Duke welcomes Southern Illinois-Edwardsville to Cameron Friday, and there’s a nice surprise, at least to us: the Cougars’ coach is Brian Barone, son of Bubas-era guard Tony Barone.
Barone, who passed away in 2019, was a sweet man and a ferocious competitor. We have no doubt Brian is just as competitive.
At SIUE, the younger Barone took a few years to get established, but the school stuck with him and it’s paid off. Over the last four years, Barone has finished 19-14, 17-16, 22-12, and 19-13.
Winning
consistently is not easy at major programs, but it’s much more difficult at smaller schools, so Barone is doing really well. His dad would be very proud of what he’s accomplished.
Unfortunately, he may have picked a bad time to visit Duke, where the Blue Devils are no doubt irritated about the loss to Michigan State, and you can be sure they’ve heard about this week in practice.
Making things more difficult for SIUE, the Cougars are an inside-oriented team that gets 49.5 ppg in the lane. With Pat Ngongba, JoJo Boumtje Boumtje, Drew Scharnowski, Cameron Williams, and Maxime Meyer, not to mention Dame Sarr, scoring inside will not be easy.
And the Cougars have not defended well either, which won’t help against Duke. They’ve fouled quite a bit. Lipscomb drew 20 personal fouls and hit 22-29 from the line. As for Missouri, the Tigers drew 21 personal fouls, and hit 22-27 from the line.
Mizzou scored 22.9 percent of its 96, while Lipscomb got 28.2 percent of its total at the line.
The players to keep an eye on for SIUE:
- Jordan Pickett: a 6-3 senior who’s averaging 11.5 ppg.
- David Wilson: a 6-7 junior who’s averaging 1.05 ppg and 5.8 rebounds.
- Gianni Cobb: a 6-0 junior who’s averaging 10 ppg and 3 assists
- Brennan Miller: a 6-7 freshman who’s averaging 9.3 ppg and and 6.5 rebounds.
Duke’s guards – Cayden Boozer, Caleb Foster, Deron Rippey, and most of all, John Blackwell, didn’t shoot well at all against the Spartans, hitting just 6-25 collectively. They’ll probably want to make a point in this game. That’s probably true for Ngongba, Sarr, and Boumtje Boumtje as well.
Make that the whole team. No one was happy after the Chicago trip.
For SIUE, this game represents a chance at a massive if unlikely upset. For Duke, it’s a chance to correct some of the problems we saw at the United Center, and to claim a bit of redemption.
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