After last weekend’s brutal double-header loss at Hofstra (6-3, 2-0 CAA), William and Mary (2-5, 0-2 CAA) will look to regroup before diving deeper into the conference schedule. Although the Tribe showed great effort going up against the top-ranked Pride, we’ll need to make some serious adjustments on offense to come out looking stronger in the first half and to have fewer turnovers and more second-chance points and points in the paint overall. No more empty-calorie rebounds, thank you!
This weekend the Tribe takes on visiting Delaware (3-4, 1-1 CAA), looking to defend its turf against the Fightin’ Blue Hens in a two-game, two-day homestand. For the Blue Hens, who went 1-for-2 against even-matched Charleston (3-6, 1-1 CAA) last weekend, this will be a chance to show off their dominance against a badly ranked opponent: us. While Delaware was picked second in Colonial Athletic Association preseason polls and has two All-Conference players in Ryan Allen (Second Team) and Kevin Anderson (also Second Team), William and Mary was ranked 10th (dead last!) in the conference and has only preseason Honorable Mention Luke Loewe to speak of. This will be a tough matchup for William and Mary, and if Delaware truly is as good as the preseason poll says it is, it should win both of these games, without question. Otherwise, I’ll have serious doubts about the Blue Hens moving forward — but I’ll still be happy that Delaware lost and that we somehow managed to stage a huge upset at home.
William and Mary Tribe vs. Delaware Blue Hens — Saturday, 2 p.m. // Sunday 2 p.m.
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Tale of the Tape
According to John Kearns’s KYUSAG model, William and Mary is a very slight (.03!) favorite over Delaware with a very marginal .509 percent chance of winning.
William and Mary is ranked 295th in KenPom (238th adj off/314th adj def), while Delaware is ranked 266th (244th adj off/280th adj def).
However, currently in KYUSAG, William and Mary ranks ninth in the CAA and 250th overall, while Delaware ranks 10th in the conference and nearby 251st in the NCAA.
Projected Starters
W&M: G Luke Loewe (Sr.), G Yuri Covington (Fr.), G Connor Kochera (Fr.), F Quinn Blair (Jr.), F Ben Wight (RFr.). After Mekhel Harvey’s lackluster performance at Hofstra last weekend — averaging 2.5 points across two games on 2-of-5 shooting and 4.5 offensive boards per contest — I think there’s a chance we’ll see Wight in the starting lineup this weekend. While Wight hasn’t started since our surprising win against Hampton (75-58) last month, in which he fouled out, I hope he gets the chance to start again and redeem himself after that troubling performance.
Thornton Scott didn’t appear in either game against Hofstra last weekend and hasn’t played since we lost to Virginia last month. He may still be battling an ankle/foot injury, and I don’t know what his latest status is, so I’m not confident we’ll see him start — much less even play — against Delaware this weekend.
Del: G Ryan Allen (Sr.), G Ebby Asamoah (So.), G Johnny McCoy (So.), F Dylan Painter (RSr.), F Andrew Carr (Fr.). Delaware senior guard Kevin Anderson twisted his ankle in the final two minutes of the first game against Charleston (70-67 Delaware) and sat out the entirety of the second game (66-59 Charleston) with that injury, wearing an ankle boot, so it’s highly unlikely we’ll see him appear against our very own Green and Gold.
What to Watch For
Our one saving grace to this weekend may be that Kevin Anderson is still injured. Without Delaware’s star senior — who’s averaging 12 points per game on 39.3 percent shooting and an average of 32 minutes each appearance — the Blue Hens may struggle to score if our defense can hold it together this weekend. Had Anderson been playing, I would’ve said that the Blue Hens were favorites to win both of these games. But without him, I’m not so sure. While I think Delaware can easily win one of these two games, I believe we might have a shot at upsetting the Blue Hens on either Saturday or Sunday afternoon, but not both. And while the Blue Hens could win both of these games, I’m not confident they can do that unless we really screw up, just as we did against High Point (71-49) — our low point, ironically — last month.
For Delaware without Anderson, the players to watch are fellow senior guard Ryan Allen, who’s averaging a team-best 14.9 points per game, and redshirt senior forward Dylan Painter, who’s averaging 10.9 points per game on impressive 50 percent field goal shooting. While sophomore guard Ebby Asamoah has played well coming off the Blue Hens’ bench, he’s no equal to Anderson in the starting five. Although Asamoah started the season off with a bang — with a season-high 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting, including a remarkable 6-of-8 from three — that was against Salem, a D-II school, and his numbers have steadily declined since that opener against the Tigers. Since averaging double-digit points (10.8) in 20.5 minutes per appearance his first four (non-conference) games, Asamoah has dropped to averaging eight points per game after his recent low-scoring performances against Morgan State (3 points) and Charleston (3 and 7 points). And despite starting for the first time ever in his college basketball career and playing for a season-high 31 minutes in Anderson’s stead, Asamoah shot the ball only four times, making two threes, in Delaware’s second go-around against Charleston (which the Blue Hens ultimately lost, 66-59).
(Side note: It’s a shame we at No Bid Nation can’t be at Kaplan Arena this weekend for William and Mary’s exciting double homestand against Delaware. Brendan, John and I all feel a strong urge to heckle the living daylights out of Painter, whose team couldn’t beat William and Mary once last year and who folded like a lawn chair in the second half of the second game, scoring zero points on 0-for-3 shooting against us during the pivotal final period of the Gold Rush.)
For William and Mary, Luke Loewe, the Tribe’s lone scholarship senior, has been an absolute stud, averaging 18.4 points per game on 49.5 percent shooting from the field, including rock-solid 40 percent shooting from three. In addition, Loewe’s grabbed 13 steals total, averaging nearly two steals (1.86 per game, to be exact) across seven games. A monster on both ends of the floor, Loewe also — crucially, for this team — has posted a positive assist-to-turnover ratio of 3.0, tallying 30 assists total to only 10 turnovers.
Junior forward Quinn Blair, my guy, is averaging 10.9 points per game on 38.8 percent shooting. While he hasn’t shot great from three — only 22.2 percent so far, not like last year down the stretch — I’m confident in Blair’s abilities as a starter because he’s had to adapt to a new role playing much higher minutes and taking a much higher volume of shots. Plus, Blair seems to be the team’s only positive rebounder, averaging 6.9 boards per game, and able to put some of those balls back into the hole for second-chance points (unlike 6-foot-9, 225-pound junior forward/center Mekhel Harvey, who’s averaging only 5.3 points per game despite averaging 6.1 boards per contest). With Blair, I’m confident that he’ll grow more capable as a shooter as the season progresses and as the competition heats up, since he showed me that last heat year against Elon in the CAA Quarterfinals, where he scored five points on perfect 2-of-2 shooting (including a three!) in just 14 minutes off the bench.
Yuri Covington, our freshman point guard, has struggled with fouls and turnovers as of late. He fouled out in our first go-around at Hofstra last weekend, which we lost 61-56, and he turned the ball over four times the first game and three times the second, which we also lost 82-73. Compare Covington’s seven turnovers (and eight fouls) with only two assists total last weekend (one for each game), and we see a fairly negative picture start to emerge. With 33 turnovers total across seven games so far, Covington is currently averaging 4.7 turnovers per game, as compared to only 14 assists total and two assists per game. That’s not very good. And while Covington’s shown some promise as a scorer — he’s averaging 9.4 points per game on 37.7 percent shooting — he plays a little bit out of control driving to the basket and his ball-handling skills need work. I like Covington’s speed and his athleticism going in for layups, but as long as guys on the other team (like Hofstra last weekend) know they can flop and get him called for charges, he’ll be in foul trouble for the rest of his year, neutralizing his ability and his value to this team.
Lastly, freshman guard Connor Kochera has played well throughout his six appearances so far. (He missed the George Washington game, which we miraculously won 85-84 OT, with a non-coronavirus illness.) The CAA Rookie of the Week (Nov. 30, 2020) after his first collegiate start against Old Dominion, in which he scored a season-high 19 points on 6-of-9 shooting (including a remarkable 6-of-7 from three!), Kochera is currently averaging 9.8 points per game on 36.1 percent shooting from the field and 34.4 percent from three. While Kochera has had some less envious performances — like his first game at Hofstra, in which he scored only three points on 1-of-12 shooting, including 0-of-4 from three — his struggles are no different than the rest of the team’s struggles, and I expect him to play hard and make good decisions this weekend against Delaware, given what I’ve seen from him.