Nova Report
Amazingly, they make the Basketball team Study and take Finals so the Cats haven?t played for ten days or so. Tonight, they head to Nassau Coliseum to take on the Hofstra Pride, the University where Jay Wright got his first head coaching job. No surprise that Wright took a club ranked 305 out of 310 Div-1 clubs and, four years later, got them to the NCAA?s twice and NIT once. After that he got the Nova offer. Will he take it easy on his former team? Nova is -22/150.
Hofstra is all about two scorers. Eli Pemberton is a solid clutch player (guard) averaging 17.6 ppg. His partner at guard is the flashy, mercurial (and more talented) Justin Wright-Foreman whose 23.8 ppg is good enough to be 9th nationally. They also have a 6?9? guy who can clean the boards. On the downside, they are turnover prone and not a particularly good defensive club.
Last out, Villanova rolled Temple by 20 and pretty much stuck to a 6 man rotation. No doubt Wright will make sure 3 or 4 others get some playing time tonight. Nova got some disparaging news this week as Gillespie (a freshman 3 point specialist) will be out at least 6-8 weeks with a broken hand. Pretty much means they will Red Shirt him so he?s done for the year, a big blow to the Cats.
As for tonight, will Nova be rusty, will Wright take his foot off the gas? My POV is Coach Wright is trying to instill a killer instinct in his team but he definitely needs to give his bench some PT as they head into Conference play next week.
My bet is a 5 point teaser. Take Nova-17/Over 145.