By David Carducci
Record-Courier staff writer
Kent State could have found an easier start to the 2009-10 college basketball season than taking one of the most skilled practitioners of the Princeton offense in Friday’s season opener.
According to Golden Flashes head coach Geno Ford, Samford University “runs the Princeton offense even better than Princeton runs it.”
The 7 p.m. Kent State-Samford battle will be the nightcap of a day-one doubleheader at the M.A.C. Center.
Wisconsin-Green Bay and the University of Alabama at Birmingham tip off the three-day Hispanic College Fund Classic at 5 p.m.
While all of Samford’s back-door cuts, passing, perpetual motion and the disciplined teamwork may be a joy to watch for the basketball purists who attend opening night. Although, defending the unusual style of play could be a difficult puzzle for the Flashes to solve in their first game.
Kent State hasn’t faced a Princeton-style offense in almost 10 years. Samford also plays all match-up zone on defense, which is also very different from anything the Flashes are used to attacking.
“Samford executes so well, it’s really fun fans to watch,” said Ford. “For two hours it is going to rank up there with the worst two hours of my life having to watch it first hand. But if you love good basketball, you should come to the game just to watch them.”
Like Kent State, which returns six experienced seniors, Samford is a veteran group. The Bulldogs return five of the top six players from a team that won 16 games last season, including seniors Bryan Friday and Trey Montgomery.
“We have some of the best leaders I have ever been around,” head coach Jimy Tillette said Wednesday during media day at Samford. “Bryan and Trey are our best basketball players and our best leaders. They are what’s right about college athletics.”
Friday, a 6-foot-6 forward, led the Bulldogs in scoring at 12.5 points per game last season. He upped that number to 18.3, while shooting 66.7 percent (18-of-27) from the field and 75 percent (6-of-8) from 3-point range while helping Samford to the semifinals of the SoCon Tournament.
Montgomery, a 6-4 point guard who averaged 11.6 points per game last season, reminds Ford of KSU junior Rodriquez Sherman.
“He is a lot like Rod in the sense that he is not really a point guard, but a great athlete,” said Ford. “He shot 51 percent from the field last year, so that shows he can not only finish, but he takes good, smart shots.”
But then, good shots are the staple of the Princeton offense as run by Samford.
“They are very methodical,” said Ford. “They take nothing but layups and wide-open 3s.”
If Kent State has an advantage against that style, it will be on the boards. Samford ranked in the bottom 20 in the nation in rebounding last season, partly because they don’t hit the offensive glass. The Bulldogs take a shot, then fly back on defense to keep the pace slow. And when they get a defensive rebound, they also don’t look to run with the ball.
That will create opportunities for Sherman, Chris Singletary, Frank Henry-Ala, Justin Greene among KSU’s stronger offensive rebounders to take some risks in an attempt to get some second-chance baskets.
“We are going to have to show we can dominate someone on the backboards,” said Ford. “We’ll need to come up with some garbage points in a game like this where every point will matter. It won’t surprise me if the final score is in the 50s.”
After facing the tortoise on opening night, KSU will take on the hare on Saturday night. UAB is Samford’s polar opposite.
“UAB will press and trap, either full-court or half-court scramble similar to what we do,” said Ford. “The difference is we do it for 20 percent of the game. They do it the whole game. We’ll go from a grind-it-out game where it’s walk, walk, walk, to putting our track shoes on in game two. It wouldn’t shock me if that game is in the 80s or 90s.
“We actually like to play fast, and they are going to try to make us play faster than we want to,” Ford said.
UAB is coached by Mike Davis, who was head coach at Indiana when the Hoosiers spoiled KSU’s Final Four hopes with a 3-point barrage in the 2002 Elite Eight.
Kent State closes the Hispanic College Fund Classic Sunday at 4 p.m. against Green Bay in a meeting of two similar teams.
“They are a lot like us,” said Ford. “Their coach, Tod Kowalczyk is one of (former KSU coach) Jim Christian’s best friends. We still run a lot of the stuff from when Jim was here, and Tod does a lot of those same things. That game will probably give me a better indication of how good we are ... because the systems we will face in the first two games are so far off to each side of the spectrum.”
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David Carducci can be contacted at dcarducci@recordpub.com