#338 R.P.I. North Carolina A&T @ #141 R.P.I. Virginia Tech:
Well, in brief this North Carolina A&T squad just got done by D-III, Roanoke!
Yes, I-81 little ole nothing happening even on a D-III level, Roanoke!
87-94 the ‘rong way vs. Division III is not a good basketball pathfinder men.
Not at all.
And Roanoke is so meager, that ESPN.com has not even filled out their webpage! (although +1 just for having one)
http://espn.go.com/ncb/team/_/id/2522/roanoke-maroons
So PROPers to the neighboring Maroon’s basketball program and yah; that pretty much puts this one in “Name that Score” perspective for Buzz and company right there.
This one is already over, and as you will read at the bottom, I’m willing to wager “I’ll eat my words” in another round of Beat the ‘street.
North Carolina A&T at a glance:
- 3o6th in Rebounding Margin (-7.4 rpg)
- 317th in 3-point shooting (25.4%)
- 318th in scoring O (64.2 ppg)
- 329th in 3-point FG defense allowed (41.4%)
- 335th in ppg allowed (87.6 ppg)
Returning Starters=all
A&T Strengths:
- Bruce Beckford, that’s it. He is a strength!
- no, seriously, talk about a 1-trick pony, well this is it! As it is all weak sauce after ^that^.
“Bruuuuuuuuuce!” - #32, 6’7” 210 lb. senior S/F anywhere else and I like what he’s about. Might even be a lowercase overseas Pro. As this is the one Aggie who could not only help us out, he’d prolly start for coach Buzz. All ’round game from an all ’round kid. Bruce can shoot the 3 (36%), he gets to the charity-stripe (24 FTA’s already), he defends (1.8 spg), he rebounds (team leading 8.4 rpg) and he scores (18.8 ppg)! He also leads the Aggie’s in dimes dropped (2.9 apg) and is second in FG-percentage (49%). Might as well have him car-hop and go valet and park the cars while you are at it; and can you say hands-down unanimous Team M.V.P.? Maybe even the M.E.A.C. Player of the year? And after you are done saying all of that, stop right there, as is there is not much else -to the good- to say here.
Aggie Weaknesses:
- everything else.
- again, seriously, as this is not a good basketball club.
- NOT at all.
- the Aggies have everyone back, all of the other 4 starters, none of which averages in excess of 8 ppg nor more than 3.5 rpg nor more than 1.3 apg.
- see what I mean?
- This just in … that’s not good sports fans and rain is rumored to be, wet.
- (although I will say that A&T at least has some credible front-line match-up size; unlike our other prior 3 O.O.C. opponents)
N.C.A.&.T. Bench: ( depth=2 )
Loading ...Illation, conclusion (s) and OPT digits:
the takeaway:
The takeaway here is… that NC A&T has been smashed to begin the year…
- 40-81 @ #23 Purdue
- 54-1o4 @ Florida
- the Roanoke upset
- 68-86 vs. Buffalo
And A&T just got beaten by one (72-73 vs. Niagara) on Sunday nite. So I suppose you could call that improvement, although there are crash-test dummies that typically do not get smashed such as this.
Most pre-season magazines had North Carolina A&T tabbed middle to upper-middle of the Mid Eastern Athletic Conference. Thanks mainly to Mr. Beckford, and to a 9 win 2014-2015 hoops club that returned virtually entirely intact.
And yet there are those 23 last season L’s; and they did occur for a reason(s). Now mix in a returning cast that is either unimproved or in regression, sometimes statistically severely; and you have a recipe not only for regression you have a recipe for smashing.
As I for one am not real sure what the pre-season warps saw here because I ain’t seeing much at all; at least not beyond Mister Beckford.
Accordingly, right now I foresee a much needed Hokie blowout victory vs. a road weary looking N.b.a. esque third game in four nights Aggie team. Coach Buzz should get an evaluative look at the end of his bench before this one is finished as I just do see much hope for this M.E.A.C. crew. In particular with such a lowercase bench.
***
As I will print out these words and consume the same if A&T upsets us.
And I likes my crow rare, yet warm.
(99% confidence interval)
Virginia Tech=86, North Carolina A&T=55
“LETS GO!”
“Hokies!”
bourbonstreet**
