Marshall is scoring 86 points per game and giving up 78. 6’10” forward Wyatt Fricks leads them in scoring with 22 per game. Fricks is a true stretch 4 – he’s attempted the second-most threes on the team and he’s making 58% of them. He’s followed by their 7’4” center Matt Van Komen and two other players contributing 12 points each. Van Komen is averaging 7 rebounds and 4 blocks. Matt Van Komen was a famous 7’4” high school freshman (“tallest 9th grader in the country!”) who now rocks an impressive porn stache. Fricks and Van Komen will play about 30 minutes each. Van Komen is the anchor of their defense.
Marshall is shooting 40% from deep as a team and they’re averaging 38 rebounds and 23 assists per game. By comparison, Virginia is shooting 37% with 49 rebounds and 19 assists. Marshall plays pretty quick at 78 possessions per game and attempts about 33 three pointers per game. That pace comes at a cost: they’re averaging 18 turnovers per game, mostly from their guards. But they have nice ball movement.
They have five players who will shoot threes (Fricks, Speer, Otshidi, Hollenbeck, and Dubinsky) but it’s really Fricks, Speer, and Hollenbeck who do the damage from deep.
Interestingly, Marshall has not started strong in their three games so far. Against Massachusetts, they started poorly in both halves. They trailed Toledo until 10 min left in the game. And they were tied at halftime with Elon in a back-and-forth contest.
Against Elon, Frick scored a career high 34 points on near-perfect shooting, hitting 13-of-14 from the field and knocking down 7-of-8 from beyond the arc, and point guard Jalen Speer dished a career high 12 assists.
This is a step up in quality of opponent but should still be a comfortable win for Virginia. The matchup of Fricks/Van Komen versus De Ridder/Grünloh will be fun to watch. Van Komen is a very solid big man and Grünloh is pretty skinny, but De Ridder is very solid and Fricks is pretty skinny.