-Western Carolina Catamounts are tabbed for their best season in recent memory. Picked third in the SoCon coaches poll, fourth in The Almanac. Return four of their top five scorers from last season and added Mercer’s 2nd leading scorer. They have already seen a result validating the hype, beating Notre Dame last Saturday by 10 in South Bend.
-Hard to assess their main strengths and weakness this early in the year, but last year they were exceptional at taking care of the ball, ranking 36th nationally in TO%. That translated against the Fighting Irish as well, where the Catamounts only finished with 6 turnovers. Middle’s opponents are averaging 19 turnovers a game, so it’ll be interesting to see who wins that battle.
-Now I’ve gotta be careful here because WCU beating a school like ND on the road is a tremendous accomplishment for a program like them. But ND is expected to be very bad this season. Like… very bad. Very possible they will be one of the worst high major programs in the country. There is a lot of praise around Micah Shrewsberry but everyone from last year’s roster is gone. He was lucky to field a full team, similar to McDevitt in year 1 here.
-This is the first time that the Catamounts have been rated top-200 in KenPom since 2017. They have won 60% of their games in just two seasons since 1982. All due respect to them, but this isn’t an SFA or even an NKU type program that has seen reoccurring or even routine seasonal success. ND game is a great start for them but the spread nor the ESPN analytics matchup predictor really surprise me. Even as the Raiders reshape their vision now that Weston is done, this is a game Middle should expect to win. It’s not panic time if they don’t but would be a decent disappointment, in my opinion at least.
-As discussed on another thread, I am interested to see if Tre Green or O’zhell Jackson start seeing the court. I do think you’ll see an increase in minutes for Johnson and Mosley, who are smaller wings that can get by at the 2. My guess is Johnson starts tonight and going forward.
-Will be laser focused on Jestin Porter tonight. I don’t care how bad his %’s are, I want to see him be ultra aggressive and try to lead the team in points every game. Without Weston, he is the only player with the tools to be a go-to bucket getter. His development in that role are equally important as his game-by-game results.
-I would be patient with or maybe even concede any expectations that Porter will develop better point guard tendencies. That’s just not who he is as a player imo. Middle is going to be point guard by committee going forward. I don’t love it but that is what the roster has to work with.
