Men's Basketball Opens 2007-08 Season Monday at Florida State
“It’s come up on us really fast,” said GSU head coach Jeff Price. “We haven’t had a lot of time to prepare for it four weeks of practice and all of the sudden on Monday we play Florida State. We’re certainly going to get tested early.”
Unlike in previous seasons when Georgia Southern had a “warm-up” game against a mid-major school before taking on a major conference opponent, the Eagles will face a team that reached postseason play right off the bat.
“The last two years have been a little different because we opened up with UC Davis and Portland before we played Duke and Texas Tech,” said Price. “So it’s a little bit different because we’re stepping right in with Florida State and we’re not really having a chance to prepare. It may be a hard to gauge [how good we are] after an ACC game, but certainly the tournament with three games in Daytona Beach that following weekend against schools that are more our level mid-major level we’re going to have a much better idea.”
Florida State advanced to the NIT quarterfinals last season and posted a 22-13 record. While the Seminoles lose unanimous All-ACC selection Al Thornton, they return four starters and nine letterwinners.
“They can really, really shoot it,” Price said. “Their guards are really good. They have some of the best guards in the league. They shoot it well, they’re deep up front and they have some big bodies. They have a good blend of both big people and guards, and they’re very experienced. They lost Al Thornton, who was a great player, but they have everybody else back.”
The Eagles will try to counter with their size, which Price believes can be a difference-maker.
“Our size is a strength,” said Price. “We haven’t been this deep up front with different types of big players. We have agile big players with Louis (Graham) and Matt (Fields), Kenny (Ward) and Trumaine (Pearson), we have big bodies in Ryan (Hynes) and Krzysztof (Janiszewski). We have a decent mix on the front line. We can play a lot of different combinations if we need to.”
While the front line is deep, the backcourt is thinner than usual. Price says, that because of this, Georgia Southern will have to score in multiple ways.
“We have to be creative in the ways that we score. We’re not as deep in the guard position as we’ve been in the past but we’re probably deeper up front. This is probably our deepest team on the front line that I’ve had since I’ve been here. So you may see a different type of team not a slowdown team, but a team that maybe finds different ways to score in transition and maybe a little more inside.”
Tip-off is scheduled for 9 p.m. The game will be televised on Fox Sports Net Florida. Fans can also follow the action on the Georgia Southern Radio Network with play-by-play announcer Chris Blair and color commentator Frank Kerns. The pre-game show begins 30 minutes before the tip.
- Category: Men's Basketball
- Published on Sunday, 11 November 2007 10:05
