BASKETBALL 22-23 CUSA Basketball
- Thread starter SpaceRaider
- Start date
Hello fellow Raider fans. Long time MT fan since early 70's. Finally decided to join after reading daily logs for the last decade. Concerning upcoming pre-season selections. SB Nation just put out National top 60 pre-season selections. No surprise that UAB is at 44. What may surprise Blue Raider fans is to see MT at #53 nationally. Columnist along with a number of other pundits is a huge T Lenard fan. Many see him as top NBA sleeper. Personally really like make of this team with added guard personnel to balance team continuity. This team could go 10 deep with minimum drop off. Is it just me, but Lenard appears to have grown an inch or so in the MT twitter feeds from summer play. Blocking Dishman's layup seemed like child's play, & that's no disrespect to Dish. Anyone who can cut & paste feel free to post said article.
2022-2023 NCAA Men’s Basketball: Top-60 teams preseason rankings, No. 31-60
After being robbed of a chance for a national title in 2020, with the cancelation of the NCAA Tournament (that team finished at No. 7 in Kenpom’s final ratings — Tom Izzo’s 12th team to finish in...
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53. Middle Tennessee
1 - Camryn Weston, Jalen Jordan, Jestin Porter2 - Eli Lawrence, TreVon Smith
3 - Justin Bufford, Teafale Lenard
4 - Tyler Millin, Elias King
5 - Jared Coleman-Jones, Christian Fussell
Middle Tennessee, like Tulane, returns a lot, including one of my NBA Draft-sleepers in Teafale Lenard — a long, explosive athlete with incredible dunk, block and steal numbers for a freshman wing last season. The Blue Raiders will rely on their athletic, high-intensity brand of basketball to carry their lack of offensive polish. The trick will be the glass and interior defense: Middle Tennessee was awful at both last season. The bigs (and Lenard) will have to really compete and execute better on the glass for this team to follow-through on its promise. Second-favorite in Conference USA.
Someone is missing from that depth chart. Not sure how good this person is at preseason predictions, but it would give m more confidence they know what they are talking about by not omitting one of our best returning players. The depth chart is not bad, but I think it will be something more like:
1 - Weston, Porter, Green
2 - Jordan, Smith
3 - Lawrence, Bufford, King
4 - Lenard, Millin
5 - Dish, JCJ, Fussell
I think we could see Jordan start at the 1 depending on his health and I like Cam coming off the bench, but who knows. I also think you will see Bufford, Lenard, and King playing both 3 and 4 at times and obviously Lawrence can play the 2. I look at that lineup and I get excited. So many interchangeable parts it is almost not right to put a number/position beside their names.
Also look forward to seeing Elias King's continued development. Remember that he was a virtual non-factor for much of the past couple years. However, seemed like a light came on in the CBIT where he came out & surprised everyone with over 30+ points in 3 playoff games. That continued evolution & confidence would be a huge bonus. Not many teams have a 6' 8" wing drilling 2-3 3 pointers per game.
Yes, Cam's a great example of the type player coach Nick's going after now. Very athletic with hops to spare. I could imagine seeing Nick's goal as having the Raiders as a college version of the old 2015 GS Warriors. Not huge, but very athletic up & down roster with a couple of excellent outside shooters. If it had not been for injuries last year to Josh Jefferson & Jalen Jordan in preseason he could have had that desired team. Would have been MT playing the Houston Coug's in the NCAA not UAB. Not that we would have won, but at strength pretty sure we could have given them a much better game.
I’m don’t think there was any way we were beating UAB for the spot. Jordan Walker was walking on water both games.
Lenard gonna bring the show tho.
Lenard gonna bring the show tho.
We took UAB to 3 OT's and had the game won at least a couple times before giving it away without Jefferson. I do think we were a better team defensively without Jefferson, but having him definitely wouldn't have hurt. I do wonder what last year would have been like with Coleman-Jones and Jalen Jordan healthy.
