Comments on: Robert Morris Game Preview

By: MSU-Robert Morris Open Thread | Spartans Weblog

MSU-Robert Morris Open Thread | Spartans Weblog — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:27:04 +0000

[...] my game preview for anyone who might have missed it. To repeat what I said then: My instincts say this game will [...]

By: Mark in DC

Mark in DC — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:21:56 +0000

Tongue and cheek or not it’s probably just as good a way to make bracket picks as anything else. Pouring over every stat you can get your hands on for hours on end doesn’t seem to work out all that well either.

By: Con-T

Con-T — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:35:33 +0000

Chappell is clearly their star: he plays 80+% of the available minutes and is the NEC player of the year. He merits a heavy dose of Travis Walton. Their 3-point shooting is even better than the team stats indicate: their top three shooters (Chappell, Jimmy Langhurst and Gary Wallace) are all over 40% and Bateko Francisco is at 36%. They are dragged down a bit by the 7-32 shooting of Mezie Nwigwe from beyond the arc. Nwigwe, incidentally, had a brush with the law recently that the University is choosing not to act on until the legal system runs its course (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29607792/).

Our course seems clear: pound it inside, play aggressive man-to-man to force turnovers and try to shut down Chappell and make the other guys beat us. If they get hot from outside, it could get dicey. They’re a pretty strong #15 and even got a sniff of the top 25, receiving one vote in a February poll.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:39:36 +0000

East Lansing most definitely is a seperate entity from Lansing. The other schools mentioned play in the same city where the state capitol building is: Columbus, Baton Rouge, Austin and Salt Lake City. While a stones throw away from the Capitol…MSU is in a different city…semantics, maybe, specious probably…still his selection method is more tongue in cheek than anything.

By: Mark in DC

Mark in DC — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:39:59 +0000

That second guy appears to be geographically challenged, or considers East Lansing to be seperate from Lansing, the State capital, otherwise he would have eliminated us on those grounds.

Not sure what to do in the Allen vs Summers debate – neither one has been very consistent lately. Allen looked pretty good against Minnesota so I say give them both a few minutes and let the one who looks ready to play the majority of the minutes. If neither of them look to be on put Lucious in – he doesn’t seem to have a fear of shooting.

+1 on the rebounding dominance and against Robert Morris we should be able to accomplish it, although that is a high bar. They just don’t have the height or bulk to match us.

By: kj

kj — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:20:05 +0000

Joe Posnanksi likes us too, using a much-less rigorous methodology (and only to get the championship game).

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.c.....f=si_ncaab

Also, this guy’s approach is exactly the opposite of scientific, but I like the result:

http://www.tdtnews.com/story/2009/3/16/56492

By: witless chum

witless chum — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:03:14 +0000

I heard Jim Comparoni from the Rivals MSU site on Sportstalk with Earl Robinson from WKAR (I get it as a podcast).

He said that from watching tapes, Robert Morris looked like they were playing MSU’s system almost exactly on offense and defense. Talked about how they’d been built in the mold of Pitt who were built in the mode of MSU.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:48:08 +0000

I’d personally rather see Allen over Summers. I remember at least one play on Saturday where Summers did a horrible job defending the 3. Allen’s TOs are really down. If either of them can step up I think we can play with anybody.

Minutes the last two games were Allen 22, Summers 9 and 26/18. Is this significant?

If I go back further it seems a bit more even: 10/23, 18/22, 13/17, and 24/6.

By: kj

kj — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:01:20 +0000

And it’s Pete Tiernan who picked us–a stats guy who’s apparently now doing work for CBS Sports.

By: TMadison25

TMadison25 — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:53:55 +0000

One of the six Bracket “Experts” at CBS picked us to win it all.

http://www.cbssports.com/colle.....xpertpicks