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Brendon Desrochers: Previewing the Bahamas Championship
Coming off a dominant performance vs. Wisconsin on Tuesday night in the Gavitt Games, Kim English and the 3-0 Providence Friars head to the Bahamas for two more crucial contests against major-conference opposition.
First, the basics: the Baha Mar Hoops 2023 Bahamas Championship has its semifinals on Friday (Nov. 17) at 3:30p and 6p ET, followed by the consolation and championship games on Sunday (Nov. 19) at 12p and 2:30p. All games will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network. (Channel Finder)
Who’s playing? 2023 national semifinalist Miami will face Georgia in the first semifinal before the Friars play 2023 East regional finalist Kansas State. Here’s the bracket:
I’ll focus first on the Friars’ Friday opponent and then their potential Sunday opponents so fans can understand what to expect.
Kansas State
Results to date: L vs. USC (in Las Vegas), 82-69; W vs. Bellarmine, 83-75; W vs. South Dakota State, 91-68
Of the seven players who played more than five minutes in K-State’s three-point, Elite Eight loss to Florida Atlantic at Madison Square Garden in March, only three are on Jerome Tang’s roster for the former Baylor assistant’s second season in Manhattan, and only two (guard Cam Carter and forward David N’Guessen) have played this season. Gone are All-Big 12 first-teamers Keyontae Johnson and Marquis Nowell. Gone is starting guard Desi Sills (out of eligibility) and stretch four Ismael Massoud (transferred to and injured at Georgetown — unrelated, the new Hoyas coach wants you to know “this s*** is real”). Big man Nae’Qwan Tomlin is suspended indefinitely after getting involved in a preseason bar fight (when does the bar-fighting regular season start?) and, based on his coach’s comments and that the latest news is Tomlin applying for a diversion program, he appears to be out for this weekend’s tournament.
To backfill his losses, Tang added reinforcements in Tylor Perry, a dynamic shooter transferring in from North Texas, as well as Ques Glover, a transfer guard from Samford, and Arthur Kaluma, a transfer wing from Creighton familiar to Friars fans. Though Perry has been as advertised, shooting 48% on 3’s while dishing 16 assists to four turnovers, Glover is out with a knee injury suffered in the preseason, and Kaluma was ragged in his first two games and then missed K-State’s win over South Dakota State with a knee issue. It seems he is going to try to return this weekend.
(Regardless of his injury status, you can purchase this King Arthur Kaluma “vintage” shirt for $22.99 plus tax and shipping:)
The Wildcats’ offense looked a lot smoother without Kaluma at the 4 vs. South Dakota, relying mostly on a frontcourt of N’Guessen and “we hardly knew ye” Friar Will McNair, who got a free trip to Spain after transferring to Providence from Mississippi State, abruptly re-transferred to K-State in early September and was deemed immediately eligible.
Around those two vs. South Dakota State, Tang went with a three-guard rotation primarily of Perry, Carter and one of two freshmen guards, Dai Dai Ames and R.J. Jones. Ames had seven assists in the win Monday (with four turnovers), and Jones hit four 3-pointers (Carter had a game-high 25, including four more 3’s, and four assists; Perry added 22 on six 3’s). McNair had his best game in purple, scoring 10, including a couple of slick post moves, grabbing seven rebounds, dishing two assists and even snatching a pair of steals.
In three games, Perry, Carter and Jones are a combined 30-for-65 (46% on 3-pointers), and both Ames and Perry have 16 assists. The bigs have been complementary pieces, working the baseline, setting high screens to free up the guards and providing occasional post touches but mostly staying out of the way. Neither N’Guessen nor McNair are shooters, and, though Kaluma is all too willing to stretch the floor, the K-State offense looked better when focused on perimeter play. Kaluma may gum up the works when he returns if he show discretion. He was 6-for-25 (24%) from the field in the two games he played, including 1-of-10 on 3’s. The combination of N’Guessen and McNair also gives K-State more oomph on the offensive glass.
On defense, K-State has struggled to defend the rim, allowing 70% shooting on close twos (USC, in particular, torched them on drives), worst of any major-conference team (second worst? Wisconsin — hmm). McNair is merely adequate as a shot-blocker, but someone to watch out for is Jarrell Colbert, the sophomore transfer from LSU, who has 6 blocks in just 35 minutes across three games but played 15 minutes Monday. K-State plays almost entirely man-to-man defense, which means that, in a three-guard alignment, the Wildcats run small: none of Perry, Carter, Ames or Jones is taller than 6-foot-3, and Perry is listed at just 5-11. Kaluma’s length on the wing could be what gets him on the floor — the Friars’ Bryce Hopkins was just 11-for-29 on 2-pointers in PC’s two games vs. Creighton last season, though part of that was Ryan Kalkbrenner’s presence at the rim, not just Kaluma.
Miami
Results to date: W vs. NJIT, 101-60; W vs. UCF, 88-72; W vs. FIU, 86-80
Miami’s game with Georgia on Friday is the Hurricanes’ first excursion out of South Florida and will likely prove its stiffest test to date. The Hurricanes’ best opponent so far was UCF, but Miami led the Knights at the half by 14 and rode sharp shooting (61% eFG) to a comfortable victory.
As evidenced by a 10-for-21 3-point-shooting performance in that win, Jim Larranaga’s team is among the best shooting squads in the country. The Canes are third in the nation at 50% on 3-pointers on more than 23 attempts per game (and that’s despite LifeWallet spokesperson Nijel Pack shooting just 3-of-11 so far — he’s a 42% career 3-point shooter on nearly 600 attempts; Pack could meet his former team, K-State, Sunday, depending on Friday’s results). Miami won’t shoot 50% for the season, but the team’s performance to date isn’t completely out of line with its true talent.
Norchad Omier and Wooga Poplar are Miami’s best players. Omier’s an undersized center in the Kenneth Faried mode (rebounds, blocks shots and finds ways to score around the basket), and Poplar is off to a tremendous shooting start (70% 3-point shooting on 20 attempts) on the wing. They are both playing at a level that presages contention for All-ACC honors come March.
Around Omier, Poplar and Pack is Matthew Cleveland, the former five-star recruit who, after two disappointing seasons at Florida State, escaped the Panhandle for Coral Gables. In a lower-usage role at Miami, he’s been an efficient shooter, made more free throws (13) than any Hurricane, and added defensive length and athleticism on the wing. The fifth starter is Bensley, who plays between Pack and Omier in a three-guard look. The junior from Massachusetts has taken to a bigger role this season after spot duty for two years. He’s made 9-of-14 3-pointers (64%) and, despite standing just 6-foot-2, has the most blocks and steals of anyone on the team besides Omier.
Beyond that five, the Hurricanes are very thin. Despite three comfortable wins, Larranaga played his reserves sparingly, and so Miami ranks in the bottom 50 nationally in bench minutes. Four-star freshman center Michael Nwoko scored nine points in the season-opening blowout vs. NJIT, but the bench combined to score just 12 points total in the other two wins (you may recognize freshman wing Kyshawn George when he enters by George’s noticeable hair).
It may seem like a no-brainer vs. Miami to sell out to stop the 3-pointer, but Pack, Poplar and Joseph are all capable of driving and know how to creatively finish in the paint against taller defenders. As for Omier, he ate up the Friars last season (19 points, 12 rebounds, 2 blocks) at Mohegan Sun and will be a difficult guard for Oduro, should the teams meet Sunday — Omier is shorter than Oduro but at a different level athletically.
On defense, Miami is vulnerable due to its lack of size. Poplar and Pack are more sleek than powerful and Omier, despite all his strengths, is still just 6-7. Not surprisingly, Miami is vulnerable to giving up offensive rebounds. Both UCF and FIU rebounded about 35% of their misses.
Georgia
Results to date: L vs. Oregon, 82-71 (in Las Vegas); W vs. Wake Forest, 80-77; W vs. North Carolina Central, 64-54
This is the second year of Mike White’s rebuild at Georgia after he darted from Florida last offseason. After a sub-200 KenPom season in Tom Crean’s final campaign in Athens and a rating in the 150s in White’s debut, White appears to have raised the Bulldogs’ floor into competitiveness this winter (in other words, comfortably top 100), though he likely lacks offensive juice to make a run at an NCAA Tournament birth. Georgia has only gotten to one point per possession once in three games (the win over Wake Forest), and it’s not hard to see why. Their rotation is:
- a Niagara transfer (Noah Thomasson)
- a senior role player being asked to be a bigger part of the offense (Jabri Abdur-Rahim)
- an erratic, low-usage transfer from the Big Ten (RJ Melendez)
- a lowish-usage transfer from the American (Russel Tchewa)
- an undersized center from the Atlantic-10 (Jalen DeLoach)
- a one-time Longwood transfer at starting point guard (Justin Hill)
- two promising, four-star freshmen who ranked in the 70s nationally (Blue Cain and Silas Demary)
There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that eight-man rotation, but there’s not a lot of shooting, even with a floor-spacing forward in Abdur-Rahim getting most of the minutes at the 4. Still, the lefty Thomasson will shoot better than he has and Cain and Demary will make progress as they get their sea legs. Overall, it feels like everyone has a role that’s either a bit too big for them at the SEC level or that they’re not ready for just yet.
On defense, unlike the previous teams mentioned (K-State and Miami), Georgia is longer, particularly when Thomasson is at the point and the 7-foot Tchewa is at the 5. I’m not sure, however, that Georgia’s current top-40 2-point field-goal defense passes the smell test, considering the Bulldogs are not flush with rim protection (the 6-foot-5 Cain is their blocks leader to date with three). Similar to Miami and K-State, the Bulldogs struggle on the defensive glass — Oregon ravaged them with 24 offensive rebounds, which helped buoy the Ducks’ bad shooting performance in Georgia’s season-opening loss.
The Bulldogs do some of the little things well — they don’t turn it over, they get to the line (Abdur-Rahim already has 23 made free-throws), but Georgia will need to find more shot-making to have success in the Bahamas.
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