Negative Nelly coming in…..here’s my concern with this matchup….
It comes down to athletes and defense. SMU’s defense statistically is just as good as ours. But I think our defense (which is elite) is a system defense. Meaning our offensive pace has a lot to do with our defensive performance. (That’s not a bad thing. It won us 30+ games last year and has turned this program around. So don’t think I’m saying it’s bad. It’s great and I’m 100% on board. It’s a great system) however, I don’t know how SMUs defense is so good. But I do know they scored 103 points last game. They’ve scored 80, 90 multiple times. They held the most athletic team in the conference, Memphis to 62 points. Yes they only scored 59 against Memphis. But we just got held to 44 by Charlotte. We couldn’t score 103 points if we wanted to….
So does SMU out athlete their opponents to hold them down on defense? Do they have a system? I just don’t know if I like the matchup….I’m going to assume we’ll be home underdogs. I hope the pit is rocking Thursday. Going to need it packed. I think we are going to have to play REALLY well to win this game. Much better than we have the past few games.