Don't sleep on Citadel/Davidson

[ColumbiaHeightsHoya]

Not sure what type of squad Citadel has, but I don't think we can assume a W with any teams this year. I was watching some of the Duke/Davidson game and they have some shooters that can definitely give us trouble.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

Given what they've already shown, beating Mizzou and playing Dook tough, I think Davidson will be as tough as, if not tougher than, Temple.

The thing I'm looking forward to is improvement in team play.

[HOYAPLAYA]

I have to agree. Davidson played one of their worst games of the season againt us last year. They are a solid team and I expect a very close contest.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

Citadel, on the other hand, should be a decent chance to work out some kinks in learning III's system.

If I had to predict out the next few games, I'll think something like this:

• Citadel W
  
• Davidson L (though a close game throughout)
  
• Penn State W
  
• Illinois L (potentially scary)
  
• SJSU W
  
• Oral Roberts W (probably on par with Davidson in terms of opponent quality, but we should be starting to have things click a little more at this point)
  
• Other two games in Rainbow Classic, 1-1
  
• Howard W
  
• Norfolk State W
  
  Winding up with a 7-4 non-conference record. Probably not what many of us had hoped for, but could really give us a good preparation for the Big East season.

[CAHoya07]

Penn State is not a gimme either. People forget that we really should have lost to them last year. We were extremely lucky to have beat them by 1.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

That's true, but the Nittany Lions have been on a massive downward slope over the last few years, and have opened this season with losses to Illinois State (who is actually a very good mid-major) and South Carolina State (who should never, ever beat a major conference team).

The S.C. State game wasn't even close, with PSU going down 63-43.

[HOYAPLAYA]

We should be able to beat Citadel like they stole something. We have a serious size advantage over this team and I would suspect that we have a serious skills advantage also. I don't expect this one to be close.

Oral Roberts is the game that I don't think we should expect an easy win. That will be a pretty good test to see how much improvement we've made in the early weeks of the season.

[JimmyHoya]

I'd say we're the underdogs versus Oral Roberts, who I believe where mentioned as a mid-major threat in SI's college basketball preview.

Same with Davidson, unless the Duke game was a fluke. They do get extremely pumpd up for home games against the big NC teams (notably UNC, who they've beaten a few times and are an unofficial rival to Davidson at least).