mtsu -7: not often inclined to play the favorite in a rivalry matchup but this is a terrible spot for tennessee st. tigers just played alabama in tuscaloosa on saturday afternoon and, while i have seen no express info on the subject, given their budget i assume they bussed the 250 miles back to nashville and arrived in the early morning hours. tsu is not a very deep team and basicly rely on a six man rotation, with two players, clarence matthews and ladarious weaver, doing more than half the scoring. even though state was never in the game vs alabama, four of the five starters logged more than thirty minutes, with weaver, the team's only outside threat, playing 38 minutes. just seems a bit odd to me that coach alexander would run his starters to the bitter end with this game coming up in 48 hours. in addition, state has their ovc conference opener vs se mo on thursday.
the fatigue element is one element the tigers don't need, as they are a poor shooting team under normal circumstances, hitting 35% fg, 23.5% treys and about 60% from the ft line. they only shot 36% from the floor in their only two wins in the las vegas holiday tourney, but their hapless opponents, towson st and prairie view, managed to shoot even worse. to top things off, tsu is a very bad ballhandling team, logging almost twice as many turnvers as assists.
in contrast, mtsu seems to have overcome the loss of star guard adam vogelsberg to a broken foot, playing solid ball in consecutive home wins over belmont and indiana st. they shoot well at home, 47% from the floor and 41.7% from the three point line, while holding opponents to 39.2%fg and 25.6% treys. under coach kermit davis, they have a nice 23-4 s/u record in nonconference home games, and (on point) are 58-3 when outshooting an opponent, which seems likely as hell tonight. while those runs are s/u numbers, they've also covered over 70% of their home games oveer the last couple of seasons.
glta
the fatigue element is one element the tigers don't need, as they are a poor shooting team under normal circumstances, hitting 35% fg, 23.5% treys and about 60% from the ft line. they only shot 36% from the floor in their only two wins in the las vegas holiday tourney, but their hapless opponents, towson st and prairie view, managed to shoot even worse. to top things off, tsu is a very bad ballhandling team, logging almost twice as many turnvers as assists.
in contrast, mtsu seems to have overcome the loss of star guard adam vogelsberg to a broken foot, playing solid ball in consecutive home wins over belmont and indiana st. they shoot well at home, 47% from the floor and 41.7% from the three point line, while holding opponents to 39.2%fg and 25.6% treys. under coach kermit davis, they have a nice 23-4 s/u record in nonconference home games, and (on point) are 58-3 when outshooting an opponent, which seems likely as hell tonight. while those runs are s/u numbers, they've also covered over 70% of their home games oveer the last couple of seasons.
glta
