Preview: Norfolk State
We take on Norfolk State on Friday, 7pm, in a game which will be televised on ESPN2.
Norfolk State is a public, historically Black university in Norfolk, Virginia, with an undergraduate student population of about 5,000. They, like SJSU and Michigan State, are the Spartans. They play in the Mid Eastern Athletic Conferance (MEAC), which they won this year with a 13-1 conference record, finishing ahead of Howard with a 10-4 record.
This year Norfolk State is 27-5. It does not have a win over a top 100 team, and has only 2 wins over top 200 teams. Among the losses were Wake Forest, Minnesota, and Auburn. Norfolk seems to have dominated most opponents its own size, but lost to every team from a major conference it played. The Minnesota and Auburn losses were by large margins. However, those games were early in the season, so it is unknown how well they might or might not describe today’s Norfolk team. Massey has Norfolk at 141, a bit better than our opponent UC Davis and similar to Hawaii. The NET has them at 164.
Norfolk is not normally a prolific three point shooting team, but they make their fair share—about 6 treys a game at around 32%, and mostly coming from one player (see below.) About 1 in 5 shots is a three point attempt. They get to the line a fair bit and earn around 12 points in free throws a game. This tells me they have players who can take it to the basket in traffic. Roughly half their made baskets were assisted, so not a pass-first team like Gonzaga nor a solo-first team like USC.
Norfolk is led by 5’5” Diamond Johnson, a junior point guard who averages 20 points per game and who has 84 steals on the season, and she leads the team in made threes with 64 of them, hitting at 40%. Johnson missed nearly all of Fall play, but has been starting the last 22 games. If Lepolo is healthy, I expect to see her defending Johnson.
Norfolk’s second leading scorer is 6’1” Kierra Wheeler, a strong junior forward who is averaging 18 points at 55%. After the leading two, Norfolk has 5 players each averaging around 7 points—so stopping Johnson and Wheeler are definitely jobs 1 and 2.
Norfolk is particularly good at stealing the ball, with more than 12 steals per game. I anticipate they will get in the passing lanes and attempt to do what superior teams like USC and Colorado and Arizona actually could do—disrupt our offense by interfering with our passing. Unlike those teams, however, I don’t think they can stop the high-low passes that could feed our bigs. They have four players who are 6’ or taller, but they normally start 5’5”, 6’1”, 5’9”, 5’7”, and 5’8”.
Keys for our success: on offense--avoid turnovers and feed the ball inside. On defense: strong scouting report defense on Johnson and Wheeler without abandoning the other three.
We take on Norfolk State on Friday, 7pm, in a game which will be televised on ESPN2.
Norfolk State is a public, historically Black university in Norfolk, Virginia, with an undergraduate student population of about 5,000. They, like SJSU and Michigan State, are the Spartans. They play in the Mid Eastern Athletic Conferance (MEAC), which they won this year with a 13-1 conference record, finishing ahead of Howard with a 10-4 record.
This year Norfolk State is 27-5. It does not have a win over a top 100 team, and has only 2 wins over top 200 teams. Among the losses were Wake Forest, Minnesota, and Auburn. Norfolk seems to have dominated most opponents its own size, but lost to every team from a major conference it played. The Minnesota and Auburn losses were by large margins. However, those games were early in the season, so it is unknown how well they might or might not describe today’s Norfolk team. Massey has Norfolk at 141, a bit better than our opponent UC Davis and similar to Hawaii. The NET has them at 164.
Norfolk is not normally a prolific three point shooting team, but they make their fair share—about 6 treys a game at around 32%, and mostly coming from one player (see below.) About 1 in 5 shots is a three point attempt. They get to the line a fair bit and earn around 12 points in free throws a game. This tells me they have players who can take it to the basket in traffic. Roughly half their made baskets were assisted, so not a pass-first team like Gonzaga nor a solo-first team like USC.
Norfolk is led by 5’5” Diamond Johnson, a junior point guard who averages 20 points per game and who has 84 steals on the season, and she leads the team in made threes with 64 of them, hitting at 40%. Johnson missed nearly all of Fall play, but has been starting the last 22 games. If Lepolo is healthy, I expect to see her defending Johnson.
Norfolk’s second leading scorer is 6’1” Kierra Wheeler, a strong junior forward who is averaging 18 points at 55%. After the leading two, Norfolk has 5 players each averaging around 7 points—so stopping Johnson and Wheeler are definitely jobs 1 and 2.
Norfolk is particularly good at stealing the ball, with more than 12 steals per game. I anticipate they will get in the passing lanes and attempt to do what superior teams like USC and Colorado and Arizona actually could do—disrupt our offense by interfering with our passing. Unlike those teams, however, I don’t think they can stop the high-low passes that could feed our bigs. They have four players who are 6’ or taller, but they normally start 5’5”, 6’1”, 5’9”, 5’7”, and 5’8”.
Keys for our success: on offense--avoid turnovers and feed the ball inside. On defense: strong scouting report defense on Johnson and Wheeler without abandoning the other three.