The college hoops season will begin stateside at midnight ET Sunday night – yes, midnight ET – as part of the 24-hour Field of 68 Opening Day Marathon in Rock Hill, South Carolina, just south of Charlotte. In the opening contest, the Liberty Flames will play the High Point Panthers in what is one of the more intriguing mid-major matchups of the day.
High Point is pretty loaded from a mid-major perspective, albeit mostly of transfers, but who isn’t these days? Each of the projected top-seven averaged double digits last year, including returning forward Cam’Ron Fletcher, as well as his new running mates CJ Brown (USF), Curtis Williams Jr. (Tulane), Jason Rivera Torres (Monmouth), Frankquon Sherman (Kennesaw), Isaac Garrett (Oakland) and Filip Brankovic (UTRGV). They will be undersized in the post, but they’re long on the perimeter to make up for it, which is arguably a better fit for how this team plays anyway. In year 1 under Flynn Clayman, the Panthers were top-25 nationally in average possession length and top-40 in adjusted tempo (KenPom), and they took care of the ball at an elite level. Who knows if the latter will carry over with all the new faces on the floor together.
On the other side, Liberty comes into this season with almost an entirely new roster that lacks a ton of Division I experience outside of the Campbell brothers from Troy in the back court, but the reason to buy the Flames is on the sideline in coach Ritchie McKay. Under him, the Flames will play slow and methodically, and they usually shoot threes at a top-30 rate. I’d imagine that’ll be the case again this year. Like High Point, Liberty lacks size, so we will see how that affects both teams later down the road.
This game is a handicapper’s nightmare – it’s a matchup of contrasting offensive styles, and both rosters are almost entirely overhauled. That said, I trust McKay’s ability to plug and play pieces into his system, even if they were at the Division II level last year, and I trust the Flames to be able to slow this game down to their pace and get High Point out of their comfort zone – especially with a midnight tip time. I also question if the Panthers can maintain their elite turnover rate offensively with a new back court while playing at an uncomfortable pace. On paper, High Point is certainly the better team, but taking three possessions worth of points with the underdog is my preferred move in this midnight premier of the hoops season stateside.
Liberty vs High Point prediction: Liberty Flames +7.5 (-110) at the time of publishing. Playable to +6.
