GAMEDAY PREVIEW- Mens Basketball vs. St. Joesph College: 11/27/18
By Daniel Lubofsky
In what has ultimately been a disappointing 0-4 beginning to their conference title-defending season, the Yeshiva University Maccabees will look to pick up a win and possibly gain some momentum Tuesday night in the Max Stern Athletic Center.
Luckily for head coach Elliot Steinmetz and company, the Macs will face off against the equally struggling St Joseph’s College Bears, who have also begun the season winless in three attempts by an average of just over 20 points a night.
The key for the Macs will be their ability to score the basketball. So far, they’ve struggled to do so, cracking the 70-point threshold just once in four tries. Meanwhile, St Joseph’s has hit that mark three times including twice over 80. If YU wants to keep this game close, they’ll have to create open
looks and covert at a high level.
Another area of concern for the Macs would be the turnover. They have been turning the ball over at an alarming rate, 19.3 times per game to be exact, of which they are allowing opponents to convert into an average of 18.8 points. This seems to be a key indicator of their offensive struggles. They need to do a better job of taking care of the basketball in order to maximize the amount of shot available to them.
The main standout so far for YU has been the play of Freshman Ryan Turrell. The 6’7’’ guard/forward from California has experienced no learning curve so far this season, putting up 18.5 points while shooting an impressive 40.7 percent from distance on an average of almost seven attempts per game.
Second on the team in scoring is Junior guard Simcha Halpert at 18.0 a night, while forward Gabriel Leifer has done a little bit of everything on the defensive end so far, pulling down over 10 rebounds per game with blocks and steals averages of 2.5 and 1.7 respectively.
For the Bears, leading scorer Sebastien Etheart is putting in 17 points a game, while Kavan Meiner is averaging close to a double-double with 14.7 points and 9.3 rebounds.
The game is set to tip-off at 8:00 and is available for streaming on macslive.com or Facebook Live.
