WKU Basketball: Talkin’ Tops vs. Blazers With The Daily Dragon’s Dave West
My goodness am I excited to hold this Q&A. Today, we are speaking with Dave West, the best basketball mind in the conference and the reason for most of, if not all of, the LOLZ on Twitter for The Daily Dragon, a UAB blog.
Dave is, to put it straight, the man. If you’re not following the Daily Dragon, or him personally, I suggest you fix that.
Anyway, I was very excited to hear what he had to say about this matchup so,without further adieu, lets get to it.
The Towel Rack: UAB certainly didn’t come into the season as a chump squad, but from my vantage point, they’re sitting at 13–5 and are doing a bit better than I was expecting. And, when they’re winning, they seem to be dominating. I guess what I’m asking is was this the start to the season that was expected, or are they truly a surprise team with 13 wins at this juncture?
Dave West: For those who follow UAB closely I’d say the majority of us expected to come in to the season contending for the C-USA title and winning the majority of our non-conference games. Truthfully UAB should be 15–3 rather than 13–5 when you consider the terrible trip they had at the Cayman tournament. We lost to a bad Richmond team while only putting up 50 points, Buffalo in OT, and gave a game away against a decent Iowa team. So to sum up all my thoughts, 13–5 is fine but we expected better.
TTR: Learn me a bit about Chris Cokley and why I should be trembling in my britches about him.
DW: Chris Cokley has been a solid mid-major type big in the prior three seasons but this year he has made a massive jump in his play. In the past he’d struggle against taller interior line ups but this year he is using his touch, strength, and quickness to dominate practically every time he touches the court. He scored more than 24 points at Auburn, Iowa (neutral), and Buffalo (neutral, which all have very formidable front lines. How he fares against JJ and Dwight will be intriguing to monitor.
TTR: The Blazers seem to do everything well. Having said that, is there an area they’re lacking in that the Tops could exploit?
DW: UAB is a very balanced team. No player has scored more than 26 points and on most nights we have four or five players score in double figures. Our starting line up has four solid 3-point shooters and we bring another off the bench. When you combine our outside game with Cokley and Lee in the paint we’re hard to stop offensively. I would say one of our weaknesses is defending the three ball. Some days we’re decent and then we’ll go and allow Southern Miss to hit fourteen. As you know the Tops are VERY efficient from three so keep an eye on that.
TTR: Lets reverse that — in what way(s) does UAB have a clear advantage over WKU?
DW: I’d have to say depth. In what I’ve seen Josh Anderson seems to already be ready to be an impact rotation player while Mou is still getting his sea legs. UAB is seamlessly eight to nine deep and our rotations are like clockwork at this point of the season. If we can get JJ or Dwight in foul trouble I just don’t see Cokley being contained. This goes the other way around too though. We can be exposed if Cokley or Lee gets in foul trouble.
TTR: This has been, for all intents and purposes, a pretty even series since the Tops joined C-USA. How much fun is this rivalry from the UAB point of view?
DW: I’ve loved this rivalry. The Tops played spoilers twice against us in the 2015–16 season and that’s really developed some true hate from the UAB faithful. Both of the programs have proud and knowledgeable fans which I thinks makes it even more competitive and enjoyable.
TTR: Hit me with a prediction. Does UAB pull it out in Diddle? If the Blazers win, is it that much of — or at all — an upset?
DW: If UAB wins I wouldn’t call it an upset given our talent. I think this one is a dead even toss up as both teams have one seven of their last eight and are playing with a lot of confidence. I don’t think you’ll see us come out flat offensively like we did in Diddle last season either. If we can play our game and score 75 plus I think could win. But, with that being said, I’m going to with the Tops in a single possession game.
I want to thank Dave for taking the time out of his day to answer our questions, and he’s going to be quite the follow on Thursday for a deeper understanding of the matchup. So, like I said, give The Daily Dragon a follow and check out their work.
