The Hokies dont have any time to sit and stew about the loss to Northern Iowa yesterday that dropped them to 2-2 on the season as they get the Redhawks of Miami(Ohio) this evening as the conclusion of the Cancun Challenge slate. Tech should be about equal with this opponent, as the Redhawks beat Liberty earlier this month by a similar score to what Tech managed. The Redhawks are coming off a loss yesterday to NorthWestern by nine so will also be looking to get back on the winning track.
The Redhawks are led by a trio of guards. Geovonie McKnight(#0), Will Sullivan(#3), and Eric Washington(#33) all average over 10 points and 3 rebounds per game in over 30 minutes of playing time so getting even contribution from all three of these players is critical to the success of Miami(Ohio). Sullivan especially needs to have a hand in his face outside the arc as he is shooting over 60% from three point land on 11-18 shooting. Miami seems to suffer from the same woes as we do from the charity stripe, shooting a miserable 58%. They seem to rely on a four guard set on the floor, rotating three big men to get their 40 minutes a game. LJ Livingston(#12) seems to be the primary big at 6'10, 190 lbs, so both of our bigs should have a size/weight advantage so hopefully they stay out of foul trouble and can produce big results today.
On defense, the Redhawks employ a pack-line defensive scheme, which is designed to ensure that all shots are taken outside the lane and contested. The first instinct here is to keep inside position so our shooters will have to be on point tonight and it will be critical that either our PG or through the bigs, we rotate the ball inside the lane to create space for our shooters. Opponents so far are shooting 47% against this team so its obvious teams are getting open looks.
Both teams appear to be dreadful at the line, somewhat careless with the basketball (Tech 13 TO/Miami 14 TO pg), both are middlin at shooting the three, and they appear to both get in early foul trouble as a whole. One area that Tech seems to be better in is scoring efficiency, scoring 1.03 Points Per Possession compared to Miami 0.92 PPP. This gets back to Buzz focus on Possessions and Paint Touches. Both teams are averaging 63 possessions per game so I would expect a higher number than that this evening, probably close to 70 per team.
I expect this to be a back and forth game that hopefully Tech can come out on top of as we seem to have better options at the big and as long as our shooters hit their shots. The area of concern of course is experience and that nod goes to Miami(OH) this year.
Tech 75, Miami(OH) 72
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