January 3, 2008, 7:00 p.m. (PST)
UCSB opens up their Big West campaign for the NCAA tournament with a showdown against the Big West's NCAA representative from last year, LBSU.
LSBU is a having a down year this year. Their coach, Larry Reynolds, got fired last year after leading the team to the NCAA tournament. What intrigued TGM more than the firing was the hiring of Dan Monson (and futuristic Tyler Hansbrough), formerly of Minnesota. Monson, if you recall, was the coach of Gonzaga when they made the Elite 8 several years ago, losing to Stanford in a close one.
Personally, TGM fears the Monson because of his Gonzaga experience. He can sell that to his potential recruits. And, since he took a program to the NCAA tournament and he coached Gonzaga, TGM fears that he may be able to up the quality of recruits that the Beach typically gets. TGM emailed Ken Pomeroy months ago asking his opinion on Monson. Ken Pom told TGM not to fear the Monson. Regardless, TGM still has a little bit of fear when the name Dan Monson is brought out.
Here is the tale of the tape, as always, found on kenpom.com:
UCSB: http://www.kenpom.com/sr.php?team=UC%20Santa%20Barbara
LBSU: http://www.kenpom.com/sr.php?team=Long%20Beach%20St.
This year, UCSB is the team playing the faster pace (71.1). LBSU's defense is not very good this year. They're allowing a good amount of points and I think UCSB should be able to exploit the Beach's defensive deficiencies. Also, LBSU has been getting killed by the better opponents they faced this year (BYU, Washington and Cal). While UCSB has also been beaten by the good opponents they played (UNC and Stanford), I think UCSB has a very good shot of winning this game. LBSU just doesn't look very good and I think UCSB has the advantage in this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment