Longwood Preview: Now Is The Time!

It's a huge week for the Chattanooga Mocs basketball team and their fans. This is the week the Mocs have been pointing to since the loss to Mercer more than two weeks ago. In between, the Mocs hammered Spalding and Hiwassee and were beaten by Kentucky. No big surprises there. Now they face teams more their own size. If the Mocs don't come out and show up in these two Dr Pepper Classic games, then the season really could start sliding drastically.

The Longwood Lancers are their first opponent, and the Lancers are not a bad team. They play slightly up-tempo basketball, rankings 80th in the country in scoring and are 24th in the country in assists per game. Life as independent is not easy, and they have played a challenging schedule. They did beat VMI by 21 points just a couple of weeks ago, and the Keydets are not a bad team.

Antwan Carter is 6-6 and has been a dominating force for the Lancers. He is averaging 17.1 points per game and 9.0 rebounds per game. This is down slightly from his numbers a year ago, when he scored 18.2 and averaged 9.5 rebounds per game. He is also shooting 54.8% from the floor. He will be tough to handle for anyone, but Drazen Zlovaric will draw the task. Zlovaric has been getting better defensively and could also present some real size challenges offensively. That's true nearly every game though, and Carter seems to hold his own.

Jeremiah Bowman is the second leading scorer, averaging 13.3 points per game. He also averages 5.6 assists per game. He is shooting 49% from the floor. His defensive challenge will be Keegan Bell. That should be an interesting match-up of point guards, with Bell ranking eighth nationally in assists per game.

Tristan Carey is third on the team in scoring, but second in rebounds and assists. He is averaging 11.8 points per game, 4.9 rebounds per game, and 3.1 assists per game. Carey is 6-4.

This is a Lancers team that shoots nearly 40% of their shots from three point range and make 37% from behind the arc.

The Mocs should have the big size advantage on Longwood and are starting to creep up in points per game. The Mocs now rank 127th in the country in points per game. Of course, playing Hiwassee and Spalding will help in that regard.

KEYS TO THE GAME

--Rebounding. The Mocs have the size advantage. They just have to take advantage of that edge, which they have failed to do on several occassions this year.
--Controlling Carter. He is one tough cookie. The Mocs will need Zlovaric, and possibly Mason or Burroughs to step up and shut down Carter. They can do it. They just need to step up and do it.
--Bell vs. Bowman. Both like to dish the ball. Bowman likes to dribble drive a lot, as well. This could be a very interesting match-up of two very good point guards.
--Desire. The Mocs are the better team. But they have played up and down to their D1 competition this year. They need to show that they can beat a D1 team that they should beat and not play down to the competition.

LEAD PIPE LOCK PREDICTIONS THAT ARE SURE TO GO WRONG

--Omar Wattad will put up his best numbers in a while after having over a week off.
--Keegan Bell will continue to add to his all time assist total, coming up with at least eight.
--Zlovaric won't be able to control Carter, but he will score enough points to balance him out.
--Z Mason will have another big game.
--Mocs 80, Longwood 68. The Mocs should win this game, but they have not been playing well against teams they should beat this year. But something tells me that this is the game where they show what they should do. They have been waiting to take on some team that was their own size since Mercer. They have been slowly getting better, and this game it should show up, at least to some degree.

GO MOCS!