Game Preview: St. Martin's

by Craig Yamada

The countdown clock has finally expired. It’s time to unveil your 2010-2011 UW Men’s Basketball team for the first time tonight at 5 PM at Hec Ed. The Dawgs take the floor tonight against an in-state Division II opponent, the Saint Martin’s Saints.

The Saints hail from Lacey, WA and will make the 2 hour drive up I-5 to play UW tonight for a scrimmage. Though this game does not count against any official records, this should give us a good barometer on how well our team has developed thus far.

Although a D2 school, we will see how well Romar has prepared his team with their personnel.

St. Martin’s returns their two top scorers last season. The big man in the middle will be 6’5″ Center, Blake Poole. Poole led the team in scoring last year with 21.o ppg and over 12 rebounds per game. Though his height may be atypical for his position, his stout weight at 265 lbs will be a good test for MBA and Aziz today. Look for them to body up on Poole and take out their primary weapon early.

Jeremy Green their second leading scorer last year at 13.5 ppg is 6’7″ and will be a likely assignment for Justin Holiday out of the gates. Their fourth leading scorer, is SG Galen Squiers who averaged 11.7 ppg last year. Look for IT to take the 6’2″ guard out of his game early with pressure defense. Squiers led the team in 3 pt FG’s last year at 36% last year. Look for UW to extend their man-to-man pressure to take away the arc. Abdul Gaddy will draw the assignment of Brady Bomber, their 5’10” PG. Bomber led their team in assists last year with over 107 on the season. At SF, sophomore Roger O’Neill seems likely to fill out the starting lineup. At 6’5″, O’Neill seems to be a solid assignment for Scott Suggs out of the gates. And yes, Suggs is likely to be our 5th starter tonight.

Again, likely starting line up tonight:

PG – Abdul Gaddy

SG – Isaiah Thomas

SF – Scott Suggs

PF – Justin Holiday

C – Matthew Bryan-Amaning

Given the upsets given up by Syracuse and nearly UCLA last year to Div II schools, I am sure Romar has done his homework on this Lacey squad. Given this will be UW’s first game action, the rust is likely to show in the first 5 minutes as guys start to figure out their roles. Look for St. Martin’s to hang around within 5-10 pts in the first half. Out of the second half, I expect UW to pour it on and never look back.

Game prediction: UW wins 87 – 60.