After Saturday’s home game against Maryland Eastern Shore, the Florida A&M University men’s basketball team was left with only one full day to prepare for its game today against Howard University.
With this in mind, head coach Mike Gillespie Sr. said he plans to utilize two of the fundamental concepts of basketball to overcome the Bison: a strong post game and solid defense.
“For the majority of the game, Howard prefers to run three and four guard sets,” Gillespie said. “And when they go to this smaller lineup, we can outplay them in the post.”
Akini Adkins, a 6-10 sophomore from Tallahassee, and Glen Elliot, a 6-9 senior from Jacksonville, could both pose mismatches for the smaller Howard team, which has only one player taller than 6-6 that plays a significant amount of minutes.
Rome Sanders, a 6-8 junior from Chicago, also looks forward to being a significant weapon in tonight’s game.
“If our guards can deal with Howard’s quickness and get us the ball in the post, then we can slow down the tempo of the game and dominate”, said Sanders, who had 17 points and eight rebounds against UMES.
The two teams enter Monday’s game with different backgrounds. Prior to Saturday’s game against UMES, the Rattlers have won four of their last five games. On the other hand, Howard came in versus Bethune-Cookman College in the midst of a six-game losing streak.
“The team is riding our own momentum right now,” Sanders said. “If we can carry that into the game, we should have no problem continuing our winning ways.”
Fans should expect an exciting, high-score game tonight at Gaither Gymnasium as FAMU and Howard have the number one and number two highest scoring offenses in the MEAC.
Contact Kenneth Whaley at thefamuansports@hotmail.com