#314 R.P.I. Lamar @ #166 R.P.I. Virginia Tech:

Coach Buzz and Virginia Tech return home after winning something of a revenge game vs. neighboring Radford down in the New River Valley on last Wednesday nite to host Lamar in a pre-Star Wars The Force Awakens Sunday matinee.

Prior to coach Tic Price’s arrival at Lamar, Lamar had won 7 basketball games.

In 2 years!

Last year Lamar soared to an even or .5oo record in-conference and overall; something that nobody this side of Tic Price or momma Tic Price expected. So this guy can prolly coach, as in the verb.

That being said, there are some peculiarities to this one, that make it seem pretty lopsided to me. (see: closer)

Even if coach Tic Price is the best kept secret in the mostly state of Texas based Southland Conference.

Lamar at a glance:

• 8th in offensive rebounding (16 orpg)
• 16th in 3-point FG defense allowed (26.8%)
• 16th most in FTA’s  (23.6/game)
• 54th in defensive FG percentage allowed (38.8%)
• 60th in scoring O (81.1 ppg)
• 343th most personal fouls per game (25.9 “tweets”)
• no injuries listed

Returning Starters=2

Lamar Strengths:

• pseudo strengths and maybe even a pleasant surprise or two is what I see here.
• #3 Nick Garth: a 5’11” 185 lb. rookie with a 6’2” hair style who is leading the Cardinal in scoring at 14.6 ppg. Had a rep’ as a sparky play-maker who could shoot in high school; and that appears to be transitioning just fine into college. Decent shooter so far in college, plucky, fearless, floor leader at the Point. Only D-1 offer was however from Lamar. Seems a bit more interested in offense than defense at this stage; at least to me.

  

• Lincoln Davis and Kevin Booze (who may or may not be fun at parties) round out the 3-Guard coach Tic Price offensive set.
• Lincoln Davis is a very pointy elbow wiry looking Pt.Guard from my hometown of Pittsburgh, Pa. He is 6’1” 171 lbs. in his third season and likewise at his third college. As he began at Fairfield, transferred and did well enough to reach the N.J.C.A.A. championship game at Guided South Plains, and then transferred again to Lamar. Itinerant though he may be, he is -and by far- the best on-the-ball backcourt defender to wear the Cardinal itself. Seems to be more of a lead or shoot first (and second, and third) Pt.Guard to me. Nets you 12.4 ppg and contributes an 6th best in in-conference 2.o spg.
• 5’10” 170 lb. Kevin Booze is a real sparkplug looking chap. Blocky and thick set as muscularity goes in his second season and he has already earned 2 Southland Player of the Week honors thus far this year. This speaks to the hot/cold or streak nature to this strong though undersized off-Guard offensive game. As Kevin is a pure outside scorer and he can flat out shoot that rock. Almost 12 ppg on 47% from downtown says so. Although he can score in the mid-20’s every big as much as he can tally in the mid single digits. As you never know which temperature Booze you’re gonna get.
• Other than in this game (see: below), team endurance, as every Cardinal less one has played in virtually every single game this year.

Cardinal Weaknesses:

• Top-3 ballers from last year all left one way or the other. Two of the three were pretty decent, including the rookie of the year in the Southland Conference.
• Lamar only courts two guys north of 6’6” and only one guy in excess of 224 lbs.! Typical small college small-ball squad.
• LeMon Gregory is the one serviceable Big here. LeMon goes 6’9” and 254 lbs. in his final year and he gets close to 30 minutes per game off the bench. A pretty smartly ranked recruit outta the basketball happy state of Kentucky in high school who for one reason or the other has bounced around the Ju.Co circuit every since. Very soft touch around the hoop, plays smaller however than he is listed (5.4 ppg and 3 boards).
• S/G (shooting-G), Jr., Marcus Owens leads Lamar in rebounding at 5.o rpg. This from a 6’1” 191 lb. backcourter with a nose for the ball. That reads well enough for Mister Owens, that is not however terribly literate for Lamar overall.

Lamar Bench: (depth=8, yes, eight, as Lamar’s playing rotation goes 13 peeps on most nights)

Illation, conclusion (s) and OPT digits:

the takeaway:

The takeaway here is… Lamar be tired, yo’. No, not that Las Vegas raunch’ Lamar, this Lamar, from Beaumont Texas. Who just balled Saturday  @Liberty and is basically playing a very N.b.a. esque’ or professional back-to-back. Therefore, Virginia Tech really should have quite the fresh legs advantage check-mark; being +4 in rest and all.

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Whereas Lamar is playing this one on about an ~20 hour turnaround!!!

Ever heard of that one before at the D-1 level this side of Conference Tourney week? Me neither. And that’s just not fair, almost to the point of being, brutal. Sure hope we scratched the Cardinal’s training room a fat check.

According to the overall metrics an the most recent 5 game splits -4 of course in the case of Lamar- this one looks like a Hokie VicTory to me. And this just in… rain is rumored to be wet. i.e. no news there…

***

However, I did see some surprising things. As overall these teams are separated by 2 ppg, 1.6% shooting from the floor, 0.6% shooting from range and 2% from the charity-stripe. Strange is it not? In each teams most recent 5 (or 4) games defensively, each team is allowing precisely 72.4 ppg! FG% defense is separated by a mere o.9%; and it was only in defending the 3 that I could summon a true team based differential. With Lamar being the better by 8.3% allowed there. And no, I did not invent the  sudden evenness of this all.

Or in other words, if Lamar were coming in on even rest, or even something passable as fair, I might just have that really screwball version of that ole sinking feeling. As these two hoops team may or may not be as far apart as you had first thought…

(81% confidence interval)
Virginia Tech=79, Lamar=63

“LETS GO!”

“Hokies!”

 bourbonstreet**