Samford Preview: New Life

The preview will not be especially long for this game. I'm saving up my best adjective, noun mixes for the SoCon Tournament.

The Mocs looked like they were out of the SoCon North race as late as the second half of the Western Carolina-The Citadel game. And then, suddenly, new life. The Citadel rallied from 21 down to stun a significantly better Western Carolina team at their place. And now, the Mocs need to just beat Samford at Samford and see Western get beaten at home by College of Charleston and the Mocs will win the SoCon North outright. An amazing twist of fate.

Samford has locked up the six seed from the North and will battle the loser of the Furman-Wofford game on Friday of the SoCon Tournament. The Bulldogs began 2-1 in the SoCon. Since then, they have gone 2-12. They won at Georgia Southern by eight and at home against Elon by just two. However, they lose to Wofford twice during that stretch, once by 38, which is not exactly easy to accomplish, and once by just 13, which the Mocs have proven is nearly impossible to do. (Heavy sigh)

Samford is one of the worst rebounding teams in the country. They rank 344th in the country. Of course, Wofford ranked lower than 300th, and the Mocs have not been able to outrebound them either time they played them.

Jeffrey Merritt is the only Bulldog averaging in double digits with 10.5 points per game and 6.4 rebounds per game. But the most dangerous player on the Bulldogs is Josh Bedwell. He shoots nearly 42 percent from three point range. He is either on or off. When he is hitting his shots, he can be a dangerous player. He is almost as likely to put up over 20 points (3 times) as he is to put up zero points (4 times this year).

We all know that Samford plays a very unique style of offense that makes you defend for a full 35 seconds. The Mocs will be required to be one hundred percent focused on the task at hand to guard this Bulldogs team.

KEYS TO THE GAME
--Rebounding. Mocs must dominate the boards against a poor rebounding team to pull off the road win.
--Focus. Maybe it was good to lose to Wofford? At least for this game? If the Mocs had won, it is possible that the focus would not have been there quite as strong for this game. And you can't defend this Samford team without focus. Let's hope Coach Shulman has their focus now.
--Shooting. The Mocs have to shoot better than they did against Wofford or they may not make it out of the 30s because of the pace of the game.

WHAT I'LL DO IF THE MOCS WIN
--Hope like crazy that Western loses to CofC.
--Celebrate a solid 12-6 SoCon record.
--Look forward to the SoCon Tourney and start analyzing the Mocs potential first round match-ups.
--Be pleased about 8-2 against the SoCon North.

WHAT I'LL DO IF THE MOCS LOSE
--Be frustrated about finishing second in the SoCon North.
--Wonder if there is a good match-up in the SoCon Tourney for the Mocs at this point.
--Sigh, take a deep breath, go to bed, try to rest up in preparation for the SoCon Tourney, and remember that tomorrow is another day.

LEAD PIPE LOCK PREDICTIONS THAT ARE SURE TO GO WRONG
--Keegan Bell will show lots of heart playing in his hometown and will have one of his best games.
--The Mocs will rebound better.
--Samford will come out a little flat with nothing left on the line for them except for pride.
--Mocs 64, Samford 53. The Mocs have plenty on the line, and Samford has nothing on the line. If the Mocs don't play with more energy than Samford here, then it will be a really bad sign for the SoCon Tournament for the Mocs. They will come out with more energy. The question is- will the shots fall? If they do, the Mocs will win this one relatively easily. If they don't, the Mocs will be in for a battle to the very end- one they most likely come up short in.

GO MOCS!