I don't like College of Charleston much, and I've made not secret of that over the years. I don't know that I dislike them as much as some Cougar fans seem to dislike this blog and other Moc fans.
But- and make absolutely no mistake about this- the Cougars are the best team the Mocs have faced yet this year. Yep- better than Indiana. Certainly better than Butler. Clearly better than Kennesaw State, Savannah State, Warren Wilson, and Gardner-Webb. More than likely better than Georgia Southern by a pretty good margin. So this is an absolutely astronomical challenge for the Mocs.
The Cougars feature Trent Wiedeman, Antwaine Wiggins, and Adjehi Baru inside. How did UCF beat this team? By slowing down those guys. The only chance any team has is to slow down those guys and hope that they can somehow force the Cougars to miss some shots. Not that that is likely to work. Andrew Lawrence has made 14 of 28 three pointers, for 50% shooting. So, maybe letting them shoot isn't the best. Just got to hope they are cold. Wiggins has made 12 of 34 threes so far this year and is shooting nearly 49% from the floor. He is averaging 17.5 points per game and 5.8 rebounds. Honestly, he is the favorite for the player of the year at this point.
Wiedeman is second on the team in scoring with 11.8 points per game and 8.0 rebounds per game. He leads the team in rebounding. He is a very solid player. He has improved this year and become an even more solid player. Baru is second on the team in rebounding with 6.3 rebounds per game, and is scoring 8.5 points per game. Watching him, you can see some improvement on offense happening. He is going to be much better as the season goes along. He is a really talented player. He is living up to the hype so far. Maybe not the Player of the Year hype, but he is living up to the hype of Newcomer of the Year.
Matt Sundberg is still bouncing back from not playing last year. He has just been OK. Truthfully, if the Cougars want to advance a long way in the NCAA Tournament (which they have the talent to do), they probably need Sundberg to get a little bit more improved.
Lawrence is not only a great shooter, but also leads the team in assists with 5.0 per game.
The Cougars are not a tremendous defensive team. They are OK on that end, but are probably not quite as good as some of the other SoCon teams, such as Wofford, Furman, Elon, and Davidson. They are good, though. They have allowed between 57 and 74 in every game this year, only more than 70 only once- in their loss to UCF. They are good, but not great.
On offense, they are 80th in the country in scoring and 39th in field goal percentage. They are not a great rebounding team, which may be the one place the Mocs have a slight edge...if they can turn around their recent trend to really struggle in that department.
The Mocs have no match-up advantage against the Cougars with the way they are playing. The good thing is that the Mocs do have the ability to match-up inside with the Cougars a bit. They have more ability to match-up down there with Zlovaric, Early, Bryant, Mason, and Burroughs than many teams in the SoCon. They still do not have an advantage there though. There is a chance that if Bell and Wattad and Taylor were playing better they could have a slight edge at those positions combined- but they aren't playing well enough at the moment. Therefore, they do not match-up well with the Cougars.
KEYS TO THE GAME
--Rebounding. The Mocs have been beaten on the boards in their last three games, and lost key offensive rebounds to both Gardner-Webb and Georgia Southern. They will have to do significantly better against College of Charleston to manage to hang around in this one.
--Shooting. The Mocs will need to be able to hold down the Cougars shooting from long range to be able to clog up the lane. A little bit of luck on some missed threes wouldn't hurt the Mocs any.
--Turnovers. The Mocs need to protect the ball.
--Let the athleticism show. The Cougars have a lot of athleticism. So do the Mocs. The Mocs need to let their athleticism show in this one, and match the Cougars intensity.
--Put the first three weeks behind them. The Mocs don't want to have to keep on reliving these last three weeks. They need to get over it and play the way they are capable. If they do, they can hang around in this one.
LEAD PIPE LOCK PREDICTIONS THAT ARE SURE TO GO WRONG
--Lawrence will score at least 25 points.
--Wiggins will not have his best game of the year, but will still be too much for any Moc to handle.
--Baru will have his best offensive game yet.
--Bell will continue to struggle.
--College of Charleston 79, Mocs 56. The Mocs are not playing even remotely well enough to think that they can come up with this win. I'd love it if they proved me wrong, but I don't see it at this point. The Cougars are really close to being a Top 25 team, and if they are a Top 25 team, the Mocs don't have a shot without playing their best game in years.
GO MOCS!
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