WKU Basketball: Assessing the Adversary — Charlotte 49ers

Happy New Year Hilltopper fans! Is there any better way to ring in 2019 than drinking those sweet sweet badger tears? No. The answer is and will always remain no. Revenge is sweet indeed. But enough of that!

Conference play for the Tops begins this week with a three game road trip to across the eastern side of the Appalachians before returning home January 17.

Game Info

Time: 6:30 p.m. CT
Location: Halton Arena| Charlotte, N.C.
TV: beIN SPORTS
Radio: The Hilltopper IMG Sports Network

Let’s look at the 49ers of UNC Charlotte.

• Location: Charlotte, NC
• Student Population: Approx: 29,710
• Endowment: $202.7 Million
• Motto: To be rather than to seem (which to be perfectly fair is actually the state motto of North Carolina. Try as I might I couldn’t actually find an official UNC Charlotte motto on their website other than this one)
• Motto I have given them since they don’t have enough self respect to come up with their own: The runoff that can’t get into UNC Chapel Hill, NC State, or ECU
• Mascot: Norm the Niner
• Times they tried to be NC State but lost: 1 (This really happened in the late 1880s)
• Number of beers I had to drink while writing this to get through it because they are so freaking bland and boring they almost weren’t worth making fun of (almost): 3
• Famous Alumni: Two pageant queens (one Miss USA; one Miss America) neither of which actually graduated and Larry Ogunjobi, defensive tackle for the Cleveland Browns

It took me quite a while to find an angle for UNC Charlotte. Think of them like tapioca pudding; bland, boring, no one gets excited about them and they are so similar to their counterparts that you often can’t tell them apart unless you try really hard (thanks, North Carolina University System). But never fear loyal readers, find an angle I did.

Two in fact; their depressing nickname and their struggle to exist for decades.

I’ll start with the less depressing one. Charlotte lost a bid to Raleigh to become NC State in the 1880s. People in Charlotte were so apathetic toward education that a town that was basically Mayberry beat them out for a bid for a university. It wouldn’t be until 1946 that they officially got a grant to serve veterans returning from WWII and finally opened their doors. And even then it was just as a glorified satellite campus for Chapel Hill. But that happiness was short lived.

By 1949, the school was almost shuttered. If it hadn’t been for the lobbying efforts to the NC state legislature, the university would have shut down less than three years after it began. But it didn’t! Yay! And thus, their nickname was born.

That’s right. They picked their nickname based on the year the university almost went tits up, but didn’t. You would be right to be confused. Their mascot is Norm the Niner, a kindly old prospector panning for the non-existent gold of success in athletics in the foothills of NC.

“But Jake,” you say, “Valiantly citing historical sources, there was also a gold rush in NC during the early 1800s! That is clearly where they get their name!”

You’d sort of be right. According to their website, there was a gold rush where they got their mascot. But that reasoning, ya know, the one that isn’t as depressing as being a low rent NC State, is the third thing they name as inspiration, after the 1949 story AND FREAKING NC HIGHWAY 49. A LITERAL PATCH OF PAVEMENT IS MORE EXCITING TO THEM THAN A 17 POUND GOLD NUGGET THAT BEGAN THEIR GOLD RUSH. Check their website if you don’t believe me.

Poor, depressing UNC Charlotte. Let’s see if we can find some better news looking at their men’s basketball team.

UNC Charlotte MBB

2018–19 Record: 3–8

KenPom/NET Rankings: 307/273

Projected Conference Finish: 13th

I’ve said this before and it went poorly but I can’t lie to you, this is not a good team. Not only is their record poor, but looking at their stats is just depressing. They aren’t even averaging 60 points per game. They are barely shooting 40% from the field and 26% from deep. On the season, there is only one category in which they have outperformed their opponents, blocks per game, where they average 4.5. Oof.

They are led by one man and one man alone; senior guard Jon Davis (6’3”), who is averaging nearly 20 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game. He is their statistical leader in almost every category and appears to be the player through which the entirety of the meager offense runs. He has scored twice as many points as their next best scorer on the season, freshman guard Malik Martin (9.5 PPG, 4.6 RPG, 1.6 APG). They also aren’t a big team, with only one player 6’10” or taller.

Looking at their game logs and notes, their wins have come when they played uncharacteristically well from deep. In their biggest win of the year, by two against Oklahoma State, they needed nearly 30 points from Davis, had to shoot nearly twice their season average from range, shoot 90% from the charity stripe and win the rebounding batter to win on a last second shot. Even in this effort, they allowed ten steals and a whopping 22 turnovers to just eight assists.

What to watch for

I’m not going to say the Tops just need to take care of business and move on to better things because this is absolutely a game they should win with ease, but three of the easiest wins have turned into devastating losses this year. This Charlotte team has very little size where it counts. I look for Charles Bassey and, to some extent, Dalano Banton to have huge days using their size mismatches on offense to create havoc for the Niners. I am concerned about who will play defense on Davis, but hopefully that one man army won’t be enough to overcome the depth and talent of the Tops.

Also I want to see Jake Ohmer block some fools again.