Pregame Glance: Alcorn State

The Ohio State Buckeyes start the road towards the NCAA Tournament tomorrow facing off at home against the Alcorn State Braves.  The interesting facts:

The Buckeyes are coming off a solid win against exhibition foe Walsh 86-48 last Wednesday night.  OSU generally looked impressive in most aspects of the game with the exception of big-man play, which while good, was clearly lacking the punch to make it a great unit.  That punch is likely Dallas Lauderdale who will have to remain on the bench against Alcorn State, but will likely return to action on Thursday against James Madison.

Alcorn State has played two games so far this season, both exhibition.  Their first, back on October 23rd, was against the mighty Tougaloo College (can you name their mascot?  No cheating!) and resulted in a 109-86 loss.  The second was a hard fought battle a week ago with Mississippi College ending in a 63-61 victory.  Ohio State will be the first non-exhibition foe for the Braves, and will likely be a tough one for them.

7 letter winners and 1 starter from a team that went 6-25 last year with victories over William Carey, Tougaloo (they got their revenge!), Mississippi Valley State, Alabama State, Grambling State and Alabama A&M.  Clearly the lack of returning blood isn’t going to hurt them too much and 2nd year coach Larry Smith is hoping to make improvements over last season – not that it will be terribly difficult.

Lost from last years team is Guard Troy Jackson, who’s production will be greatly missed.  He was a 42.4% field goal shooter averaging 20 points per game and 4.7 rebounds, although with slightly more than 3 assists.  Alcorn State is clearly lacking without his talent on the courts.

The Braves return two good players.  Senior Shooting Guard Jonathan Boyd  (6-3, 175) is unquestionably the leader of the team.  He played all 31 games last season, averaging 23.9 minutes per game, 9.3 points with a 40.9% shooting average from the floor.  He is equally accurate from outside with a 40.3% 3-point shooting average and is proficient from the stripe at 88.6%.  Boyd has likely been the one to shoulder the load from Jackson’s departure.  Also returning is Junior Center JaMarkus Holt (6-8, 240) who averaged 6.3 points per game on 41.2% shooting and 4.3 rebounds per game.  Holt only played 18.8 minutes per game last season, and was often subbed by players who are no longer on the team.

This Alcorn State team is extremely young featuring 8 freshman players out of 15 total.  Their depth and conditioning will very likely be a problem especially for a team that clearly likes to play a small-player, fast-paced style.  Especially concerning is their depth at the 4 and 5 spots, where they have 4 total players, 3 of whom are freshman.  Also worrisome is that all four are short in stature compared to Ohio State’s big men.  Each of them stands at 6-8 and two weigh less than 190 pounds!  There will clearly be a massive size mismatch down low for the Braves.

To negate this size advantage on offense, Alcorn will likely employ a 4-1 set, looking to spread the floor as much as possible.  They’ll use Guards and Small Forwards to attempt to find the open three or drive the lane when the big men take OSU out of the paint down low.  The obvious counter for this attack is for OSU to put their center in the zone, and employ man-to-man outside.  When Alcorn State does dish the ball down low, look for Holt to attempt to get underneath OSU’s bigger players, especially Sarikoupolus, and put them out of position to defend the bucket.

On the Defensive side of the ball the Braves may employ a zone defense variant, perhaps a box-and-1, to eliminate the scoring threat down low and attempt to keep a man on Evan Turner all game.  This strategy will leave open looks for the other guards to have a big night, so expect to see Turner play more of a ball distribution role early this game.

The game starts at 7:00 PM tomorrow night (Monday, 9th November) at Value City Arena.  You can catch the game on the Big Ten Network.