Saturday, January 28, 2012

Western Carolina (9-12) @ UNCG (7-14)

When: Saturday, January 28 2 pm
Where: Greensboro Coliseum (7,617/23,500)
TV: None/Spartan All-Access

Western Carolina Athletics

Preseason Preview

12/3 UNCG 69 @ WCU 73 Recap

UNCG Stats
Last Game: Appalachian State (W 77-73 OT) Recap
PPG: 66.8
RPG: 35.1
APG: 11.4
Leader Points: Trevis Simpson (16.2)
Leader Rebounds: Aaron Brackett (4.8)
Leader Assists: Drew Parker (2.5)
FG %: 38.9
3 Pt %: 32.3
FT %: 64.6

Western Carolina Stats
Last Game: Elon (L 63-71) Recap
PPG: 69.4
RPG: 35.3
APG: 10.8
Leader Points: Harouna Mutombo (13.3)
Leader Rebounds: Harouna Mutombo (6.0)
Leader Assists: Trey Sumler (3.9)
FG %: 42.2
3 Pt %: 32.9
FT %: 68.5

Thoughts
UNCG has done a great job of getting themselves into position to make a run at a tournament bye or even a division title. The guys weathered a very rough beginning to the season. However, to really compete for that division title, the Spartans have to continue to win. Victories are especially important when the games are against teams in the North division.

While UNCG and WCU are playing on Saturday, Elon and App State will be competing in Burlington. In order to keep pace with the Pheonix, the Spartans have to find a way to pick up another "W". A Mountaineers win coupled with a Spartans victory would put UNCG alone in first place for the first time in a very long time.

The story for today's game is much the same as the one from Thursday night. UNCG played Western Carolina almost 2 months ago. So much has changed since then that it might as well have been last season. The Spartans are playing with a different attitude and a different style of offense. Added to that is the new found strength of the UNCG bench. Derrell Armstrong has been on a tear over the past three games. In order to beat the Catamounts, he will have to continue his great play.

Western Carolina will play their methodical "Princeton style" offense. It will require UNCG to stay focused on the defensive end and to not get frustrated and impatient. This could translate into poor shots on the offensive end.

I'm thinking the strong performance on Thursday night will lead to a very nice home crowd again today. It's nice to see such enthusiasm building up around the program. I hope the team continues to stay hungry and play hard. Go Spartans !!!

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

If Henry could become a defensive and offensive beast that he is capable of we could win the Sothern conference I believe like it or not that he has to improve significantly for the teams continued sucess-- He capable of dominating a game for short period of times based on his size along--I know we have not seen him dominate all year long but if he could reach the energy level of the other players he could be a key--We wore ASU out with our defense- You could see the shocked look on Apps face as they were thinking damn these guys are not going away--Yesterday was not pretty but another W-- Armstrong remains me of a great college player from the past by the name of Calvin Duncan who played for Virginia Commonwealth back in the day when they had some very good teams.