Columbia head coach Kyle Smith believes his team has the ingredients to make an upset of No. 1 Kentucky possible.
Smith noted to SNY.tv that his team has size and a veteran group of players. His team also excels at taking the air out of the ball and slowing the game down.
Here is an excerpt of his comments via Zagsblog.com:
“Absolutely, we preach it all the time, that the differences aren’t as great as you may believe if you read the papers or watch ESPN,” Smith told SNY.tv. “You may think it’s insurmountable but in the right circumstances, we’ve got a veteran group and a good coach like [NJIT’s] Jim Engles, good things can happen. But obviously we’ve got a formidable task on Wednesday and it’s going to be tough.”
He also noted that his team is pretty big and doesn’t mind to play slow:
“We’re big,” Smith said. “We’ll start 6-11 [Cory Osetkowski], 6-8 [Chris McComber], 6-4 [Kyle Castlin] on our front line and then our guards go 6-3 [Maodo Lo], 6-4 [Isaac Cohen], so we’re pretty big. And then we got 6-10, 6-8 coming off the bench and then we got a 6-3 guy, so we’re decent size it’s they have waves of them.”
Everyone seems to agree that any formula for success against Kentucky includes slowing the tempo of the game down, playing a variety of defenses and, perhaps above all, making shots from the perimeter.
Columbia ranks tied for 242nd nationally in 3-point shooting at 31.7 percent. Opponents, meantime, are shooting 24.4 percent from 3 and 27.9 percent from the field against Kentucky.
“Luckily for us, I won’t have to tell our guys to play slow because we already do play slow,” Smith said. “We’re pretty big and we’re not super quick, and we don’t really play with a traditional point guard, so our pace is slow because of the way we guard. We probably play with a little more zip on the offensive end, but we still work to get good shots. I think that’s how you play on the road in general. If you’re going to compete with better talent, you better have ways to do it, a change of pace and stuff. That’s what we did against Michigan State and that’s kind of the way we play every day.”
Read More
So you’re saying there’s a chance…
