Robert Burke's Knowledge About JJ's System Won't Spare His Team a Loss

Goooood evening AU Hoops fans. Hope you're all doing well and have been enjoying your weekend! I'm here to preview tomorrow night's matchup with the Mountaineers of Mt. St. Mary's, which is at 7pm and isn't televised. We'll most likely have a liveblog here per our usual routine.

On paper this is a game that AU should win. The Mount has struggled its way to a 3-8 record and was just blown out playing in Albany 77-57 to a team that we beat by 16 points. By the transitive property, which we all know is rock solid in college basketball, it means we will beat Mt. St. Mary's by 36. Take it to your bookie and bet your house on it.

The Mountaineers have four guys averaging around double figures, but none of them is particularly impressive. Hopefully our backcourt will have a good game against guards that are on their level. Lamar Trice handles the ball extremely well, but he's undersized, even compared to our guards. Hopefully we can keep bodies in front of him and keep him from doing too much on the offensive end.

Look for Lumpkins to rebound (get it?) in this game against an undersized Mount team without a formidable front court. The Unstumpable One was thoroughly stumped against Northwestern, and you have to hope it was just a hiccup or a disagreement he has with the Chicago air.

For the season, Mt. St. Mary's is shooting just 41% from the field. This bodes well for an AU defense that does a good job (usually) limiting its opponents shots and forcing them to take 2nd or 3rd choices in shot selection. Hopefully we can drive that number down to the 35% range and really confound Robert Burke's team on the offensive end.

On our offensive end, I think we're going to have too many weapons for the Mountaineers to keep up with. Inside or outside, I think we're going to overwhelm this team, which gives up an average of 66 a game.

Be on the lookout for whether Hinkle moves into the starting lineup tomorrow night. Some commenters have guessed that he will, but I'll be surprised, and a little disappointed, if Hendra losing his starter status in favor of the newcomer.

We'll see you here tomorrow night!

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!