Tarleton State Preview
By Josh Burton
Finally, Wahoo fans, the wait is over. The University of Virginia Men’s Basketball team opens its highly anticipated 2023-2024 season Monday night at 7 when Tarleton State heads to JPJ. This game will be streamed on ESPN+, and also available on ACCNX.
ABOUT THE TEXANS
The Tartleton State Texans hail from the Western Athletic Conference and are coached by Billy Gillispie. If you’re thinking this name looks familiar, it’s because Gillispie had made previous stops as the head man at Texas A&M, Kentucky and Texas Tech. Gillispie had earned both Big 12 and SEC coach of the year honors.
The Texans finished last season at 17-17 (9-9 in conference). They come into this season with a Kenpom rating of 220, having the 234th rated offense and the 207th rated defense.
PERSONNEL
Tarleton State comes into this season with a bit of uncertainty having lost last years #1, #4, #6, and #7 leading scorers all to transfers. The Texans figure to be led by 6’5” senior guard Lue Williams, who averaged 10.7 points per game while shooting 41.2% on 3.5 attempts per game. 6”6” senior Jakorie Smith figures to lead the front court, having averaged 9.8 points per last season hitting from both inside and out (33.7% on 3.1 attempts from 3). They also brought in 6”3” senior guard Adam Moussa, a Division II transfer from Black Hills State who had averaged 12.2 over his career there while becoming the programs record holder for 3 pointers made and percentage in a single season.
SMALL BALL
The Texans are a smaller team overall with only 1 player over 6”8” and figure to play a guard heavy lineup, spacing the floor to get shots. After recent scrimmage reports of Jacob Groves playing well for the Cavaliers, I would not be surprised to see him inserted into the starting lineup to better match up with the Texans. My guess for the starting line for the first tip of the season would be Reece Beekman, Isaac Mckneely, Andrew Rohde, Ryan Dunn and Jacob Groves.
I would also expect to see plenty of Dante Harris, as this guard oriented opponent should match up well to his strengths. The Texans don’t seem to get into too much of a hurry (#256 on Kenpom adjusted pace) so it should be a fun matchup to see if Dante can heat up the ball and force pressure onto them. This matchup projects for Virginia to do very well, so hopefully we will be able to see a deeper lineup with more rotations than we may typically see and an opportunity for some of the newer faces on this years team to get a chance to show what they can do.
ON THE HORIZON
Following the opening tilt the Wahoos will have a quick turnaround as they will play the University of Florida Gators Friday night in Charlotte as part of the Hall of Fame Series tipoff event. Follow Locker Room Access this week and all season long as your trusted source for all things UVA Men’s Basketball.