn which a team battling for the top wouldn't do.
CSU: Haven't seen them this year, but with Fleming out feel like they've been competitive. Just a gut feel here.
High Point: Have won a couple decent ones on the road. Have also dropped some to bad teams. They seem to lack any depth...they need Proctor and Kamga to go off every night to have a chance. Those guys are good, but not good enough to go off enough/often enough to be more than middle of the pack.
Campbell: Another year of everyone saying they will be good pre-season, and another year where if Clemons drops 40 they can beat anyone, but most nights their horrible D will offset his magic.
Hampton: I feel like everyone overreacted to them coming into the conference thinking they will compete right away and looks like that's the case. Quite a few bad losses and only 2 D1 wins and those over bad teams. Remember, the MEAC is one league that's a good deal worse than the Big South.....it's not going to be a seamless transition. That being said, they will win some at home.
Longwood: Lots of wins, but they've played a terrible schedule...beating mostly awful teams. That being said, that's a step up for Longwood. D looks better at least.
USC Upstate: Felt pretty confident they would finish last, but the disaster that is UNCA may prevent that. They are bad, but maybe not the worst team in D1? That's reserved for:
UNCA: Wow....I think everyone knew they would take a big step back, but this has been an unmitigated disaster. Makes you think how lucky/good WU has been that even in "down" years we've had in the past 20, we've rarely been much worse than .500 in the league. I think UNCA will win 1 conference game at home this year? Maybe? To be fair they are really really really young, but aside from a couple guys like Jude and Baker, there doesn't seem to be much even young talent on the roster. That coaching hire is looking pretty suspect.
