@ Southern Miss (11/4)

[mbenecke]

... and we're back!

On Monday, November 4, our Falcons will begin the 2024-2025 season with a trip to Hattiesburg, Mississippi to take on the Southern Miss Golden Eagles. The game will tip at 8:00pm EST and be available to stream via ESPN+.

Looking forward to welcoming the following guys into the program with their Falcon debuts:
Jaxon Pardon
Javontae Campbell
Braelon Green
Marcus Johnson
Wilguens Exacte
Derrick Butler
Mohamed Maxamud
Preston Squire
Youssef Khayat
Alijah Adem

This game will be part of the Sun Belt challenge. Hoping the MAC can be competitive this year, starting with BG delivering a win on Monday night.

Go Falcons!

[Hammer]

I will be at the game to see our team in action. On paper this is a much better roster. I think there should be a lot of optimism surrounding this season but this board seems awful quiet.

[fanatic13]

I will be at the game to see our team in action. On paper this is a much better roster. I think there should be a lot of optimism surrounding this season but this board seems awful quiet.

I have a feeling you're the only one on the board going. I'm extremely excited for the season and talent we have. However I have no idea what to expect for lineups or game 1 chemistry. Biggest thing i want to see is the offensive system flowing better. It's year two and last year the lack shooting killed us. It won't be perfect Monday but I would like to see the potential

[hammb]

I will be at the game to see our team in action. On paper this is a much better roster. I think there should be a lot of optimism surrounding this season but this board seems awful quiet.

I have a feeling you're the only one on the board going. I'm extremely excited for the season and talent we have. However I have no idea what to expect for lineups or game 1 chemistry. Biggest thing i want to see is the offensive system flowing better. It's year two and last year the lack shooting killed us. It won't be perfect Monday but I would like to see the potential

Same here. I'm very excited but other than some typical preseason fluff I haven't heard anything. No idea what to expect in rotations, etc.

I'll be watching from home tomorrow night

[guest44]

My guess at the starting lineup. Complete guess.

Thomas
Butler
Green
Khayat
Towns

Johnson, Exacte, Squire, Campbell, Humphrey play in rotation.

[BleedOrange]

I'm really interested in seeing Exacte, Adem, and Felt. Based on their past numbers, I sense that the only reason we got any of them was that they were injured and the majors passed. My idealized starting lineup -

Adem
Campbell/Butler/Green/Humphries/whoknows
Exacte
Khayat
Felt

[Bgsu2016]

I will be at the game to see our team in action. On paper this is a much better roster. I think there should be a lot of optimism surrounding this season but this board seems awful quiet.

I think the roster turnover is so high we're not sure what to think

[mbenecke]

BG down 43-33 at halftime.

All in all, I didn’t think it was a bad half. Obviously need to defend a lot better to win, but we had some flow to the offense there. Can see guys still learning each other and gaining chemistry. I’m confident results will follow - we have a lot of talent.

[BleedOrange]

Well, I can't say I see anything at all that makes me excited for the season.

[guest44]

Some good
-Combo of guards between Thomas, Butler, Campbell will be really good in the MAC. Campbell looks better than I expected
-Johnson can score
-Tons of depth

Not so good
-Khayat never found any rhythm
-Exacte looks like he was coming off injury.
-Towns has to be a threat to score.
-Finding rotations a big work in progress.
-Johnson can’t guard anyone

[hammb]

I wouldn't play Johnson 10 mins a game. He's borderline unplayable, afaic.

Not just Towns but all the other guys need to be threats to score. Can't have the 3 guards plus Johnson be the only offense. There were times it was like playing 2 on 5 offensively. And again, one of those 4 that scored gave up about twice as much on the other end.

The few positives for me... I like pushing the pace but dammit play under control. Was nice to see some better perimeter shooting than we did last year. At times we really moved the ball on offense, need more of that. But overall this was a far cry from last year when it was really apparent you had a star in Hill right away.

[Hammer]

I feel like I went to Hattiesburg to watch a rugby match. I think we are going to have a good team. It’s hard to tell exactly what we have when you are playing 5 on 8. Hats off to our guys for keeping their composure.

[Globetrotter]

Refs were terrible, they fouled and traveled often.

The starting lineup is solid Thomas-Campbell-Butler are all solid. Towns is solid and they need to find a way to get Johnson the ball better. He will score in bunches.

Johnson and Campbell will be our best players.

[guest44]

Southern Miss doubled teamed Johnson as soon as he got the ball in the post after his initial few baskets. BG did next to nothing to make them pay for the double teams. The first half felt like Simon emptied the cupboard to try to find some rotations. Went ice cold to end the half and had to try to play catch up. I still believe this team has much better depth and shooting than last year. Humphrey was 6th man last year, was about 11th guy used last night. It didn’t look like Adem was on the bench but I could be wrong on that.

I’ll add:
My biggest concern and takeaway from last night is how little Khayat and Green played. Those are high D1 level athletes who if they aren’t a bigger part of the rotation going forward I’m very very concerned.

[hammb]

Southern Miss doubled teamed Johnson as soon as he got the ball in the post after his initial few baskets. BG did next to nothing to make them pay for the double teams. The first half felt like Simon emptied the cupboard to try to find some rotations. Went ice cold to end the half and had to try to play catch up. I still believe this team has much better depth and shooting than last year. Humphrey was 6th man last year, was about 11th guy used last night. It didn’t look like Adem was on the bench but I could be wrong on that.

I’ll add:
My biggest concern and takeaway from last night is how little Khayat and Green played. Those are high D1 level athletes who if they aren’t a bigger part of the rotation going forward I’m very very concerned.

I was stunned at how little YoYo played. Then when he did he barely had a touch in the offensive end. He also had the single best play of the night going coast to coast for the dunk.