#243 R.P.I. Grambling State @ #151 R.P.I. Virginia Tech:

Grambling State, yes, the Bayou Classic halftime battle of the bands (vs. Southern) on B.E.T. Grambling State is coming to town Saturday nite.

And it is too bad they are not bringing that band.
As that makes for about as jacked up of a college band and dance squad as your intermission can hope to get.

That’s the orchestration bad news.
The good news is they are expected to bring their men’s basketball team, which is a lotta things; one of them not being good.

I like Grambling, I respect Grambling, I always have.

Although this is just not a quality D-1 men’s hoops program folks. As that 243 real-time R.P.I. is really strength of schedule, inflated. Grambling State at a glance:

Tigers Returning Starters=4

G.S.U. Strengths:

• If there is something of a surprise to the good to be conjured here, #2 Nigel Ribeiro is it. Nigel is a shorty 5’9” lead-Guard in his rookie year in a homecoming of sorts as he hails from the Commonwealth’s very own Chesapeake, Va. A team leading 14 ppg does not suck, neither does a team leading 2.7 apg nor a team leading 1.6 spg. Smiling happy-go-lucky natural leader who will only improve. Prolly a bit of a sleeper pick for Southwestern Athletic Conference rookie of the year in fact.

  

• Ervin Mitchell and Remond Brown rebound the ball okay. Mitch’ gets you 8.2 ppg with a team leading 5.2 boards as a 6’4” junior year shooting-G, and Brown nets you 9.7 ppg and a second best 5.1 rebounds at 6’4” and 200 lbs. as an off-Guard. Mitchell is by far and away the team leader in 3-point shooting, 42%.
• Mitchell however has been hurt for the last four games and his status is Questionable for Saturday night.
• ahhhhhhh, errrrrrrrrrr, ahhhhhhh… that’s about it.

G.S.U. Weaknesses:

• almost, everything… seriously.  : (
• Including the Grambling Roster page which does NOT list weights!!! (no joke)
• 6’6” senior 215 lb. Swing Mark Gray had been mentioned as the king Tiger by several publications. A team wide 5th best in scoring (5.9 ppg) and 4 rpg. Down 7% from the floor, down 6% from range and his scoring nearly cut in half is just not what these generally lame Tigers needed.
• only 3, that’s three, Tigers have 10 or more offensive boards, so far!
• CBSSports listed Grambling as the worst team in all of D-1!

Tigers Bench: (depth=3 or 4 deep, everyone of which is a G, only 1 of which is >6’2”, i.e. the smallest pine squad I can recall in many a year!)

Illation, conclusion (s) and OPT digits:

the takeaway:
The takeaway here is… one preview I read for this one had Virginia Tech winning by 40. All of my pre-season magazines have Grambling State tabbed 10th in the 10 horse race for the Southwestern Athletic Conference title and nobody caught any Tigers by the all-Southwestern all-conference tail. Typically you see at least one guy getting some all-Conference run, though not this time nor from this team.

---

These Tigers have won four D-1 men’s basketball games, in three and a third years. This includes going o for D-1 last year, and being nearly o for this entire year alike.  As 1-8 is Grambling State right now.

That being said, a couple of my pre-season reads did hint that coach Shawn Walker hit upon a pretty decent recruiting class last time out. So help may be on the way; and yet a whole lotta help is needed here. As last year (2014-2015), Grambling State finished dead-last in offense in all of D-1 and 10th worst in defense to boot! Only one direction to up from there sports-fans … up.

***

Still, Grambling could win.

Ana Ivanovic could come to her senses and wanna marry me, right after I find a gaggle of bigfeets, every eighth mothman, splash at least one mother-ship boggy; and domesticate them, all…  in full.

Or in other words, prolly not gonna happen. As this would be a colossal upset of truly epic proportions. Possibly even a career low-point epic for a guy like coach Buzz.

I suppose that could happen; I just see no plausible way that it does. Short of we show up on Sunday for this Saturday night game.

 

(99% confidence interval)
Virginia Tech=1oo,  Grambling State=55

“LETS GO!”

“Hokies!”

 bourbonstreet**