The month of January looked to be promising with a decisive win over the Tommies’ next opponent the Western Illinois Leathernecks. Since then, with delays and blowout losses it has been a tough remainder of the month for the Tommie faithful. The last three games, which happened over the course of six days due to COVID rescheduling have been closer than the scores have indicated. Or have they?
Defensive Woes Continue
St. Thomas in their last three games has played some of the worst defense in the country. Interestingly the worst defense in the country over the last three games has been the UNO Mavericks, St. Thomas’s first conference win. Over the season UST has the 351/358th ranked defense versus division 1 opponents. UNO is 358th, UND is 356th. The Summit League is filled with shooters, and the UST defense simply has not matched up well defensively with essentially any conference opponent, except for WIU. UST has only twice done better than what would be considered the D1 average for defense against Montana State and WIU, but both barely. UST’s tools to limit scoring is to control pace, limit turnovers, and get rebounds. UST does the first two very well, and rebounds much better than a team of their size would be expected to. The skill of Summit League shooters the last three games has shown through, with UST allowing effective field goal percentages of 75.5%, 71.2% and 67.7% respectively. Those are percentages that would be impressive for people…in a gym by themselves shooting around.
Leatherneck Preview
WIU @ UST Jan 29 2PM
Rob Jeter’s squad is in a similar situation to UST, in a disappointing slump. Have been off since Monday’s game against USD. WIU plays less guys than UST. Will Carius plays a grueling workload, frequently playing 40 (or more) minutes. They are the only SL team with less depth than UST, so once again it is going to be a game decided by who gets tired first. The trouble is that they can guard the perimeter, holding USD to 3-15 from beyond the arc. If the NDSU game was any indication UST may have even more depth as Martinelli works into the rotation.
Score Prediction UST 85-WIU 77.
It will be close for most of the game, I do not see UST now being able to go wire-to-wire. WIU continues their slump, gets tired, and UST goes on a scoring run late to take advantage.
Plus Three
1.) St. Thomas joining the Summit League tournament is going to be huge for recruiting. UST already has the highest ranked recruiting class the Summit League has ever seen. It also will be huge for retaining current recruits. Here in Wisconsin there is confusion how a talented player like Andrew Rohde can slip to MN out of the hands of Greg Gard, Shaka Smart, or Pat Baldwin.
2.) Related to creating rivalries, trash talk in the media needs to increase. Brooks Allen was quoted on the WDAY Xtra broadcast complimenting the SHAC and Fargo as compared to Concordia’s Memorial Auditorium and the City of Moorhead. UST Athletes needs to play into their city-slicker stereotype and diss (in good fun) these arenas and cities that their fans hold so dear.
3.) UST also leads in two Unique Categories: Percentage of In-State Points, and Shortest Points. No team in AMERICA utilizes their own state’s players better than St. Thomas, they lead UCLA among other schools in HUGE states with numerous basketball talent. Ben Johnson wishes he had the kind of in-state power that JT does. Maybe that is why he does not want to entertain the possibility of a cross-town rivalry.