The high flying Panthers can fill it up.
In my opinion, Purdue was gifted a four seed, I thought they could potentially slip to a six, but with landing at the four seed spot in the Midwest Region, Purdue also was given the best 13 seed in the field.
Enter the High Point Panthers.
At 29-4 on the season, this is no slouch of a mid-major basketball team. Sometimes you have those mid-majors that are essentially the beset of the worst, that is far from the case with this year’s version of High Point.
The Panthers have a terrific trio, similar to Purdue.
Senior Guards Kezza Giffa (UTEP Transfer) and D’Maurian Williams (Texas Tech) pace the up-tempo team.
Giffa leads the team in scoring at 14.8 points per game. Williams is not far behind with 13.5 points per game though. Neither guard is physically imposing, but both are quick off the dribble and can get to the rim, and Williams also shoots it from behind the arc at a 40% clip.
The third part of their terrific trio is their big forward, Kimani Hamilton(Miss State), who is 6-8, 230 pounds is built similarly to Trey Kaufman-Renn, but can stretch the floor a bit more.
The team’s top five scorers are all transfers from other schools, even power-five schools such as Hamilton. Bobby Pettiford is even a Kansas transfer, who found his way to High Point.
The point is, this is a veteran-laden team and they should not be taken lightly.
The Panthers score 82.3 Points Per Game (18th in the nation), and have a field goal percentage of 49.4%, good for 8th in the nation.
They are also in the top 60 in the NCAA at 3PT%, averaging 36.4%.
They do have their struggles though, They are 223rd in the country in assists per game, averaging just 13 per contest, and much like Purdue, they do not protect the rim well, ranking 239th in the country in blocked shots per game.
This should be a contest with a whole lot of points scored, with both teams getting up and down the court and attacking the rim.