Wardo watch notes: UNCA 5th in NCAA in PPG (81.2) (VMI was 6th). 36% from 3 pt land. Fast tempo and lots of take-aways. At least 18 turnovers by VMI to play into the speedy tempo. Teams that dont protect the ball will have trouble with UNCA. This isnt last year’s UNCA team, more experience, more confidence, and better shooting and passing. Their defense is not phenomenal, but they do get a lot of turnovers, Should be good against a man to man D team. Because of their ranking in PPG, they do get high over/unders and if they play at team with good zone d and that protects the ball on O, they will probably be held lower.
Only 8 of their games registered a point spread in Vegas, but they covered all but 1 of those spreads, including against UNC and UConn.
Lots of experience and all starters can score.
UNC Asheville may be a 16 seed if they survive the playin round (F the NCAA for this stupid addon of 4 games). They played a few tough teams in their non conf sched, including UNC, Georgetown, and OSU. Of course they lost to all by double digits. For a preview to a 16 vs 1 matchup, they lost by 47 to OSU, but they did keep Gtown and UNC to margins less than 20.
In this game, they were 2-11 from 3 point land.
Coastal Carolina 21 turnovers, UNCA just 10, so they played good D and held the ball well.. BUT, Coastal Carolina only had 7 players (1 only played 5 mins). UNCA is not good, Coastal was just tired.
Coach and team have only been to the big dance once before (2003 won the playin, came in as a 16 seed, lost to Texas). They are not used to playing on a big stage, their home gym only holds 1000 people.
If we anticipate OSU, Kansas, Duke, ND, Pitt or Texas as number 1, any of them should be able to beat these guys by at least 30 points. If the point spread gets closer to 40, the matchup will need to be discussed more.
