Hello Rambler faithful — longtime Tech fan here (since the early’80s). I understand your aggravation with the seeding. I’ve seen your team play a couple of times this year and they are really, really good — which doesn’t surprise me since I have felt you’ve had a good team for a few years now. I also feel that your league is better than generally acknowledged by casual fans.
Just wanted you to know that Tech fans are also much aggrieved to have drawn such a tough first round opponent. We are used to getting screwed by the Tobacco Road Mafia, but it’s been a while since we’ve earned an NCAA berth, so getting jammed by that committee into the bargain is something of a relative novelty.
As you may be aware, we play a sort of hybrid zone, variously showing 1-3-1 and 2-3 looks, with some man thrown into the mix. Are there any teams in your league that primarily play zone? If so, perhaps that may help your preparation. Certainly having an excellent passing big like Krutwig who is effective in the high post is going to give us problems. We are not deep, but have good senior leadership on the floor, especially at the point. I don’t anticipate that size is going to be much of a factor other than the threat of Krutwig bullying our lighter bigs down low. It will be interesting to see how the guards from both teams are able to control tempo and keep turnovers to a minimum. In a matchup this close possessions will be at a premium and a few loose balls or offensive rebounds along with free throws may be the difference in the end.
In the “small world” department a good friend of mine coached one of your former players, Majak Kou, at a high school not 20 minutes from me.
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