NEW HAMPSHIRE (4-5, 3-3 America East)Last Game: UMBC 68, New Hampshire 66 on 1/10/21
Last Game with SBU: New Hampshire 81, Stony Brook 64 on 2/8/20; TSM team high 19 pts, 9 rebs; .288 team FG%
Checkmate Unofficial Line: Stony Brook -5.5
NET Ranking: TBD
KenPom Rating: Stony Brook 231, New Hampshire 248
KenPom Prediction: Stony Brook 67, New Hampshire 64
Watch: G1 –
https://www.espn.com/watch/player?id=cd325a35-2de1-4991-b0af-c331735d6d76G2 –
https://www.espn.com/watch/player?id=82d33e39-bc45-44f2-a050-5f99d08a9a40Listen: http://tun.in/sepbSNotables:6-5/250 jr F Nick Guadarrama 15.5 ppg, 7.7 rpg, .475 FG%, .966 FT%
6-7/215 jr F Jayden Martinez 13.6 ppg, 8.9 rpg, .469 FG%, .400 3-pt FG%
6-3/165 jr G Marque Maultsby 8.3 ppg, 1.1 spg
6-11/240 jr C Tayler Mattos 7.7 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 1.2 bpg, .488 FG%
6-2/190 rfr Blondeau Tchoukuiengo 6.6 ppg, 3.1 rpg
What a weird year. I feel like it's been ages since our sweep of Lowell, and I feel like in that time I've become disconnected from what's taken place elsewhere in the AE. But if all goes to plan, it's nothing but back-to-backs every weekend until the conference tournament.
If you too have been in a stupor, you look up and we're in a really good spot, with only one other team (UMBC) having fewer than three losses. There's a pack of teams at that point, but this is a golden opportunity to create even more distance between us and the pack.
This is a UNH team that I feel like we run into every year – physical, good size, experienced, but more of a blue collar group than a team that's going to shoot or run you out of the gym. They've gotten healthier with Guadarrama and Josh Hopkins returning, and gotten a lift from the transfer rule being lifted as Mattos, a Bowling Green transfer and New Hampshire native, has stepped into the starting lineup and is a double-double threat.
The real worry is Guadarrama, who's coming off a career-high 34 in UNH's narrow loss to UMBC on Sunday. When he first arrived, I thought he was just going to be a guy who threw his body around—and I still don't feel like you feed possession after possession like you would Lamb, Lutete, etc.—but he is a force for UNH (consider that the day before he scored his 34 he put up a bagel in 20 minutes). But he has good handle for a bigger guy, can step out and shoot it but also uses his body well underneath. He'll also kill you from the line if you aren't careful.
I'm really curious how we match up with a team that can match our physicality. This is a veteran team – I feel like I've been talking about these guys forever. IUNH has been tough on the glass with guys like Guadarrama, Mattos, and Martinez, and even Chris Lester, who's going to be 24 in April. He has a career-high 22 against us last year, beating us inside and out. We've won kinda ugly, and I sense that UNH is more than happy to fight in a phone booth and have this come down to a couple possessions.
How do we come out of the gates? We were beaming after the two Lowell wins, but nobody's going to feel sorry for us. Our next four opponents sit at .500 or better in conference right now, and Albany and Hartford are after that, so if you're looking for a lull in the schedule, now's not the time. I do like that before the break we saw LES giving us some good minutes, and JFR distinguishing himself as a real force offensively.
With our layoff, I suspect we'll have to work for these ones. My thought is that one win's good and two's a fantastic weekend.