Western Carolina 11/3 7:00 PM ESPN+

[Carthage World]

The Catamounts are coming off a 8-22 season under second-year head coach Tim Craft and were picked to finish 7th out of 10 teams in the Southern Conference. KenPom projects Western Carolina to be one of the most improved teams in the country ranking them as their preseason #204 team (up from #338), whereas Bart Torvik is not nearly as high on them ranking them #292.

They return 9 total players from last year's squad, with 7 players who saw game action and two who were redshirts. Their top returnees are 6'8 Senior forward Marcus Kell (11.7 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 37.9% 3FG) and 6'3 Senior guard Cord Stansberry (11.2 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 91.3% FT). 6'10 Senior F Vernon Collins and 6'1 Sophomore G CJ Hyland also featured in starting roles for extended stretches last season as both players averaged 4.7 ppg.

They Catamounts have brought in four transfers from the likes of ECU, Southern, Arkansas State, and Denver.

These two teams last faced off 8 years ago in November 2017 with the Bearcats winning 102-51.

[swilsonsp4]

This is Step 1. The Catamounts are unlikely to present much of an impediment. I suspect that the first 4-minute segment will involve the usual early sparring, followed by the Bearcats pulling away comfortably.

The rotations are far from solidified, so it's likely that we'll see a ton of mix-and-match. Thiam, Miller, Abaev, Day Day, Kriisa to start (IMO).

[bearcatbret]

I just hope that they can show some semblance of discipline play at both ends of the court.

[longtimefan]

The exhibitions were more like high school post season all star games, they really told us nothing. Maybe we’ll see what this team is supposed to be.