Western is coming off their best performance of the year with their win at BG. Assuredly, they will play with extra intensity because they’re playing us at home with Cleveland on the line. And they had a lead on us early in the 2nd half of the first meeting. We need to show our toughness again, preferably for 40 minutes at both ends, unlike Tuesday night.
Offensively, Western is right in the middle of Division 1 and the MAC. They’re a top 100 3 point shooting team but they don’t shoot a ton of them. They essentially play 5 out with 4 ballhandlers and a big, the big is just there to set screens. When a ballhandler comes off a screen or double screen, they’re looking to drive or pull up in the mid-range. Against BG, they only took threes after passes around the perimeter. Even Williams, who shoots 39% from 3, wants to drive. Since their bigs aren’t a huge threat to score, I think I’d hedge hard and double off the pick and roll some.
At the other end, we turned the ball over too much early. Once we stopped doing that, we scored and scored some more. The first game archive has already been removed from ESPN plus so you can’t go back and watch the first meeting. I’m guessing they’ll put some more ball pressure on us than they did against BG, but no matter how they guard us, the ball has to move more than it did on Tuesday. Attack their big, they don’t block a lot of shots and aren’t the most physical players. Running action with 2 options, Woolfolk on the roll and someone else popping out may shake their defense up a bit. Don’t refuse the mid-range and when we dump in the post, let’s not be afraid to look opposite for the kick out.