Portland State took on Concordia in their exhibition, and it probably was not quite as smooth as Coach Tyler Geving was hoping for. PSU needed a basket in the final minute (and a final defensive stop) to hold off Concordia, winning 96-93.
Coach Geving has said this preseason that he expects the Vikings defense to be improved this year, but giving up 93 points in an exhibition is not a promising start. Ultimately, the exhibition doesn't matter, and perhaps it will not be a harbinger, but certainly they were hoping for a better showing.
Offensively, newcomer Dre Winston was the star, scoring 25 points on 10/18 shooting. Renado Parker had 18 points, and Lateef McMullan chipped in 17 as well.
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Concordia in Irvine, CA? They are yearly contenders at NAIA level. Few D1 progrms want tp play Coach Ammann and his boys.
ReplyDeleteConcordia went 31-7 LY and were NAIA national champions.
ReplyDeleteGuys, they may be the best team at the NAIA level... but that is a far cry from Division I. I don't doubt they have talent, but a good D1 team needs to be able to handily beat anyone at the NAIA level.
ReplyDeleteI mostly agree with you, Jon. However, Concordia looks to be one of these lower division teams which has a "healthy" supply of D-I drop downs. 3 of the 4 top scoring Concordia players are D-I transfers (Saint Marys and San Francisco (from the WCC) and NAU). They also have Chris Gabriel on the roster, the 6'11" player who first played with New Mexico State, transferred to San Diego (WCC), and was dismissed after all the mess they had there.
ReplyDeleteI recall a game with a lower division team a few years ago, and a couple of the players on that team were unstoppable. They lost in a close game, but those players were D-I drop downs.
Thanks guys for the info... I will admit, I didn't know much at all about them. I saw "gave up 93 points to an NAIA team" and took it as a bit of a disaster... I am glad to see for PSU's sake that it wasn't quite as bad as it seems.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course, it all could mean nothing anyway, being that it is an exhibition...
I'm gonna go with it meaning next to nothing. Exhibitions just show where a team is weak early on, and if it goes too well you won't even see that (although you might see where your strengths are). I think PSU learned more from their exhibition than Sac State learned against Simpson.
ReplyDeleteYou guys are talking about Concordia in CA, they have some hoopers. The team PSU played is Concordia, OR. A team with 3 returners that was sub .500 in NAIA last season.
ReplyDeleteHa, oops. What's funny is that the Concordia team from CA was in Portland playing the University of Portland on the same day (or next). I guess that's where the confusion came from.
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