Saturday: Free basketball ticket for toy donation

[DeacLaw05]

I posted some stuff about this a couple of weeks ago, but I saw Richmond when they played (and lost) at Davidson. They are clearly not the same team that they have been the past couple of seasons. During their warmups before the game, every single player was shooting three-point shots during standard layup line drill. I figured they'd come out and fog up as many threes as they could, but they really didn't take that many during the game.

They also appeared to be pretty guard-dominant. Their best two players/scorers were guards, one of which is a little waterbug type point guard. I think he had about 17 points, most of which came on little floaters in the lane. The refs also sent him to the line a fair amount, as even the slightest contact would send him sprawling around.

None of their bigs made much of an impression--they've got some athletic players, but Davidson owned the glass for the most part. In fact, Davidson was pretty clearly the better team and controlled the game as such. Any normal Wake Forest team would thump a team like this Richmond group without much trouble, but as we know, things are far from normal in the basketball program right now.

 

[Deacsfan27]

Thanks for an actual review of their team. What are your thoughts on our chances with them since you have actually seen them play?

 

[DeacLaw05]

Considering that I occupy a front row seat on the BzzOut Bandwagon, my expectations are not high for the Deacs in this one. Not because I saw much that was overly frightening about Richmond, but because I have a low opinion of our coach's ability to beat even a pedestrian opponent like the Spiders.

That said, Davidson's post players dominated Richmond, both in points and on the glass. I would expect McKie to be able to do his thing and finish with 20 and 10. If he plays well, and if Mescheriakov can manage not to be totally spastic, we should be able to keep the rebound margin somewhere near even (which would be a remarkable accomplishment).

Fields is the only guy we've got that is anywhere near quick enough to stay with that little point guard defensively. However, I also think that Harris and Chennault should be able to use their size/strength to get into the lane on the dribble and break down the defense. They played a lot of matchup zone against Davidson, so some dribble penetration would go a long way to get some good looks at the basket.

Bottom line, if the Deacs make some shots and keep the rebounding margin even, this is a winnable game.