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Missouri @ Tennessee, NC State @ Florida State & More
Tennessee pk [3.3units]
Missouri is 2-7 on the road this season and off huge emotional win against former coach on senior night, while Vols is 12-3 at home and off rebound win at Auburn after letdown loss at Georgia following string of good wins.
In the match-ups, Coach Frank Haith is concerned about containing Stokes, who is 6 feet 8 and 270 pounds. “He’s got great, great hands and great instincts,” Haith said. “Those are the qualities to have be a great rebounder. And at 270 or so, he’s hard to move … he’s obviously very valuable in terms of what he does for that team.”
Meanwhile McRae, who is listed at 6-5 and 178 pounds, teams up with junior guard Trae Golden on the perimeter. “He’s scoring, running (off) a lot of screens and he gets separation,” Haith said of McRae. “You want to help (on him) and then he has a quick trigger and good length to get the shot off.”
Tidbits on Vols’s motivation:
Jarnell Stokes is taking drastic measures to make sure he avoids repeating his disastrous free-throw performance in the Volunteers’ last game.Like a student pulling an all-nighter to study for a final exam, Stokes stayed up long after midnight to correct his foul shooting after going 1-of-10 from the line Wednesday night.
After leaving Auburn, Tennessee’s team bus arrived back on campus at 1:30 a.m. CST Stokes then shot free throws in the dark at Thompson-Boling Arena until he had made 100 of them. By the time he finished his workout by making 10 consecutive free throws, it was about 2:15 a.m. Stokes said he just wanted to make sure he had the right mind-set heading into today’s crucial regular-season finale against Missouri.
“We all know (this game’s) important,” Tennessee guard Josh Richardson said. “We all know what’s on the line here. If that doesn’t get us motivated, I don’t know what will.”
The Vols need another marquee win to secure a spot in the field of 68. But while a double bye is clearly an admirable goal, Haith knows Tennessee won’t make it easy. Unlike Missouri, which is generally thought to be in great position to earn a NCAA Tournament bid at 22-8 and 11-6 in the SEC, the 18-11 Volunteers desperately need a win.
NC State -3 [2.2units]
NC State easily defeated Florida State 84-66 on Jan. 19 at PNC Arena. The Wolfpack are fighting for a top four spot in the ACC and bye next Thursday at the ACC Tournament in Greensboro, N.C. "Last year didn't hurt us, and it might have helped us, who knows?" Gottfried said. "If your goal is to win the ACC Tournament, obviously you want to play the least amount of games possible to do that."
Basically, N.C. State spent the first 25 games of the season trying to out-score its opponents. Given the Wolfpack's scoring firepower, that wasn't a bad strategy (the Pack went 18-7 in those games) but it also wasn't the best.
N.C. State has been a different team on defense over the past five games. The Pack has been more active with more steals, which leads to easy points in transition, and has allowed fewer points. The Wolfpack had 10 steals in Wednesday's win over Wake Forest, which turned on a 19-2 run midway through the first half. State had three steals and two blocks in a 7-minute stretch which saw a 14-9 Wake Forest lead turn into a 28-16 N.C. State advantage.
Over the past five games, in which it has a 4-1 record, State has averaged 8.6 steals per game. It has 43 steals in those five games, compared to 63 (5.3 per game) in the first 12 ACC games of the season.
Over the past five games, State has allowed an average of 65.8 points, compared to 73.3 in the first 12 ACC games. It's not complicated. There's a direct correlation between a more active defense and giving up fewer points and when State gives up fewer points in ACC play, it wins more games. Seminoles average 14.6pg for the season t/o, last 3 good backcourt faced, they turned it over 14 vs NC State, 16 vs Wake Forest, 16 N. Carolina.
Seminoles is 82nd in the nation offensively [39.4%] for FTA/FGA [measures teams ability to take the ball to the basket & get to the FT line] but Wolfpack allows only 26.8% [16th n the nation]. Conversely, Wolfpack has 40.3% FTA/FGA offensively [63rd in the nation] while Seminoles allows 33.6% [116th in the nation]. What does this mean, Wolfpack will dominate the paint and after review, Wolfpack average 37.7 rebounds per game while Seminoles average 31.4 rpg.
Also Florida St hasn’t won back-to-back games in the last 5 consecutive tries and keep in mind Seminoles were forced to use Michael Snaer [Best scorer, best player] for 39 of 40 possible minutes on Thursday night. Tired legs usually equals likely poor shooting.
Yes this is a revenge game and senior night for Seminoles but they don’t match-up to NC State, Wolfpack comes in hungry looking for that bye and lack of Seminoles’ ability to get back-to-back wins, I am laying the short chalk here.
Pega gave neutral 2 SBR Point(s) for this post.
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Originally Posted by Jeff Grant
