After nearly getting caught napping against Nicholls State, the Lobos are hopefully well-rested and ready to take on their next challenge. That challenge comes in the form of the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles, who are currently 6-1 and are looking at the Lobos as an opportunity to pick up a solid road win. This is the first game of a really tough stretch for the Lobos, so they’ll be looking to build up some momentum for the next few games.
Game Preview
Oral Roberts, located in Tulsa Oklahoma, are helmed by head coach Scott Sutton, as they have been for the past 17 seasons. The Golden Eagles come from the Summit League, which is a solid mid-major conference that also features teams like South Dakota State, North Dakota State, and Denver. This season, they are expected to finish in the upper half of the conference along with those other three teams. So far this year, they’ve rated as a slightly above-average offensive team and a slightly below-average defensive team, which, naturally, has made them a roughly average D-I team overall. They do excel in a couple of key categories: drawing (and making) free throws and three-point shooting. However, they haven’t really had all that difficult of a schedule so far this year, so time will tell how good they are in those categories when facing stiffer competition.
The Golden Eagles are led by senior guard Obi Emegano, who has been outstanding so far this year. He is averaging 24 ppg, 5.4 rpg, and 2.1 apg while playing 36 minutes per game. He is skilled at drawing fouls, making free throws, and shooting three pointers, so the Lobos will need to make sure that they play solid defense against him, or else he’ll get some guys in foul trouble and shoot the Lobos out of the gym. Junior Jalen Bradly and sophomore Aaron Young will likely round out the starting backcourt, unless former Fresno State Bulldog Aaron Anderson is good to go, in which case he might start ahead of Young. Bradly is the best shooter of those three, currently shooting 43.3% from beyond the arc, but the other two look to be better at distributing the ball Anderson especially, as he currently averages 4.7 apg.
In the frontcourt, ORU starts 6’7” senior Brandon Conley and 6’9 sophomore Albert Owens. Owens currently has the better scoring stats, although that seems to be because Conley tends to get himself into foul trouble. When he does get into foul trouble, the Golden Eagles tend to turn to 6’5” freshman DaQuan Jeffries. Conley and Jeffries have awfully similar stats, including minutes played, so they don’t seem to miss a beat regardless of who is in the game. Conley and Owens don’t really ever look to shoot threes, but Jeffries will drift to the perimeter occasionally. So, with that combined with his size, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Lobos go to a four-guard lineup when he is in.
Scattered Thoughts
- I know that a lot of fans weren’t happy with the Lobos’ performance against Nicholls State, and quite frankly they shouldn’t have been. Nicholls has a 300+ KenPom ranking, compared to the Lobos 73rd ranking, so by all accounts, the Lobos should have been able to handle them fairly easily. I don’t know what caused the subpar first half, but I do know that if it happens against Oral Roberts, or basically any other team they’ll play this season, they’ll have a hard time pulling out a victory.
- It is hard to understate how good it was to see Joe Furstinger have a solid game last time out. With Devon and J.J. now out and Nikola still pretty raw, the Lobos are really thin in the frontcourt. In a lot of scenarios, Joe isn’t just the first big off the bench, he’s the only big off the bench. If he can continue playing well, that will allow the team to play the way that Coach Neal envisioned. Of course, if he can’t, then Noodles is going to have to get creative.
- Oral Roberts might be the best three point shooting team that the Lobos will face this season, so it will be even more important than usual for the perimeter defense to not allow easy looks, as they are totally capable of knocking those down. On the other side of the coin, the Lobos are coming off of an awful performance from downtown in their last game, where they only made 6 of their 29 attempts. They’ve shot it pretty well in most of their other games, so I’m not concerned about it at this point.
Prediction
The Golden Eagles are certainly no pushovers, so the Lobos will need to bring better focus and intensity to the game than they showed last time out. I’m sure they know this, as Coach Neal has likely been telling them so every practice they’ve had in the last week. So, I’ll take the Lobos to win 74-67.
Game Info
Who: New Mexico Lobos (4-1) vs. Oral Roberts Golden Eagles (6-1)
Where: The Pit, Albuquerque, NM
When: Tuesday, December 1st at 7:00pm MT
Radio: 770 KOB
TV: Root Sports