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BASKETBALL Middle Tennessee (4-1) vs South Florida (3-2) (Myrtle Beach Invitational)(ESPN2), 1PM, Friday, 11/22/2024

Rewatched South Florida’s 74-68 win over Portland today. Another solid team competing in this tournament, but I have reasons to be skeptical. All 3 of their wins are against teams ranked 280+ Kenpom, but both of their losses are road and neutral games against #121 Charleston and #22 Florida, respectively. Outside of Charleston, MTSU will be their second game against a team in their “ballpark”.

USF has the roster and play style of a classic, strong mid major. Guard heavy, play good defense, love to shoot the 3, and don’t turn the ball over. They won’t be as organized as Ohio was on offense but they know the shots they want and work quickly to get the ball there. They want their guards Jayden Reid (#0, 5’10” PG) or Kaden Jennings (#13, 6’3” G) to penetrate the defense and find an open shooter in the short corner for a quick 3 which is typically Kobe Knox (#4, 6’5” G) who scored a team high 13 points against Portland. If Jennings doesn’t keep it himself (leads the team with 12.3 ppg) he will find big man Jamille Reynolds (#2, 6’11” C) who is a physical specimen at 275 lbs. He did a lot of damage in the low post late against Portland and looks like the go to guy when they desperately needed a bucket.

USF is the quickest offensive tempo we’ve faced and they like to shot the 3. Nearly 50% of their attempts are from beyond the arc. Good news, Blue Raiders are one of the best 3 point defenses in the early season. How much of that is luck or MT’s 3 point defense being good? Too early to tell but Ohio didn’t get many uncontested 3 pointers today. Bad news, USF doesn’t turn the ball over. In their last 3 wins they haven’t allowed more than 10 TOs, however they don’t force very many either (bottom 60 in Non-Steal TO%). I’ll be a pessimist and say they haven’t played us, yet — I think they’ll set a season-high with the same level of physicality they played with today against Portland. Pretty simple, defend the 3 and don’t turn the ball over. That’s your best chance, but admittedly easier said than done with a quick turnaround against a better team.
 
Turnovers is a good point. USF was 87th nationally (1st in conference play in the AAC) in defensive TO%. This year? They rank 253rd nationally.

When 3-point shooting and turnovers are the main factors for the Blue Raiders, thats not exactly ideal. Hope to see the same sort of toughness we saw yesterday.
 
Good energy so far. Playing fast, but under control. Stupid technical foul. Gotta know better than that!
 
14:06

17-11

looking pretty good

I will admit this. There is some pretty good talent on the team. Have lead right now because of only one turnover half way through first half. That's one of the core problems with McDevitt's teams is carelessness across the board but especially with the ball. So, we will see what happens as this game progress and they regress to their usual selves. Remind you they played the first 10 against Murray pretty well too.

If he can get this team to commit less than 10 TO's a game I believe they can win some games. If. Especially since you're not going to shoot 64% for an entire game.
 
Not sure what happened to Counter there. Watching on my phone, so small screen. Looked like he just went down on his own.
 
Agreed and he was making a significant impact on the team as well. Hopefully not as bad as it looked.
 
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