Big Monday Scouting Report: Kansas Jayhawks On Texas A&M Aggies

Busy times will prevent a full preview, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least provide a small tutorial and a thread to welcome your thoughts.

As for mine, I think tonight will be the toughest game outside of Manhattan and the Big Dance. In a strange way, A&M is almost like a Kansas-lite. As you know, I don’t think we’re necessarily elite, but we do everything well enough that we become a great team. Well, A&M is kind of like that, except not at our level. They don’t have any outright deficiencies, but they don’t excel at any one thing, they define themselves by their tough defense and by finding ways to win.

Inside and out, they’re defined by Bryan Davis and Donald Sloan – the latter of which is their unquestioned leader, especially since Roland went down. Sloan isn’t much of a distributor and he’s a little too careless with the ball, but he’s really improved his outside stroke (37% from three), he’s quick enough to get by just about anyone on the bounce and he’s as good of a perimeter defender as there is in the league. Davis and his forehead are good for a couple out of control traveling calls every game, but that notwithstanding, he always brings his lunch pale and at the end of the day, he’s given his team something resembling a double-double.

On the perimeter, Sloan will have help from BJ Holmes and Dash Harris. Harris will be their creator and he’ll look to push the pace, drive and dish – but he can knock it down if we leave him alone. Holmes has become their gunner though. Sloan has him on percentage (37.3 to 35.3), but Holmes is knocking down about 2 a game (41 for the year).

Down-low, the Ags will have some fouls to give, as most of their guys are pretty interchangeable. The four we’re likely to see are: Loubeau, Walkup, Middleton, and newly found upstart, Ray Turner. If you don’t know who Turner is, I suggest you ask Kimmie English. They didn’t use him much early, but he’s an athlete and he’s come on strong of late.

Of the lot, Loubeau is the most dependable, and has been all year. He’s also the only one that stands over 6′8″, as he’s listed at 6′9″. So yes, we should be looking into Aldrich early and often. Long story short, none of them are great, but they’ll all bang with you and attack the glass. Walkup and Middleton will step out for a couple treys a game, so they shouldn’t be ignored, but they’re also not proficient enough that it’s a concern. Play these guys straight up, with a possible double on Davis occasionally, and we really should be able to protect the paint.

It’s a weird game, because there truly isn’t one thing A&M does as well as our Hawks, but they’re a viable concern because they’re much better on the floor than they are on paper. We’ve got more weapons on offense, we move the ball better, and we score it better, but they’re crafty. They rely on their guards getting it into the paint, finding the open guy, finishing it themselves, or failing both; drawing contact and getting to the stripe. Not many teams shoot more FTs; of course, Sloan and Holmes are the only two that knock them down consistently, but you can’t count on missed ones. We’ll need to do what we can to keep from bailing them out all the time.

Defensively, they’re probably just as tough as us, but they don’t quite have the size or depth to hold good team down for a full forty. They’ve only been lit up once all year (88 at K-State), but they’re nearly always good for giving up 65-70 or so. And that’s about where I think we’ll need to get tonight. I don’t expect to fully shut them down, but unless we’re ice cold, I don’t think they can lock us up either. I say, if we can get to 70, we’ll leave with a W. Should be a great test.

Thoughts?

This was written by Hiphopopotamus of Oread Boom Kings .

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