Grambling State Preview

Finals week at the University of Minnesota concludes today and that means that the Golden Gophers will be back in action tonight at 7:00 PM against the Grambling State Tigers of the Southwest Athletic Conference. Grambling State is a historically black college that is famous, at least in the mainstream, for both its football program and its marching band. Basketball however is another story, and this is another of the many guarantee games (games in which the home team pays the away team) that Minnesota plays every year.

Grambling (2-3), led by head coach Larry Wright, have only playedfive games so far this season, two against a non-Division I opponents. They have lost all three Division I games on the road, 62-50 to Illinois State, 59-55 to Dayton, and 101-71 to Texas A&M. With an RPI of 235 according to midmajority.com, this appears to be a slam dunk for the Gophers. There's not a wholelot of good information out there on Grambling's team this season, but I'll try to say as much as I can.

Starting Backcourt

The Tigers are led by 6'2" senior guard Brion Rush. He currently leads the team in minutes (33.3), points per game (23.8), rebounds per game (7.0), steals per game (1.8) and turnovers per game (4.0). In other words look for him to touch the ball an awful lot.
While having to carry the load, Rush has been fairly efficient, but not outstanding. He checks in with a 1.12 PPWS and an eFG% of 52.6. He's done a lot of his damage from the outside where he has shot 14-38 (36.8%).

The other half of the starting backcourt is point guard 5"10" sophomore Andre Ratliff. He leads the team in assists at 3.3, but like Rush turns the ball over at a high rate (3.3/G). Like a lot of mid-major to small-major guards we've seen at the Barn this year, he shoots quite a bit, but doesn't make all that many. He is currently shooting 36.2 % from the field, but has hit at least a mediocre 11 for 33 three-point attempts. This adds up to an eFG% of 47.9 and 0.99 PPWS.

Starting Frontcourt

The starting frontcourt consists of 6'6" junior forward Anthony Williams, 6'5" senior Jamar Lewis, and 6'7" senior Martez Stevens. The biggest scoring threat of the three is Williams who averages 11.8 points per game while pulling down 6.0 rebounds in 27.5 minutes. His field goal percentage is okay at 47.6 %, but he's only hitting 5-11 on free throws to give him 1.0 PPWS. He's also turned it over 1.8 times per game contributing to the Tigers 258th ranked turnover percentage of 24.8.

The other two thirds of the frontcourt are not really threats to score as Lewis averages 3 points per game in 26 minutes and Stevens averages 2.0 in 18.3 minutes. They're not a threat to do a whole lot else either besides getting a few rebounds where they pull down 2 and 3.8 respectively.

Bench

After the starting five Grambling has about five players who could see anywhere between 10 and 20 minutes of playing time tonight. As far as I can tell, with an almost total lack of information on these players, they are all interchangeable parts that come in the game to soak up minutes and not much else.

Basically, Grambling is a program that is mired in the lower quartile of Division I, playing in what is traditionally a fifteen and sixteen seed conference, the SWAC. They turn the ball over, they don't shoot well, and they don't grab a lot of rebounds. In fact they're offense currently ranks at 317th in the country according to raw offensive efficiency. On defense they are not much better as their 262nd ranked defensive efficiency shows. The key for Minnesota tonight is to show up, play a solid game, don't let Brion Rush get hot and win by 20 points. Even if Rush does get hot, he likely won't have much help elsewhere. This should be easy.

Prediction: Minnesota 80, Grambling 60

-Grant Peterson