GU vs AF

Just wanted to distract myself from work a little.....

Tonight will be a great test of our defensive discipline. I have attended AF games my whole life (with the exception of my 4 years in Spokane) and have become very familiar with their style of play. While they have had 4 or so coaches over the past 10 years they all have had some version of the Princeton Offense. This will consist of a lot of passing, backdoor cuts and 3 point attempts. You will see 5 guys on the floor who can play all over and are willing to take the 3 ball. We will win this game by double digits because we are much more talented and have way more size. However, AF’s program consistently is a team of Mike Harts who can shoot the 3 much better. They will get on the floor, play scrappy and get a lot of steals. Again, while we are much bigger than they are, it will be good to see us execute in the ½ court versus this team. They will play very good and disciplined D. They will force us to execute in the ½ court because they hardly ever send more than 1 guy to the offensive boards. They will be back and set, I wouldn’t expect us to but up huge fast break numbers. In the 2nd half when we get leads I have been critical of our offensive execution so I am excited to watch this game.

Getting back what I said about us being tested defensively. We will have to play good man to man D against that offense. We will have to get through all the screens and make sure not to get beat backdoor. We know we need to get better defending the 3 and this will be a perfect game for us to work on it.

While this is not a great AF team like they’ve had in the past when they nearly beat UNC in the NCAA Tourny, I will expect them to put of a good fight for part of the game. They are conditioned at altitude so they won’t be winded, but if we beat them up physically and execute offensively we should win going away.

Go Zags!