SIU kicks off the Scott Nagy era and the entire D1 College Basketball season on Monday at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota against Charleston.
This game will be broadcast over on the Field of 68's YouTube and Twitter feeds for free.
Meet the Cougars:
Like SIU, Charleston went through a coaching change and roster turnover with Pat Kelsey taking the job at Louisville. In comes Chris Mack who spent his first 9 years as head coach at Xavier and 4 years at Louisville. At Xavier, Mack made the NCAA Tournament 8 times in 9 seasons. Mack hit the Sweet 16 4 times and led Xavier to the Elite Eight in 2017. At Louisville, Mack made the NCAA Tournament in his first season there but struggled in the 2 years post the shortened 2019-20 season and was fired after a 6-8 start.
Charleston was picked 2nd in the CAA Preseason Poll behind Towson and received 3 first place votes.
With the coaching change, Charleston went through a pretty big roster flip but were able to keep 6-10 Senior Ante Brzovic. Brzovic is from Zagreb, Croatia; and started his collegiate career at DII Southeastern Oklahoma State where he led the team in scoring as a Freshman. As a Sophomore at Charleston, Brzovic averaged 11.6 points per game and was named to the All-CAA Third Team. Brzovic is a pretty skilled passer out of the post, he averaged 2.4 assists per game last season. Brzovic was picked as the CAA Preseason Player of the Year coming into this season.
Another returnee for the Cougars is 6-3 Senior CJ Fulton. Fulton spent his first 2 collegiate seasons at Lafayette before transferring to Charleston before last season. Fulton started 25 games last year and averaged 4.1 points per game and 4.1 assists per game. He was named to the All-CAA Preseason Second Team coming into this season.
One of the big transfer additions to this Charleston team is 6-3 Graduate Student Derrin Boyd. Boyd spent 2 seasons at NAIA Georgetown College after a redshirt Freshman season and transferred to Lipscomb for his Junior season. Last year at Lipscomb, Boyd led the team in scoring with 17.6 points per game and was named to the All-ASUN Second Team. The other big transfer is 6-5 Junior AJ Smith, who comes over after 2 years at The Citadel where he increased his scoring average from 6.1 PPG to 16.2 PPG.
Links:
Charleston Game Notes
Well, this should make for a more exciting Monday morning than usual. In Mayo and Davis, I feel good that Southern has quality defensive matchups for opposing teams’ go-to guards and wings. I’m less confident about the defensive matchups for bigs (in this case, the 6-10 Brzovic).
Hensley is a good shot-blocker but he got bullied in the post at times last year. Massey is also lean and Aligbe is a freshman, so curious what the plan will be defensively.
Other than that, the turnover number is going to loom large most games with this group and style of play. Nagy said he wants to keep it to around 10 but 15sh would be progress. More than that and it’ll be tough to beat talented teams like Charleston.
After we get 8-10 games under our belt, this team could be a handful. Thanks Coach Nagy.
@siudawgs Hensley's a forward - has no business in the post 95% of the time IMO.
I think he'll get a lot more play than last year, when he sat on the bench until late in the season. Definitely has some hops and talent overall.
Salukis come in as 2 point underdogs. I think that's fair. KenPom has 75-74 Charleston.
@mr_woogers Hensley wasn’t eligible until mid December and started playing immediately. Up and down minutes though. Yes, he has no business playing center except on rare occasions for matchups.
@mr_woogers Hensley wasn’t eligible until mid December and started playing immediately. Up and down minutes though. Yes, he has no business playing center except on rare occasions for matchups.
Ya’ll did notice he started at the 5 in the exhibition, right?
I get the desire to have a more prototypical big at the 5 but they might not have a better option on the roster. We shall see.
@mr_woogers Hensley wasn’t eligible until mid December and started playing immediately. Up and down minutes though. Yes, he has no business playing center except on rare occasions for matchups.
Ya’ll did notice he started at the 5 in the exhibition, right?
I get the desire to have a more prototypical big at the 5 but they might not have a better option on the roster. We shall see.
Yes exactly. It’s not about who is the most like a “center”, but who is the best option on this roster for that position.
Playing fast changes things up a little also. Hensley runs the floor really well and can score in many different ways. It's the old give up some D for the O. I think Aligbe may see a decent amount of floor time against bigger centers.@mr_woogers Hensley wasn’t eligible until mid December and started playing immediately. Up and down minutes though. Yes, he has no business playing center except on rare occasions for matchups.
Ya’ll did notice he started at the 5 in the exhibition, right?
I get the desire to have a more prototypical big at the 5 but they might not have a better option on the roster. We shall see.
We will have a better assessment after Monday’s game.
I believe Hensley will be fine at the 5 the game is changing to where a stretch 5 is a bonus and I believe Charleston plays that way and rebounding is a team effort and a philosophy and with the amount of 3 pointers being shot that means long rebounds so traditional rebounding numbers don't mean as much as they used to but back to Hensley he will also be a matchup problem to the opponents and every game is a chess match
@jabman62 Hensley was manhandled at the 5 last year...almost as badly as DAmico. Unless he's put on 80 lbs of muscle, I think that's a bad idea unless we're playing alley ball.
Nothing this year is going to resemble last year. We played slow deliberate basketball last year. The pace we will play with this year gives more value to Hensley playing the 5. Hensley will be an asset on offense in this scheme. If we are playing an opponent that is playing a slow deliberate offense centered around a big back to the basket center Hensley will get less playing time at the 5. If not, expect to see him there some of the time.@jabman62 Hensley was manhandled at the 5 last year...almost as badly as DAmico. Unless he's put on 80 lbs of muscle, I think that's a bad idea unless we're playing alley ball.
If SIU was planning to play a style similar to the previous coaching staff, I'd be the first to gripe loudly about Hensley playing the 5. Apples to oranges though.
It seems Coach Nagy isn't married to a singular offensive or defensive strategy. We may see match-up zones etc. designed to mitigate Hensley being stuck on a defensive island against a girthy big. Matchups will likely dictate a lot of game to game scheming, but if coach decides that Hensley gives us more pluses on offense than minuses on defense at the 5, I'd bet he'll game plan wrinkles to keep him on the floor at that position.
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