WKU Basketball: Preseason Preview — Analyzing the Schedule- Resume Builders
We’re less than a week away from the beginning of the 2019–20 Basketball season as the Tops open up against Tennessee Tech on November 5th…
We’re less than a week away from the beginning of the 2019–20 Basketball season as the Tops open up against Tennessee Tech on November 5th. Over the course of the next few days, we’re going to break down the schedule into three categories. Can’t Lose, Should Win & Resume Builders. Each category plays a role in WKU’s at-large resume, conference & NCAA tournament seeding and even NIT considerations (hopefully not).
Today we’ll finish the series with “Resume Builder” games. These are the games that will make or break WKU’s at-large chances for the NCAA or NIT. Most of these teams are Power Conference Schools, Top Tier Mid Majors or road trips to Conference USA contenders. Each game should either be a quad I or quad II win opportunity in the NET Rankings. If WKU can go 5–4 or better in these nine games it would go a long way towards bolstering WKU’s resume especially if WKU eliminates the bad losses. Every one of these games will be examined at the end of WKU’s season and may be crucial for at-large consideration or seeding in the NCAA tournament.
With that in mind here are the resume builder games based on the date on the schedule:
November 24th Vs. Cincinnati* (At Paradise Jam)
Preseason Conference Poll Spot: 3rd of 12 AAC
WKU and Cincinnati both need to take care of business in their opening-round games of the Paradise Jam for this matchup to occur. The Mick Cronin era in Cincinnati finally ended after 13 seasons as he left for UCLA. Across the river comes former NKU coach John Brannen. The Bearcats return preseason AAC Player of the year Jarron Cumberland (18.8 PPG, 4.4 RPG, 3.6 APG) and two other starters that averaged over nine points per game (Keith Williams & Tre Scott). They’re joined by a pair of transfers including Cumberland’s cousin Jaevin (17.2 PPG at Oakland) and former WKU guard Chris McNeal (9.5 PPG at New Mexico). That’s a lot of talent that should match up well with WKU. A lot of Cincinnati’s potential depends on how they’ll quickly adjust to Brannen’s new scheme. If it takes some time WKU could take advantage early in the season. This game probably should be for the Paradise Jam Title instead of a spot in the finals.
November 25th Vs. Nevada* (At Paradise Jam)
Preseason Conference Poll Spot: 4th of 11 Mountain West
Nevada is the top team on the other side of WKU’s bracket that includes Fordham, Valparaiso & Grand Canyon. Both teams would have to take care of business in their first two games to play in the Paradise Jam Championship. Should that occur the Wolfpack is very similar to Cincinnati. They lost their coach Eric Musselman to Arkansas (more below) and replaced him with former UCLA coach Steve Alford. Nevada lost a whole lot off of last season’s NCAA tournament team but do return some talent starting with guard Jazz Johnson (11 PPG). Alford must mix in transfers and unknowns to get this team to a top-half finish in the Mountain West. Lucky for him he gets Louisiana Tech transfer Jalen Harris (15.3 PPG & 4.5 PPG) eligible and stat stuffer Lindsey Drew (8.1 PPG, 4.1 RPG & 4.3 APG) back from Injury to give him a solid backcourt. If his brand new frontcourt can emerge they should be solid even if they’re not spectacular. If WKU does meet them in the finals then there’s no reason to think a tournament title shouldn’t be expected.
November 29th Vs. Louisville (In Nashville)
Preseason Conference Poll Spot: 3rd of 14 ACC
UofL is entering year two of the Chris Mack era. While his first-team over-achieved and reached the NCAA tournament, this team is expected to take two steps forward and compete for a Final four birth. The biggest reason behind that is the fact they return almost everyone from last season’s 20–14 debut. That includes preseason ACC player of the year Jordan Nwora (17.0 PPG & 7.6 RPG) who decided to come back for his junior year instead of starting his NBA career. Joining Nwora are Louisville’s twin towers of Malik Williams and Steven Enoch (17.7 PPG & 11.3 RPG combined) and indispensable hustle player Dwayne Sutton (10 PPG & 6.9 RPG). To bolster that core Mack added St Josephs transfer Lamarr Kimble (15.6 PPG & 3.6 RPG) to run the point and added McDonalds All-American Samuel Williamson to infuse more talent on the roster. This definitely will be the most talented team that WKU will face this season. Louisville has gotten the injury bug during the preseason as Williams and Enoch have been sidelined (along with 4-star freshman guard David Johnson) so health may be a factor going into the Black Friday matchup. It remains to be seen if UofL will live up to the high expectations but this game is the marquee game on WKU’s schedule.
December 3rd At Wright State
Preseason Ken Pom Ranking: 103
Preseason Conference Poll Spot: 1st of 10 Horizon
Wright State went neck and neck with Brennan’s NKU squad last season tieing for the conference title and losing to them in the championship game to go to the NIT. Scott Nagy’s squad now is the favorite to reclaim the Horizon League title as he returns a very solid core. That starts with big men Loudon Love (15.1 PPG & 8.2 RPG) & Billy Wampler (14.9 PPM & 3.4 RPG) who should be able to compete with WKU’s bigs. Add in guards Cole Gentry (11.7 PPG & 3.2 APG) & Jaylon Hall (9.1 PPG & 2.5 RPG) and the Raiders have a talented squad. On paper, WKU should handle Wright State on a talent basis but going to Dayton on the Tuesday before Arkansas and finals could have the Tops overlooking the Raiders. Past WKU teams have lost to worse teams on the road (Indiana State, Missouri State & Ohio), so if the Tops aren’t ready to play against this veteran team then we could be left scratching our heads again.
December 7th Vs. Arkansas
Preseason Conference Poll Spot: 11 of 14 SEC
A theme with WKU’s upper tier schedule is teams replacing coaches. The Hogs are no different as they replaced Mike Anderson with Nevada’s Eric Mussleman. While the Razorbacks lost their best player in NBA pick Daniel Gafford, they do have a solid mix of returnees and transfers. That starts with wings Isiah Joe (13.9 PPG) and Mason Jones (13.6 PPG & 3.9 RPG) who both can light it up from deep. Musselman has also added transfers from SMU (Jimmy Whitt) & UNC-Wilmington (Jeantal Cylla) that combined for 26 PPG & 10 RPG to add more production to the Razorbacks squad. Arkansas will be more skilled than most of WKU’s schedule but they’re very undersized for a Power school as they have no players taller than 6'8. That bodes well for Charles Bassey and Carson Williams. Arkansas could be a team that takes some time to gel under the new system but Musselman is a heck of a coach. The Tops should be favored in a packed Diddle Arena but Arkansas has more than enough firepower to pull off the upset.
December 21st At Rhode Island
Preseason Conference Poll Spot: 4th of 14 A-10
As finding quality out of conference matchups gets harder and harder for Rick Stansbury, home and homes against schools such as Rhode Island should start becoming more and more prevalent moving forward. After a down year (18–15)last season in their first season post-Dan Hurley, 2nd-year coach David Cox has a veteran-laden roster that should return the Rams to the upper level of the A-10. The Rams team starts with lead guards Fats Russell (14.2 PPG & 3.7 APG) & Jeff Dowtin (15.3 PPG & 3.7 APG) to compliment big man Cyril Langevine (14.7 PPG & 9.9 RPG) to give them dangerous three-man core. The Rams are a defensive first team and they often live and die with Russell & Dowtin’s shot selection. They added juco transfers Jeremy Sheppard & DJ Johnson to bring more shooting to the squad to hopefully improve the offense. URI is undersized compared to WKU so the Langevine/Bassey matchup looms large. This game is during Christmas break so it should be interesting to see how the Toppers handle the road trip to the northeast. If they prevail they’ll have a quality win against an upper-tier A-10 squad to put on their resume.
December 28th Vs. Belmont
Preseason Conference Poll Spot: 1st of 12 OVC
Gone is perennial WKU nemesis Rick Byrd. WKU hasn’t beaten Belmont since 1998 having lost six in a row to the Bruins in the process. Byrd went out on top taking the Bruins to the NCAA tournament last season (beating WKU early in the season in the process). In comes former Lipscomb coach Casey Alexander to seamlessly keep the momentum going. Byrd didn’t leave the cupboard bare for Alexander as he returns all-conference center Nick Muszynski (14.7 PPG & 5.8 RPG) and point guard Grayson Murphy (9.6 PPG & 6.5 APG) to give Belmont a nice 1–2 punch for his debut season. Belmont loses NBA draft pick Nick Windler but returns six players that average four or more points while adding Boston University transfer Tyler Scanlon (13.8 PPG & 5 RPG) to keep the talent level high. Belmont has repeatedly been WKU’s kryptonite regardless of how talented the Toppers have been. They do the little things right, backdoor cutting WKU to death and shooting them out of the building repeatedly. Alexander is a Byrd disciple who should keep the Bruins almost identical to Byrd’s teams. We’ll see if he can maintain Byrd’s wizardry of WKU in the process. If this is truely a season where WKU breaks through, ending the six-game losing streak to the Bruins would be a great indicator that times have changed.
February 13th At UTEP
Preseason Ken Pom Ranking: 130
Preseason Conference Poll Spot: T-4th of 14 CUSA
Casual college basketball fans may be surprised that the recent cellar-dwellers Miners are included in the resume builders category, especially since they’re coming off an 8–21 debut season for coach Rodney Terry. That debut was a necessary teardown for the talented transfer laden squad that Terry will field this season. The former Fresno State coach gets his former star forward Bryson Williams eligible in El Paso this year (13.8 PPG & 6.1 RPG) to team with returning Center Efe Odigie (12.7 PPG & 10.1 RPG) to give UTEP the best front line in CUSA outside of Bowling Green. He’ll augment that frontline with two returning backcourt players (Nigel Hawkins & Jordan Lathan) that will compete with an army of transfers that should give the Miners a lot of upside. Those transfers include wing Anthony Tarke (NJIT), guard Souley Boum (San Francisco & wing Kaden Archie (TCU) that should give UTEP depth and experience. It remains to be seen how the Miners will come together (we know all too well how mish mashing transfers works) but early returns are good as they beat last season’s national runner up Texas Tech in an exhibition. El Paso is always a hard place to play with altitude playing a factor. The Texas two-step against UTEP and UTSA (below) may be WKU’s hardest conference road trip. Like UTSA and Louisiana Tech, don’t be surprised if WKU plays the Miners multiple times in 2020.
February 15th At UTSA
Preseason Ken Pom Ranking: 143
Preseason Conference Poll Spot: 2nd of 14 CUSA
UTSA has the most proven high-end talent returning outside of WKU. They return the two-headed scoring monster of Jhivvan Jackson (22.8 PPG & 4.1 RPG) & Keaton Wallace (20.2 PPG & 5.0 RPG) match up with anyone in the conference, they can take over games and each can easily drop 40 on a given night. The duo is now both juniors so we’ll see how they take their game to the next level. The problem with UTSA is their supporting cast is very suspect and they lost their distributor in Giovanni De Nicolao. The Road Runners do have a veteran front line (Byron Frohnen & Atem Bior) that do the little things (12 PPG & 11 RPG) that help Jackson and Wallace steal the show but won’t carry them. Steve Henson brought in Pepperdine transfer Knox Hellums and several Juco transfers to try and give the Road Runners more help around the big two but none are proven. Jackson and Wallace will be able to shoot UTSA into every game but an off night can wreck them quickly (just like second round of CUSA Tournament). WKU finally has the depth to throw bodies at those two so it will be interesting to see if that slows them down. Having to play a quick turnaround after the aforementioned UTEP trip makes the final pre pod game crucial for WKU’s conference title hopes.
Bonus Play
This is year two of Conference USA’s bonus play scheduling philosophy. After the UTSA game, WKU will play four games (two at home and two on the road) against the grouping of teams they finish with during the regular conference season. Assuming WKU finishes in the Top pod they could have to play UTSA, UTEP, Louisiana Tech, ODU, or a surprise team again (Maybe FAU, North Texas or UAB). If the experiment is to work hopefully the top teams are better than last season and it helps WKU gain opportunities against another quad I or II opponent. If it doesn’t play out that way, don’t be shocked if Conference USA scraps the experiment next season.
These games will go a long way to determining if WKU will have a special season in 2019–20. Over the past few years, they’ve done a good job of getting these wins (Purdue, Arkansas, St Marys, Wisconsin, SMU) but couldn’t avoid the bad losses that submarined their resume. If this is the year that WKU breaks through a 6 to 9 loss regular season would go a long way towards giving WKU a chance at an at-large bid that eliminates the CUSA Tournament or bust fate that kept the Hilltoppers short the past two seasons. Whatever happens, it will be fascinating with WKU’s blend of talent, depth, and experience getting to go against a quality schedule this season.