Last Year: 11-19 overall, 6-10 in conference (tied for eighth). Lost to Jacksonville in the conference tournament quarterfinals.
Losses: Coach Mark Slonaker, contract not renewed. Starters Shadeen Aaron, Sam Dolan, and Brian Pfohl graduated.
Key Returners: Mercer returns five players who averaged 15+ minutes per game. Calvin Henry was Defensive Player of the Year last year. Despite his tendency to shoot his team out of games, James Florence was named all-conference last year and two years ago was the league's Outstanding Freshman.
Show Me Numbers: The four players gone off of last year's Bears roster combined to shoot better than 48% from the floor, by far the best-shooting senior class in the conference (sorry, Belmont.) Good news for new coach Bob Hoffman: Mercer was also the fastest team in the league last year, averaging close to 75 possessions per game. Looks like a good match between an up-tempo coach and an up-tempo team. The catch? The returning roster is tenth out of eleven teams in the conference in FG%, just under 40%. They take a lot of shots, but they miss a lot of shots.
Quick Analysis: On the plus side, Mercer has an experienced starting line-up to work with. The new coach comes in with a solid reputation; Coach Hoffman was the only assistant at Oklahoma under Kelvin Sampson to be completely exonerated by the NCAA in the phone call scandal -- no small feat, and one I would love a chance to explore with him in person one day. From here, Mercer reminds me of the "little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid." In James Florence's shots are falling, they can beat anybody. If not, they can lose to anybody. Calvin Henry's defense will help, as will the fact that this is one of the oldest teams in the conference (only two freshmen and two sophomores on the roster). Given what they have to work with this year, and what they're up against in this league, I look for them to be a solid, middle-of-the-pack team.
Stat Projection: 1.05 PEP is in the bottom half of the league, and 77.79 PEG is in the top half. This probably places them somewhere in the middle.
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