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On the spectrum of less than expected to about expected to better than expected of starts for my Eagles...this one can go in the less than expected category.  I didn't get to see any of it but I don't need to with a score like that.  We didn't have any sort of chemistry from what I'm told and we got off to our patented slow start on the road....something we got out of last year near the end of the season and I had hoped that would carry over.

Its going to take us a few games to get our act together in the backcourt.  I don't expect us to beat Charlotte on Tuesday but we get into a few easier games after that which we should be able to find success and build some chemistry.  Hopefully we will get Jelani Hewitt back and we can achieve the 20 win season I think a lot of Eagle fans are expecting.

Last year, we got off to a bad start.  Willie Powers returned from an ACL injury and missed junior season and it took him about ten games to get back into real gameshape.  We also were a very young team.  It took us a while to really get things sorted out and learn to win away from Hanner where we only lost twice all of last year.  We were a pretty good team in mid major terms at the end of last season but still had the flaw of being too turnover prone.

This year, we as a fanbase expect to improve on the 15-15 mark.  But without Jelani Hewitt who is our best returning guard, how much improvement we will see early on is hard to say.  I honestly have no idea what to tell you guys.  Reed is very good but how he fits in is yet to be seen.  I can't even tell you where he will play but if I had to guess, I'd say point guard.  If we had a backcourt of Reed and Hewitt from day 1, we'd be a dangerous team.  I think it will take us a few games to get going, and we will start out a little slower than most of our fanbase would like...but by the time conference play rolls around and Hewitt hopefully returns, we will probably be a 16-20 win team.  I expect us to beat the lower tier teams of the SoCon, something we struggled to do on the road last year, beat some of the better teams like UNCG and CofC, and win some of our non conference, early season games...and finish 2nd on our side of the conference behind Davidson.

If Reed acclimates quick, Ferguson really breaks out, and one of our freshman guards contributes in a big way early, we could have the best Eagle basketball team since 2006 which is a team that won the SoCon regular season title.  Davidson is going to be a top 25 type team this year.  I'm not sure we are good enough to challenge them just yet.

Thats pretty easy to say.   I'm not expecting a win without Hewitt, but we are physically still one of the most talented mid major teams you'll play.  If Reed and Ferguson are hot, you'll get all you want.

We, Georgia Southern, are the darkhorse team for the SoCon...at least thats what has been written.  That said, those who wrote it probably figured we would have Jelani Hewitt the entire season.  He's academically ineligible for the fall semester of games.  Hes one of our best defenders and hes our best three point shooter.  Jelani can light it up from deep when hes hot.  Losing him hurts us badly in these early games.

However, the transfer of MEAC POTY C.J. Reed should help lessen the scoring blow of losing Hewitt.  Reed was a scoring machine at Bethune Cookman.  That said as well, we have no idea how he will fit into our team.  We also signed a pair of 6'5 athletic freshman guards who were both Rivals.com 3 star guys who everyone is excited about.  They could help in filling the role of Hewitt as well.  We also have a JUCO transfer in Brian Holmes who is expected to play some point guard and he could be a steadying presence off the bench with his experience and all around game ability.  Jesse Pernell had a great freshman year and hes a great defensive player.  Very bring future for the kid.  Tre Bussey is our 6th man so to speak and he will probably be thrust into a starting role with Hewitt out.

The front court is all about Eric Ferguson.  Hes generally the most talented and athletic player on the court against any team we play.  He has a tendency to get into foul trouble but when you get him on the court for 25 plus minutes, hes a force to deal with in the paint.  Cam Baskerville is the lone senior and last year, he was a guy who would give you 6 to 10 points and a good number of rebounds...or he would turn it over repeatedly and struggle to contribute in any sort of positive way.  He played better near the end of the season and we're hoping that he continues this into his senior year.  A lot of fans, and I'm sure the coaches, are counting on Kam Dunnican to be our 5 man.  Hes our tallest player (after we kicked our other 6'8 sophomore off the team over the summer) and he is more of a rebounder and shotblocker than a scorer but thats what we need with the way we run our offense. 

That sounds like a bunch of rambling on from my perspective but we as Eagle fans have no idea what to expect.  We will be pretty darn good once we get Hewitt back, but until then, we will just all be waiting and hoping that we can pull it together and get off to a good start.

If I had to guess, I'd probably say our starting 5 will look something like:

Reed
Bussey
Pernell/Holmes
Ferguson
Dunnican/Baskerville

If we win the game, it will be because we caused turnovers which we are good at, and didn't turn the basketball over....which was something that was an extreme stat as to whether we won or lost last year.  If we lose, it will be because of turnovers and 4 new guys in the backcourt learning to play together.  We have not played an exhibition game to my knowledge.

You got the rebounds because you out hustled us and we didn't box out with a flip.  Not to mention our two true bigs got their first taste of division 1 basketball last night.  I think we will be a much better team in 10 games as those bigs get their feet under them.  We won't win a lot of games with 6'6 post players.

If you are infinitely more athletic than us, you would have gotten the rebounds we got...I understand your frustration in losing, but there comes a time where you just admit the other team was better and stop making excuses.  We lost to Arizona because they are a better team/program overall, and we beat GSU because we are a better team/program.  We lost a lot from last year in 60% of our scoring & 40%+ rebounding, so saying you have FR/SO can't be an excuse against us.

Apologies for the comment.  Was posting from my phone walking out of Hanner with two season's worth of frustrations boiling over. 

Who wouldn't be after watching a team who we were infinitely more athletic than, kill us on the boards, out hustle us, all while playing 7 guys.  Everytime we made a run, we made some boneheaded mistake like stepping on the out of bounds line, throwing up an errant or rushed shot, and do something to kill ourselves.  We missed Sam Mike, one of our returning post guys.  Hes more of a defense and rebounding player.  Man we could have used those rebounds tonight.

We are young.  Eagle fans have to keep telling ourselves that.  You started more upper classmen than we have on our entire team.  Our freshman post players got welcomed to division 1 basketball tonight.  They got pushed around.  Hopefully we learn and get better.  We better do it fast with games at Wake Forest, SMU, Auburn, and South Florida coming up. 

Again, my comment was ill advised.  I hope you are a great team and our 9 point loss doesn't look bad. 

http://www.georgiasoutherneagles.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=18700&ATCLID=205331134

Thats the link to the game preview, game notes, and a link to our season preview video with our head coach that was released today.  If anybody is interested. 

I cannot describe to you in words how much more talented this team is than the one Valpo faced two years ago.  Not saying we are great or will be in the tourney, but based purely on talent alone, this is a much more talented and deeper team.  We were also playing one of our first games in a new system in our last meeting as well.

I probably make us sound like world beaters a little much, but we have some very good players.  This year is about our sophomores taking a step forward to go along with those two seniors in the back court.  Those two guys can play.  If our sophs play like they are capable and our freshman provide depth, we will challenge for the SoCon.  If they are inconsistent, we will probably be a middle of the pack team. 

The Willie Powers mentioned by ChadWC scored 27 for Georgia Southern in a hard-fought win for Valpo there two years ago.  To view this as an easy win is to underestimate them.

Greetings Valpo fans.  A few things:

The audio on georgiasoutherneagles.com is free.  You'll be able to listen starting with the pregame show at 7 PM ET on Friday.  Just go to Audio/Video on the left side of the screen in the menu and it will pull up a pop up window and you'll find it there.  

Now for a little on our team.  We have struggled mightily the past two seasons.  The previous coach before the one we currently have left under unfortunate circumstances which caused us to be placed on NCAA probation which we come off of I believe in January.  But our current coach, Charlton "C.Y." Young is a former player and hes an extremely good, and I mean extremely good recruiter.  We have as much talent on the team as any team we've ever had.  Our current group of sophomores was rated a top 5 mid major class by ESPN and due to the amount they played last year, they aren't your average sophomores, they are seasoned college basketball players.  The current freshman were also very highly touted and should give us some much needed front court depth.

Last year was a rough one as we had 1 senior and lost our all SoCon player Willie Powers before the season began.  We were forced to play a team with a boatload of freshman who looked good at times but always found a way to lose.  We've looked much better through our two exhibition games this year due to getting Powers back in the backcourt to go with Ben Drayton who is an undersized but very skilled player.  SG Eric Ferguson has been tabbed an NBA prospect.  Fox Sports wrote an article about him saying he could have played for anybody in the country but CY is his godfather and he came to Statesboro to play for him.  Hes a very tough matchup for people at the 2 or the 3 with his 6'7 height and long wingspan.  SG/PG Jelani Hewitt was a very highly touted recruit who played a ton last year and was a good player for us and Tre Bussey had his moments.  We will be without freshman Tyrone Brown who is our biggest body down low for this and the next game due to a team rules violation.  Our front court will have long, lean guys who can rebound the ball and block shots but won't figure into the gameplan on offense as much as our guards.  We love to get up and down the court and run.  This year we have the team who can do it.  I'd imagine you will see us pressure the basketball with some full court presses at times, especially if we can cause turnovers and don't get into foul trouble.

Hope to see a good group of Valpo fans at Hanner Fieldhouse.