Game #1 Preview: TCU vs. Cal Poly

Do you hear that?

It’s the start of another wonderful college basketball season. Games will tip off all across the country today, starting another magical run towards March Madness.

By now you should have read Fungo’s fantastic TCU Men’s Basketball Preview. If not, I highly suggest you give it a look-see.

Tonight, TCU opens the season against Cal Poly at 6 p.m. CST at THE Daniel Meyer Coliseum. The Cal Poly Mustangs finished last season with an identical record to TCU, 18-15. However, they started off a lot hotter than they finished, going 9-4 to start the season before ending on a 9-11 run.

The Mustangs lose a lot from last season, including leading scorer David Hanson (11.8 ppg) and leading rebound (and second-leading scorer) Will Taylor (6.7 rpg/9.8ppg).

They do return Dylan Royer though, who was fifth in Division 1 last year with a 46.5 three-point shooting percentage.

The guy to watch for Poly, besides Royer though, is junior forward Chris Eversley. He averaged just under 9 points a game last season, to go along with 4.8 rebounds per game. Eversley is expected to pick up the slack for losing Hanson, and I forsee a lot of the offense running though him and Royer. The rest of the Cal Poly frontcourt is incredibly young. In fact, Eversley is the only forward listed on Cal Poly’s roster as a junior or older. The rest are all freshman and sophomores.

The guy dishing them the ball will be Drake U’u. U’u is not a guy that will fill up a stat sheet, but he’s a good facilitator for his teammates.

The Frogs have their work cut out for them, but I see them taking this game and starting the season 1-0.

Projected Starters

TCU

G Kyan Anderson

G Nate Butler Lind

F Garlon Green

F Devonta Abron

F Amric Fields

Cal Poly

G Dylan Royer

G Drake U’u

F Zach Allmon

F Chris Eversley

F Brian Bennett

Score Prediction: TCU 88, Cal Poly 65