Friday, January 07, 2005
GET YOUR UNION OLIMPIJA JERSEYS HERE
League plays starts tomorrow, with two particularly intriguing matchups, and two particularly boring ones. But that's the way it's going to be for all but two gamedays, when Army and Navy play each other.
The game I'll be at is Lehigh at AU (shocking, I know). But before I get into what is going to happen, let's take a look at what happened between these two squads last year.
Lehigh beat AU three times last year, with a thriller at AU, a blowout on Mountain Hawk Hill, and a game that was decided by a friendly bounce off Jason Thomas' foot in the PL final. The two standouts from all three contests were Senior point guards Andres Rodriguez and Austen Rowland.
Rowland, you may remember, is not my favorite player of all time. I think the words "punk" were used at one point. But my personal prejudices aside, Rowland is doing well for himself in Deutschland, averaging 19 PPG for FC Kaiserslautern.
Rodriguez is playing a little further east for a Slovenian team (I wonder if he is staying with Matej Cresnik's family?). Andres led his team to the "Slovenian Supercup", which we can only imagine is similar to a superbowl ring, except for basketball, and in a country that prefers soccer. Okay, that's downplaying it a bit. There is actually considerable interest in the team, and they participate in the Euroleague with teams like Real Madrid. You can follow Andres' Excellent European adventure at the Union Olimpija web site. The team seems to be struggling thus far. If you feel like gambling on something none of us really know anything about, then you can also bet on Rodriguez's squad. There's also a place on the Euroleague website where you can play fantasy basketball with a bunch of players you never heard of. Best of luck.
Onto the current stuff.
Lehigh-AU
Like I said earlier in the week, Lehigh has been disappointing so far, losing games it ought to win. While Jose Olivero is continuing to get better, both he and Joe Knight have terrible shooting percentages. Olivero is hitting 32% of his shots and Knight is getting 37%. Jason Mbegroff is doing well offensively, but is averaging only 3.2 rebounds in only 20 minutes of action per game. I'm curious why they would limit his minutes so much. It probably has something to do with his 3.5 or so fouls per game.
AU has lost three of four, two of which they should have lost, and one of which was the embarassment against LaSalle. The key for them in this game is to limit the perimeter play of LU. If it's a close game, then they might want to pull Linas Lekavicius at the end, since his <50% free throw percentage doesn't inspire confidence. I think AU will take this one, looking for revenge from last year.
HC-Bucknell
Chris at Hoop Time seems to think this is going to be a very close game, as do the stats (which he shows). And who am I to argue with Chris or mathematics?
But I'm going to anyway. Chris points out that the season series last year was remarkably close, but I'm not sure that means much this season. In my opinion, BU is leaps and bounds above where they were last year, with three legitimate scorers, a deeper bench, and a hulked up Chris McNaughton.
I'm not sure HC is any better than they were last year. They have a little better perimeter game with the development of Keith Hamilton and Keith Simmons (why isn't Simmons starting?), but I'm not sure that offsets the loss of Jave Meade. And their frontcourt is no better than it was last year either, with Lufkin continuing to get into foul trouble and averaging only 25 minutes a game.
I'm sure the HC fans will get pissed, but I really don't see them winning this game, especially at BU. The Bison have too many weapons. I'm going to put out a trademark "prediction I may come to regret" and say that BU wins this one by at least 10.
ACADEMY APATHY
The bottom four teams in the league play each other Saturday as well. Army is at Colgate and Navy travels to Lafayette. Navy might give LC a scare, but neither game should be won by the academies. Not much else to say there.
The All OOC team is coming up later. Stay tuned. @ 9:40 AM
League plays starts tomorrow, with two particularly intriguing matchups, and two particularly boring ones. But that's the way it's going to be for all but two gamedays, when Army and Navy play each other.
The game I'll be at is Lehigh at AU (shocking, I know). But before I get into what is going to happen, let's take a look at what happened between these two squads last year.
Lehigh beat AU three times last year, with a thriller at AU, a blowout on Mountain Hawk Hill, and a game that was decided by a friendly bounce off Jason Thomas' foot in the PL final. The two standouts from all three contests were Senior point guards Andres Rodriguez and Austen Rowland.
Rowland, you may remember, is not my favorite player of all time. I think the words "punk" were used at one point. But my personal prejudices aside, Rowland is doing well for himself in Deutschland, averaging 19 PPG for FC Kaiserslautern.
Rodriguez is playing a little further east for a Slovenian team (I wonder if he is staying with Matej Cresnik's family?). Andres led his team to the "Slovenian Supercup", which we can only imagine is similar to a superbowl ring, except for basketball, and in a country that prefers soccer. Okay, that's downplaying it a bit. There is actually considerable interest in the team, and they participate in the Euroleague with teams like Real Madrid. You can follow Andres' Excellent European adventure at the Union Olimpija web site. The team seems to be struggling thus far. If you feel like gambling on something none of us really know anything about, then you can also bet on Rodriguez's squad. There's also a place on the Euroleague website where you can play fantasy basketball with a bunch of players you never heard of. Best of luck.
Onto the current stuff.
Lehigh-AU
Like I said earlier in the week, Lehigh has been disappointing so far, losing games it ought to win. While Jose Olivero is continuing to get better, both he and Joe Knight have terrible shooting percentages. Olivero is hitting 32% of his shots and Knight is getting 37%. Jason Mbegroff is doing well offensively, but is averaging only 3.2 rebounds in only 20 minutes of action per game. I'm curious why they would limit his minutes so much. It probably has something to do with his 3.5 or so fouls per game.
AU has lost three of four, two of which they should have lost, and one of which was the embarassment against LaSalle. The key for them in this game is to limit the perimeter play of LU. If it's a close game, then they might want to pull Linas Lekavicius at the end, since his <50% free throw percentage doesn't inspire confidence. I think AU will take this one, looking for revenge from last year.
HC-Bucknell
Chris at Hoop Time seems to think this is going to be a very close game, as do the stats (which he shows). And who am I to argue with Chris or mathematics?
But I'm going to anyway. Chris points out that the season series last year was remarkably close, but I'm not sure that means much this season. In my opinion, BU is leaps and bounds above where they were last year, with three legitimate scorers, a deeper bench, and a hulked up Chris McNaughton.
I'm not sure HC is any better than they were last year. They have a little better perimeter game with the development of Keith Hamilton and Keith Simmons (why isn't Simmons starting?), but I'm not sure that offsets the loss of Jave Meade. And their frontcourt is no better than it was last year either, with Lufkin continuing to get into foul trouble and averaging only 25 minutes a game.
I'm sure the HC fans will get pissed, but I really don't see them winning this game, especially at BU. The Bison have too many weapons. I'm going to put out a trademark "prediction I may come to regret" and say that BU wins this one by at least 10.
ACADEMY APATHY
The bottom four teams in the league play each other Saturday as well. Army is at Colgate and Navy travels to Lafayette. Navy might give LC a scare, but neither game should be won by the academies. Not much else to say there.
The All OOC team is coming up later. Stay tuned. @ 9:40 AM
