Tech fan here

[LLjacket]

Hello, found your message board this morning. Just thought I'd check in and see what you guys thought about the game tonight, and what your chances were? I'm not sure if it's going to allow me to post, so I'm posting this, and then will make a follow up with a little summary on our squad.

[LLjacket]

Ok, I thought I might have to register with your admins, but it looks like it's allowing me to post. First, I'll say that from what I know, you guys have a nice team. Banks looks to be a real good player, and will give us a lot of trouble. I'm not very familiar with the rest of your team, but if you made the tourney last year, and are projected to win the conference, I'm sure there's a lot of talent. I think this could be a real exciting game tonight. Little bit of info. on GT for you, for what it's worth.

We come to Chicago tonight as Coach Hewitt is bringing Will Bynum "home". He's a Arizona transfer, and if you watched our tourney games last yr., was very clutch for us down the stretch. A Sr. (like 4 others on the team), Will typically comes off the bench, but will start tonight. He has far-and-away the best one-on-one moves on our team, and arguably in the ACC. Not a great outside shooter, but does play solid D (like all of our team).

Starters -
PG - Jarrett Jack (Jr.). The vocal leader of our team, and he will probably turn pro this spring. He will push the ball up the court every chance he gets, and is a big, aggresive PG. 6-3, 200 lbs. Loves to get to the basket in transition, and is not afraid to attack the hoop looking for contact. His 3-pt shot has improved in the offseason, as that was the one aspect of his game that was lacking. We'll need that outside shooting this year, as we lost two of our best 3-pt shooters from a yr ago.
SG - BJ Elder (Sr.). Our best scorer, BJ will post up or shoot from outside. He's our best shooter from behind the arc, and Ill-Chi will need to find him when we are in transition, as Jack will look for BJ circling around the 3-pt line. We'll run a lot of picks for him, and swing the ball quickly to him, in efforts to get him open looks. BJ's a quiet player, you don't realize that he's putting big #'s up until you look at the stat sheet at the end of the game.
SF - Isma'il Muhammed (Sr.). If you've seen Sportscenter top 10 the last yr., you've seen #2. Ish has arguably the best hops in the country, voted by espn.com as the #1 dunker in college hoops. He does struggle mightily with his outside shot, and probably won't shoot from outside 15 ft. He's not very comfortable with his ball-handling either, so you'll see him get the ball in transition where he only has to make one or two dribbles before attacking the basket. On D, he's tenacious. We'll have him guard everything from the PG to the PF.
PF - Anthony McHenry (Sr.). T-Mac is our best defender we have. 6-8 and "rangy", he's very quick and came to GT as a PG. Really cannot shoot from outside like Ish, and you guys will challenge him to take the open 3. Will attack the glass, and pick up some "trash" points around the bucket. He keys our 3/4 and full court press, and you'll see a decent amount of that tonight, especially early in the game.
C - Luke Schensher (Sr.). The Aussie has really come on in the last year. He's a nice low post player, but is not overly aggresive. He is quite accurate from 10 ft in, and will use the backboard to assist his hook shots, etc. A decent defender, Luke has continued to improve, and will be a key for us making another late postseason run.

Key bench players -
PG/SG - Will Bynum (Sr.). As discussed, Will should start tonight in place of Ish or maybe Jack.
C - Theodis Tarver (Jr..). Theo really had a bad yr last yr. He broke his kneecap in camp and just never recovered. He's started out well this year, and provides a nice compliment to Luke. Very solid shotblocker, and nice scorer around the basket. You will never see us playing these two guys at the same time, although I'm not sure why.
SF - Mario West (So.). - Mario is not a scorer, but is a terror on D. He gets to more balls, more rebounds, and forces more turnovers than anyone on our team, and that's why he gets playing time. In one of our preseason games, he had 6 def. rebounds and 7 steals in 14 minutes of play. Pretty amazing.
PG - Zam Frederick (Fr.). he'll see a small amt. of playing time maybe. Nice shooter from the outside, but this is only his second college game
SG - Anthony Morrow (Fr.). same as Zam. Both are quite tentative right now.

Overall, we have an experienced team that excels more on the D end of the court than on offense. We look for points in transition, but our halfcourt offense is only average at this point, and something we constantly are working on. We're not the shooting squad that we were last yr., and that will give us some trouble all yr., including tonight.

Should be a great game! I'm thrilled that it's on TV, so I don't have to listen on the radio! Best of luck to you guys tonight as well, and feel free to ask any questions about what I think of our team if you like. Looking forward to a highly contested matchup!

[Chuck A]

Thanks for the report LLjacket. We hope by having the game at the Pavilion, that we would have a slight advantage or more appropriately, less of a disadvantage. We are very short, our starting lineup goes 6'0", 6'2", 6'6", 6'7", 6'9"; and the 6'9" guy, Jovan Stefanov, doesn't even play down low. We just hope you guys are looking past us as just another mid-major team and that our guys are not intimidated out of their jocks.

Of course, if we can stay within 7-10 points within the last 10 minutes, anything can happen.

[BasketBallJones]

Vegas has GT a 9 to 9.5 point favorite. As a WSU fan, I hope the Flames can pull off the big upset.

[Chuck A]

Let's hope so and congrats to you guys. Wright State did a great job starting out 2-1. As a matter of fact the HL started out 9-1. Hopefully we can keep it up as a league. This can only help our at-large chances.

[Bballraider]

Just wanted to wish the Flames Good Luck tonight, bring one home for the Horizon League.

[Raiderfan]

I'll jump on the band wagon and wish the Flames the best for tonights game. This would be a big win for UIC and the Horizon League. Go get em.