I'm a bit behind on this one... we're heading to AZ for the weekend for a wedding and so unfortunately I'm missing out on the season opener (weak, I know). Still, had to work late and couldn't get the post out until now. To all of those in DSM, root hard, we need a win rolling into the ISU game!
-dutl
Five Questions for the Home Opener
(1) Why should I get rowdy on the Jaguars?
It’s the Drake season opener! If that’s not enough for you, let me try to find a reason that you should get rowdy.
Their home gym is called “The Jungle”. Actually, that’s not that bad. If done right, I think that would actually be pretty cool. Especially if they blared “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N Roses before games.
Okay, well try this. Their athletic website really pushes that George Hill went to school there. Hill was the 26th pick in the 2008 NBA Draft and grew up in Indiana with the “Magnificent Seven” of Greg Oden, Mike Conley Jr., Josh McRoberts, Rodney Carney, Eric Gordon, Courtney Lee, and Hill. So here’s a good reason for you to get rowdy on IUPUI: The player they claim (George Hill) grew up playing basketball with Courtney Lee. Since Lee was a member of the 2007-2008 Western Kentucky basketball team, as a Drake basketball fan, I’ve already given you enough reason.
(2) Getting serious now, who has IUPUI played so far, and how did they fare?
The Jaguars opened up by annihilating Anderson University, a Division III opponent, by 35 points. Final score was 95-60. They followed that up by handling St. Joseph’s College (no, not that St. Joseph’s – easy there, Jameer Nelson) by a score of 86-62.
It’s hard to put in perspective what that even tells us. I would almost just throw out the Anderson game and focus on St. Joseph’s College. Their conference is fairly comparable to (but doesn't look to be as deep as) Upper Iowa's, and it features Bellarmine which is ranked #2 in all of D-2. They’re also picked to finish third in their division (a five team division). Given that, it’s not outrageous to consider St. Joseph’s to be a fairly close proxy to what Upper Iowa was.
Let's look back to last year. IUPUI returns six of the seven players that received significant minutes on last year’s 16-14 squad that finished 9-9 in the Summit League and lost to Southern Utah in their first game of the Summit Conference Tournament. Last year’s squad had several close misses against quality teams (lost 59-58 against Arizona State, 55-52 against North Dakota State) or teams from higher conferences (60-57 @ Indiana, 64-57 @ UMass). Now all of these are not top notch squads, but there are two NCAA tournament teams in there and a few other teams from higher conferences. Lots of road games in there where they showed up and gave a higher conference team a really tough battle. Given their experiences from that, I’d be surprised if they get too rattled at Drake.
They didn't have just a bunch of close misses. They did win 67-65 at Seton Hall. Not a great team, but again, a notable win. Also, they beat down Indiana State 62-41.
To be honest, at that point in time last year, Indiana State was playing absolutely awful basketball. Still, they held Harry Marshall to 4-12 shooting for 8 points. In Marshall’s next game at UNI, he went off for 23 points in their 85-84 win. So I’m not ready to just quantify his poor game against IUPUI as being rusty in his third game back (he missed the first several games last year if you recall).
(3) Who do we need to keep tabs on?
Robert Glenn #23, Senior 6-7 F. Glenn posted a line of 13.9 PPG / 5.4 RPG. He doesn’t shoot the long ball (took only 8 threes last year and made none, hasn’t shot one this year) but he was ridiculously efficient as he shot 61% from the field. Blocked 50 shots last year, and had 5 in their exhibition against SJC. He also scored 19 in that game. Turned the ball over at a rate of 2.5 per game last year and had 9 combined in the two exhibition games this year.
Alex Young #5, Sophomore 6-5 F. Young posted 10.8 PPG, shooting 44% FG and 28.2% from three. He took nearly 1/3 of their shots, leading the team with 291 field goals attempted. Surprising that he took that many shots and still only scored 10 points a game. That said, he’s a consistent scorer (double figures in 18 games, high of 20 just once) that we need to keep tabs on.
Billy Pettiford #54, Senior 6-7 F AND Jon Avery #20, Senior 6-7 F. Averaged 5.2 RPG and 5.9 RPG, respectively last year. Both had double digit figures in combined rebounds in their exhibition games. They don’t seem to be stars of their team, but if we have our rebounding troubles, these guys could potentially wreak havoc on the interior.
(5) What’s your prediction?
Their other player with significant experience is Leroy Nobles, but he’s a 6-5 G-F tweener. All of the guys I mentioned above are forwards or guard-forward wings. To be honest, that just leaves returnee John Ashworth (limited contributor last year) and Greg Rice (freshmen) to run the point. That's a lot different of a story than last year, considering they lost significant contributor 5-10 Gary Patterson to graduation.
It is true that Ashworth has started off hot with 10 assists to 0 turnovers in their first two exhibition games. Still, despite Ashworth’s play, IUPUI struggled to take care of the basketball against SJC. Part of that was quoted in the press release to be careless play, but I question whether they’re going to be able to easily handle our press. If we can force another high turnover amount (maybe even in the 20s) that’s going to be critical to us speeding up the tempo and getting easy baskets.
I say speeding up the tempo, because I imagine that they’re going to want to slow things down. Look at all of the scores above from last year. On the road against quality teams, IUPUI wanted to grind it out and keep scores in the 50’s and 60’s. Given their lack of depth at three point shooting and experience at the 1, I don’t think they want to get into an up and down game. I think Phelps would probably like for it to get more in the open court with where the freshmen are more comfortable. However, given IUPUI’s team experience, I think they’re going to be fairly successful at keeping the game in the 60s, even on the road.
That said, I like our chances in a close one at home. This is going to be a tougher matchup than some think.
Drake 66, IUPUI 63
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