The Morgan State Bears and Arizona Wildcats face off on Monday to kick off the college basketball season at the McKale Center.
Can this Morgan State Be Competitive?
Morgan State was having a good season until they lost their star guard in January and after that point they really sputtered to the finish line. Morgan State finished with a 15-16 record and they hope this season they can get back over that number here. Even though Morgan State hopes that’s the case, this is a team that lost a lot of talent off last year’s squad. They only have one returning starter and some of the newcomers are going to really need to step up here. Will Thomas was a bit inconsistent last year, but he still had four games where he scored 20 points. In this game, they are going to need guys like Thomas to step up. Newcomer Xavier Valley is a shooter, and if he gets hot, he could keep them in this game.
Does Arizona Have Enough Talent Left?
The end of last season wasn’t a fun one for Arizona losing to 15 seed Princeton, and after that game, players started leaving. Point guard Kerr Kriisa has moved onto West Virginia and replacing him is going to be tough. Courtney Ramsey and Cedric Henderson Jr, and Azuolas Tubelis are also gone. Arizona had to be busy in the transfer portal bringing in new guys, and they did just that. One of the biggest recruits brought in was Caleb Love who almost lead the North Carolina Tar Heels to a National Championship a few years back. This game the offense should find success, but I am more interested in seeing how the defense is going to step up here. In the last exhibition game against New Mexico Highlands, Arizona won by 29 points.
Shane’s Free Pick
It’s going to take a while for all the new players to gel for Arizona, but the same is true for Morgan State. Arizona has been taking care of business in a couple of leadup games and they are going to have little issues again here. Caleb Love was a huge addition to this team, and he’s going to have a big game here. Morgan State’s offense isn’t going to be very talented this year, and that is going to be the difference here as Arizona is going to get the job done. Back Arizona against the spread.