WEEKEND PREVIEW: 100 MILES OF HATE
Click this story if your team is undefeated all-time in Conference USA.
Conference USA basketball features some nasty road trips on this year’s schedule.
Liberty/FIU will feed you to the conference favorites, make you watch FIU’s offense, and catch a few flights in the same weekend. UTEP and New Mexico State might as well play on the moon. The Sam Houston/LA Tech trip brings you the most efficient offense in CUSA, and you spend a night in Ruston. Even our pairing with Jacksonville State, likely the easiest on paper, forces teams to play against polar opposites in tempo from Thursday to Saturday.
From a power rating perspective, Kennesaw State’s first away loop may be the most difficult, though. Depending on which service you prefer, both sides of the 100 Miles of Hate rivalry rank in the top three or four in CUSA, with MTSU at a +2.9 and WKU at a +3.7 in KenPom.
If the early trips out west taught the Owls any lessons during the non-con, we’re a few hours away from putting them to use in the first regional road trip of the season.
@ Middle Tennessee State
Thursday, 1/9 | 7:30 PM ET | ESPN+
Does anything in particular about the Blue Raiders scare you on paper? Not really, which might be the most terrifying thing about Kennesaw’s hosts for the first CUSA game away from home. Nicholas McDevitt’s balanced squad goes ten deep with extreme competency across the board, despite no standout metrics or individual player that carries the load on a game-to-game basis. They’re a textbook upper-middle class team that ranks in the 120/130 range in most power ratings.
Nine different MTSU rotation players with 100+ possessions grade out as a net positive in Evan Miyakawa’s BPR rating, compared with only four +BPR players for KSU. It’s the kind of seasoned group (2.5 years D1 experience on average) that’s given the Owls trouble this year, especially away from the Convocation Center.
Preseason All-CUSA guards Camryn Weston and Jestin Porter returned, plus they’ve added IUPUI transfer Jylnn Counter. Prepare yourself for some absolutely infuriating makes on Thursday night, where you wonder how Counter did that with his floater or what deal the Blue Raiders made with the devil to get some of those bounces.
That level of shot-making results in a tendency for hero ball at times. MTSU’s 39.9% assist percentage ranks dead last in CUSA, in the 2nd percentile nationally. It’s no secret what they’re looking to do on offense, especially looking at the heat maps and how often the Blue Raiders get to the rim. They don’t necessarily make all those shots at an elite rate, but they’re certainly getting there.
Shades of the Rutgers game in a way, where you’ll have a couple ball-dominant opponents looking to force the issue. Pettway will need his whole group, especially Simeon Cottle, active on the defensive end as there aren’t many easy assignments against MTSU. Looking at the guard depth on the other side, tonight would be an ideal time for Ricardo Wright to break out of his current slump, too.
Porter, Counter, and Weston all have 20-point games on the year, giving McDevitt an interesting lineup decision on which two guards to put out there alongside wing Justin Bufford - a guy who’s willing to shoot from anywhere but typically takes a supporting role on offense. Forward Kamari Lands and center Essam Mostafa round out the preferred lineup, though Lands missed the first weekend of CUSA league play to injury.
Mostafa transferred in from TCU and ranks as Miyakawa’s 6th most valuable player in CUSA - posting 12.5 points and 8.8 rebounds a night through the first 15 games of the year. If you mess around on CBB Analytics’ player comp tool, and expand to all seasons in the database, the system spits out 2023 Demond Robinson as the closest match. I don’t like that at all.
When the guards aren’t trying taking over the game, Mostafa will give you some good, ol’ fashioned back-to-the-basket post play. Either way, Kennesaw’s bigs will make use of every last one of their 5 fouls, as usual, if they don’t mind sending the 61.2% FT shooter to the line. If Pettway wants to experiment with a small-ball lineup, especially to prepare for Saturday’s shorter opponents up the road, dragging Mostafa out into some deep waters wouldn’t be the worst way to get a look.
The computers say…
KenPom: MTSU 81, KSU 73
EvanMiya: MTSU 79, KSU 71
T-Rank: MTSU 84, KSU 72
@ WESTERN KENTUCKY
Saturday, 1/11 | 3 PM ET | ESPN+
Like their rivals to the southeast, WKU split the opening weekend, just in a much weirder way. Hank Plona’s Hilltoppers went on a late run to knock off Liberty, CUSA’s early season darling, in a game that looked hopeless for large stretches. Only 10 teams across men’s college basketball this season rescued a result from a lower win probability than WKU’s 1.5%.
…then FIU blew them out 48 hours later.
Believe it or not: WKU plays even faster than Kennesaw, racing out to KenPom’s third-quickest pace in the entire nation. We typically think of tempo teams as inherently offensive-minded. That’s not the case with the Hilltoppers, who will be the stingiest defense in terms of eFG% the Owls have seen since UC Irvine. One stat that jumps out: They’re giving up fewer than 7 fast break points per game, despite that speed.
You don’t see a ton of obvious areas to exploit on the defensive shot chart:
What’s going on with those right corner threes, though? Pettway should send Braedan Lue and Jamil Miller to that exact spot for the entirety of Saturday’s pregame shootaround. Take about a thousand, just to be ready.
WKU’s offensive engine will be Don McHenry, who came to WKU with Plona from JUCO when the Hilltoppers hired him as an assistant last year. Really a fascinating locker room all around, with players from Senegal, Mali, Ireland, and Canada to go along with the expected Kentucky and Tennessee products.
You know how much Kennesaw’s offense relies on Cottle and Wooley? McHenry shoots even more than that for WKU. Take a look at the CUSA rankings for which players take the biggest share of shots, with a few familiar faces.
We’ll also get a closer look at Wooley’s only real competition for CUSA Freshman of the Year - 6’4” guard Julius Thedford. Plona loves this guy, and it’s not hard to see why in the early days of his college career: 11 games in double figures, the lowest turnover rate on the active roster, and some explosive highlights. He’s also drawing 6+ fouls per 40, a scary rate when you think about the Owls’ tendencies.
None of the shooting numbers for the Hilltoppers blow you away, though. Their top three players in usage rate - McHenry, Thedford, and Khristian Lander - all shoot at or below D1 average in eFG%, and the team has only hit the 1 point/possession mark six times all year. In their losses, McHenry shoots just 35% (regular ol’ FG%). Is it as simple as Stop McHenry, Stop the Hilltoppers? No - you still have to score at the other end - but that seems to be the prerequisite if you want a chance.
Miller’s emergence as a defensive force across multiple positions gives Pettway a lot of flexibility against this smaller WKU squad. The most likely solution in man: Miller on the bigger Thedford and Wooley on McHenry, which leaves Cottle with Lander or Bayless, who’s more of a role player. I’ll put a couple chips on the roulette board for Ramone Seals to play a role at some point too.
Will there be a Babacar Faye sighting? WKU’s top forward hasn’t appeared since mid-December as he works his way back from a knee injury. Before going down against Murray State, Faye averaged 15 ppg and just a shade under 8 boards. Combine the fact that he hasn’t practiced plus Plona’s face when local media asked about Faye’s recovery, all signs point to no.
WKU predictably suffers without Faye in the lineup: They’re 17 points worse per 100 possessions, and the rebounding numbers take a nosedive with the senior big man on the sidelines. Leeroy Odiahi backs up Faye and is the only other player taller than 6’7” in the current rotation. Only problem for Plona here: Simply subbing Odiahi in for Faye results in a lineup that’s already a -32 after just 22 minutes on the court.
The lesser of two evils for WKU seems to be slotting in 6’6” Enoch Kalambay, listed as a guard, to play alongside regular starting forward Tyrone Marshall in an ultra small ball lineup. Blaise Keita could be a wildcard at center too, as he continues to recover from an injury of his own.
The computers say…
KenPom: WKU 83, KSU 74
EvanMiya: WKU 83, KSU 73
T-Rank: WKU 84, KSU 75