Before the season began, many experts predicted Miami to finish 3rd-5th in the ACC. I'm pretty sure I had them 5th for the sole reason: Virginia would not allow itself to lose its ACC opener at home to Miami after what happened last year. Now, a little over two months later, I still believe UVa will win this game, although I am a little less confident in my prediction. Early in the season, Miami suffered injuries to Malcolm Grant and Reggie Johnson, as well as the ineligibility of DeQuan Jones. Now, the Canes have all of their players, and are on a 4 game winning streak. While they haven't exactly looked perfect during the four victories, the idea of their talented lineup starting to gel and gain momentum is a little worrisome.
PG: Jontel Evans vs. Malcolm Grant- Now I'm going to give Grant the edge, but not by as much as some might expect. Grant is the more complete basketball player, but his weakness is his decision making. He isn't exactly a turnover machine, but I expect him to get flustered by our defense. They're coming of a defensively lacking shootout against a poor UNC Greensboro team, I think the Canes won't be ready for our style of play. So I expect Grant to get frustrated, and when he gets frustrated, he chucks up deep threes. He's had 3 games this year where he's shot over 10 threes. Against us last year, he was 5-17 from deep and just an overall 7 for 25 from the field. So he'll put up points, but he'll essentially cancel those out with wasted possessions. That being said, Jontel will have his work cut out for him. He's athletic enough on defense to give Bub some trouble.
SG: Sammy Zeglinski vs. Durand Scott- Both players enter this game on fire offensively. Sammy has had 37 pts the past two games, shooting 12-24, 8-15 from deep. Scott has averaged 16.5pts over the past 4 games. He has shot 26-42 (62%), but hasn't done much from behind the arc all year. He's really good off of the dribble, much quicker than Sammy, but hopefully the pack-line will do its job on him. I'm going to give Sammy an edge because I think he'll be able to get more open shots against a defense that isn't exactly known for playing hard.
SF: Joe Harris vs. Dequan Jones- Jones is sort of a poor man's Justin Anderson: an athletic wing whose leap allows him to play bigger, but his quickness keeps him with smaller players. While I think Joe can handle him, I expect we'll see Akil and Darion guard him for a little bit too. He's not going to beat us from the perimeter, we can afford to sacrifice some quickness for size and athleticism. He tries to dunk just about everything, but in watching his tape, I doubt he get many easy ones against us. The best comparison with guys we've faced this year is Johnny O'Bryant of LSU and Olu Ashaolu of Oregon, both of whom we shut down. The big question will be whether, if they put him on Joe, Harris can get open shots. The LSU game was a good test, as Ralston Turner and others really hounded Joe early, not giving him much chance to catch and shoot. He responded nicely but putting the ball on the floor and scoring in deep. Now I think that will be harder to do against Jones, but I think he'll have an easier time finding jumpers. I'll give the edge to Joe for consistency's sake.
PF: Mike Scott vs. Reggie Johnson- Really great matchup here. Don't need to say too much here, as I expect both bigs to get their share of points. Johnson will have a tough time with Mike's range and touch on his shots, and Mike will struggle with Reggie's size and ability to finish. I like Mike in this match for the sole reason of our team defense. We will double team Johnson in the post, and I doubt whether he has the poise to: A) take care of the ball; B) make the pass to the open defender. Despite what many "experts" will tell you, I doubt the result of the game will hinge on this matchup, unless one of them has a really off night.
C: Assane Sene vs. Kenny Kadji- Now I expect we'll see some of Akil and Darion on Kadji to match up with his ability to step out. I actually really like Darion in this matchup, but we'll see what Tony decides to do. Anyways, Kadji had a career best 30 of his team's 99 points against UNCG. Now I highly doubt he puts up anything close to 30, as most of his points were simply Kadji taking advantage of a helter-skelter game. If tomorrow looks anything like the Greensboro game, we'll have far bigger problems than what Kenny Kadji does. Either way, Kenny is a better all around player that Assane. I'm afraid this could be another game where Zu finds himself in early foul trouble, but like I said, I do like the matchup of Akil/Darion on him. Still, Kadji has the edge.
Bench: With all of the tranfers UVA has suffered along with the questions of roster depth, surely I would take Miami's bench over ours? Not exactly. I like our bench in this matchup because I really think guys like Brogdon, Mitchell, and Atkins will have a much bigger impact on the outcome of the game. While they might not show it on the scoreboard, although I think Malcolm is due for a breakout game, our bench guys should really help out on defense. Miami's main bench guys are Shane Larkin, Rion Brown, Trey Mckinney Jones. Larkin is a short PG who can shoot it from deep, but I doubt he'll give us much trouble. Brown and McKinney Jones are big guards, kind of in the mold of Malcolm. All three of them will look to hit a couple threes when they're on the court.
I expect revenge to play a large role in this game. Hopefully, it will be a positive role, as we get ahead early, shoot well, and play stingy defense. Otherwise, we could play tight, putting too much pressure on ourselves. This is a game that I would expect previous years' teams to come out flat and lose, but I think this team is different. I'll go ahead and call this one a 63-52 Win for the Hoos.
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