Date 1/10|| Time 2:00 || Venue Cameron Indoor Stadium || Video ESPN
Now in its second season as a member of the All-Coast ACC, SMU is getting around to some of the more challenging environments it didn’t
see last season.
On Wednesday, the Mustangs were introduced to the dubious pleasures of Clemson’s Littlejohn Coliseum, where they lost, 74-70. As the season goes on, they’ll visit Wake’s dimly lit Joel, Louisville’s delicious Yum! Center, Pitt’s Petersen Zoo, the Dome at Syracuse and the increasingly dangerous West Coast swing near the end of the season for Cal’s Haas Pavilion and Stanford’s Maple Pavilion, before closing out at Florida State’s Donald L. Tucker Civic Center.
But on Saturday, they will be in Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium, and that’s as tough a home court as anywhere.
Generally speaking, depending on who you ask, Cameron and Phog Allen Fieldhouse out in Kansas are ranked as the toughest home courts in college basketball.
Yet it may not be as big a factor for SMU as you’d imagine.
First, SMU coach Andy Enfield was a Leonard Hamilton assistant from 2006-2011 so he’s been in Cameron plenty. Your players still have to get the job done on the court, but Enfield knows the routine and the Crazies routines. You have to adjust to the ferocity of the place, but he can certainly warn his guys and prepare them for what’s coming.
And second, he’s bringing some pretty talented players, among them Boopie Miller.
Miller spent a year at Wake Forest three seasons ago and he did well against Duke. At Joel, he scored 15 and led the Deacs to an 83-79 upset. He only scored 3 at Cameron, but Wake only lost by 8.
He’s really thrived in Dallas which must be great on a personal level since reports when he entered the portal were that the Wake staff doubted that he…how to be fair here…lacked a winning mentality? It was never publicly acknowledged but that was out there.
He’s kind of put that to rest over the last two seasons.
Miller is averaging 20.6 ppg, 3.9 boards and 7.1 assists. That’s All-ACC material. He’s also hitting 92.5% from the line and 42.5% on his threes.
Enfield goes with a fairly tight rotation of seven. The others are Jaron Pierre (6-5 senior), BJ Edwards (6-3 senior), Corey Washington (6-6 senior), Samet Yigitoglu (7-2/270 lb. sophomore), Jaden Toombs (6-10/230 lb freshman) and his best buddy and adopted brother and high school teammate Jermaine O’Neal Jr. (6-6 freshman).
Toombs missed the start of the season with a wrist/hand injury but he’s back and will become a force.
Freshman Billy White, who reclassified, is still on the roster but he hasn’t played so presumably he’s either injured or redshirting.
Anyway, Enfield is a talented offensive coach. He built Dunk City, as FAU was once known, into a legitimate power and circus that entertained the entire nation.
Generally speaking, Duke will have a size advantage, but Yigitoglu and Toombs will pose challenges inside as will SMU’s general speed and athleticism.
And the three-guard offense is fast and scores a lot. Aside from Miller, Pierre racks up 18.7 points while Edwards, probably the best defender of the three, gets 13.5. And Washington, arguably a fourth guard, gets 12.3.
SMU is a solid offensive rebounding team as well, so Duke will need to choke that off.
On the downside, the Mustangs can be careless with the ball, especially Miller and Pierre, who don’t always handle pressure well. SMU likes to zone too and if Duke gets hot from outside, that might not work so well.
If you watched the Louisville game, you saw how Duke can really jam a team up inside defensively. With a bigger overall roster, if the Blue Devils can gum up the inside again, that’ll cause problems for SMU. And if they put them on the line, Enfield, who was historically good from the line at Johns Hopkins (92.5%, then an NCAA record and still astonishing), might be frustrated, because his team shoots just 71% there.
Duke needs to exploit its size, particularly on the perimeter, and force SMU to deal with a lot of defensive pressure.
This is worth keeping in mind too: Patrick Ngongba only played 10 minutes at Louisville and picked up two fouls in about 30 seconds, one a technical and one right after that, likely in frustration.
How he reacts will be key because he should be an important factor here. He’s needed to counter Yigitoglu and Toombs inside.
SMU will have to really deal with Cameron Boozer, who is having an historically great season, and can’t afford to let Isaiah Evans heat up from the perimeter. They’ll also need to keep Caleb Foster out of the lane. As we saw at Louisville, he’s capable of getting in there and causing chaos for defenders.
One note about Foster. It’s taken him some time to really establish himself as a top-flight player but he’s there now. When we watched him drive the lane repeatedly against Louisville, something clicked. He reminded us very much of a previous player and we’re curious if anyone else noticed this.
One of the things that made Jason Williams so great at Duke was his combination of strength and a low center of gravity.
Like Williams, Foster has always had a low center of gravity but now he has strength to compliment it. We’re not sure he had that in his first two seasons. It’s really working for him.
One more thing to keep in mind for this game: at Louisville, Dame Sarr really showed his defensive potential, nearly shutting Ryan Conwell down during the second half after the 6-4 guard exploded in the first. We’ll have to see if he could guard Miller, who is quite a bit shorter, but do you think he could have a solid performance against the other three perimeter players? We do. And if you can seriously suppress one scorer, the burden on the others just gets heavier.
We’ll add links as we find them.
- SMU, Boopie Miller look to upset another ACC contender in Cameron Boozer-led Duke
- Big College Basketball Showdown: SMU vs. Duke Preview
- Duke vs. SMU men’s basketball tickets still available for Saturday, Jan. 10
