SMU preview for tonight

[DawgatAuburn]

What we've done well:
Take care of the ball - top 20 in turnovers, turnover margin and A/TO ratio
Generate turnovers - top 30 in turnovers forced and blocked shots, top 10 in steals
Scoring - top 30 in ppg and fastbreak ppg

What we haven't done well:
Free throws - 200+ nationally at 69.4%, but if you take Cam out we are nearly 73%. Guess who leads us in FT attempts?
Rebounding - about 200 in rebound margin, +2 per game
Still not a good three point shooting team, but at least better than past years

What SMU has done well:
Offensive rebounding is top 20
Scoring offense top 15
Top 50ish in 3 pt shooting, turnover margin, FT attempts and FT%.
Do not expect them to shoot a lot of threes, but they shoot it very well (queue up 35 attempts now that I said that)

What SMU hasn't done well:
They foul a lot. Nearly 20 times per game.
Nothing else is really egregiously bad. They haven't been great defending the 3, but you don't have to against us.

Neither team has played a strong schedule thus far. The only halfway decent team SMU has played is Butler, but they are a mid to lower end Big East team this year. Butler beat them by 11 in Indianapolis.

Being a true road game, this feels like a tossup, hence us being a -1.5 favorite while its basically 50/50 on the ESPN predictor. Reminds me of the Ga Tech game last year where they hadn't played well and we walked in to the Thriller Dome undefeated and really weren't much of a threat to ever win that game. Hopefully we get a different result tonight.

Let's say Dogs 76, Mustangs 73.

 

[onewoof]

excellent overview, thank you

would hate to see the charity stripe cause us to lose this one...

 

[Howiefeltersnstch]

They don't have to be good defending the 3 against Hubbard and Clary ?? Hmmm

 

[DawgatAuburn]

They don't have to be good defending the 3 against Hubbard and Clary ?? Hmmm

Of course you have to watch Hubbard. Point is that it's a team sport, and right now without Hubbard, our team is shooting 23% from 3, including 0.0% from Clary. I'd love to see Clary, Kugel and Harris find their stroke tonight but so far this year the only one who has been even halfway decent is Hubbard and he's been unconscious.

 

[Darryl Steight]

Of course you have to watch Hubbard. Point is that it's a team sport, and right now without Hubbard, our team is shooting 23% from 3, including 0.0% from Clary. I'd love to see Clary, Kugel and Harris find their stroke tonight but so far this year the only one who has been even halfway decent is Hubbard and he's been unconscious.

I want Kugel driving and finishing. I want Clary driving and dishing. So we need Claudell to be the spot up shooter who helps Hubbard. Trey Fort was supposed to be that guy last year but never could get it going after the first game.

I think Claudell can be that guy, and will start doing it tonight. If he can just hit 3 or 4 3's we will see this offense come together.

By the way, thanks for this preview. Good stuff.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

Players to know - there are a lot. They will play 11 guys. Four are double figure scorers.

Boopie Miller, yes Boopie. Small guard who leads them in scoring and minutes.
Chuck Harris - off the bench scorer. Excellent three point shooter.
Yohan Traore - was a 5* who came to Auburn and it just didn't work for him here; went to small Cali school last year and now at SMU.
Samet Yiğitoğlu - 7 foot 2 Turkish guy who just got eligible. Has jumped right in and has been a double figure scorer.

They also have Kario Oquendo who lit us up for 28 points when he was at UGA a few years ago. He's since spent a year at Oregon and now he's at SMU.

 

[onewoof]

Of course you have to watch Hubbard. Point is that it's a team sport, and right now without Hubbard, our team is shooting 23% from 3, including 0.0% from Clary. I'd love to see Clary, Kugel and Harris find their stroke tonight but so far this year the only one who has been even halfway decent is Hubbard and he's been unconscious.

I hate to say it but at times we are just Hubbard and a prayer

 

[MSUDC11-2.0]

They’re 68 in KenPom. We’ll see where NET lands later in the year but as a true road game this should be safely Q2 all year, and possibly Q1.

A loss here isn’t a huge deal but a road win like this would be big. They were a 20 win NIT team last year.

 

[57stratdawg]

What we haven't done well:
Free throws - 200+ nationally at 69.4%, but if you take Cam out we are nearly 73%. Guess who leads us in FT attempts?
Rebounding - about 200 in rebound margin, +2 per game
Still not a good three point shooting team, but at least better than past years

I looked it up- it’s Cam**

 

[BirdPuppy]

Claudell is 2/14 from 3 the last two games—will not continue. He’s getting fantastic looks.

 

[Darryl Steight]

I looked it up- it’s Cam**

No fair, you were supposed to guess.

 

[Duggar Hall Desk]

They’re 68 in KenPom. We’ll see where NET lands later in the year but as a true road game this should be safely Q2 all year, and possibly Q1.

A loss here isn’t a huge deal but a road win like this would be big. They were a 20 win NIT team last year.

The word here in ACC land is that SMU will be a solid team for the conference, so I count last night as a "good win" that will help our postseason resume.

 

[BirdPuppy]

The word here in ACC land is that SMU will be a solid team for the conference, so I count last night as a "good win" that will help our postseason resume.

Torvik/KenPom have them 7th in the ACC. Most likely a Q1 win at year end.

 

[eckie1]

The word here in ACC land is that SMU will be a solid team for the conference, so I count last night as a "good win" that will help our postseason resume.

Took my son and some of his buddies last night. SMU played a helluva game, we just were the better team in the 2nd half. But, not by much. We had a damn good representation there, too.


And, there’s no such thing as an SMU stereotype. Those effers are loaded. We were surrounded by 1%ers, even though it was a sparse crowd. And their entitled, brat kids kept climbing over me and not a single “excuse me”. Super stuff.****

Dwayne Wade was there, for some reason. Kinda random.

Nice, intimate arena. Even the higher seats are right on top of the court. I’d go back, for sure.