Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

NCAA Tournament Cheat Sheet: Get to know Detroit

Ray McCallum,Ray McCallum Jr.

Detroit coach Ray McCallum, left, celebrates with his son and guard Ray McCallum Jr. following the team’s 70-50 victory over Valparaiso in an NCAA college basketball game for the Horizon League men’s tournament title Tuesday, March 6, 2012, in Valparaiso, Ind. (AP Photo/Joe Raymond)

AP

Read through the rest of the NCAA Tournament Cheat Sheets here.

Conference: Horizon

Coach: Ray McCallum, Sr.

Record: 26-4, 12-2 (1st)

Rankings and Ratings:

- Kenpom: 115
- RPI: 138
- AP/Coaches: Unranked

Seeding?: This is where is gets interesting. There is an outside chance that Detroit ends up on the 16 seed line, although it seems most likely they’ll be a 15 seed.

Names to know: Ray McCallum (15.5 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 3.9 apg), Eli Holamn (10.9 ppg, 6.8 rpg), Chase Simon (13.5 ppg, 4.4 rpg)

Stats to know: Detroit shoots 29.5% from three as a team and is in the bottom fifth of the country in terms of how many three-pointers they shoot. In other words, this team isn’t taking jumpers. They are attacking the rim, whether it be off the bounce or by pounding the ball inside.

Tendencies: Detroit likes playing an uptempo brand of basketball. They have the athletes to really get out and pressure the ball, and they are capable of doing that in the full court. When the Titans get rolling, they are forcing turnovers and getting easy baskets off of it.

Big wins, bad losses: Detroit’s best win of the season came over a banged up Cleveland State in the Horizon Tournament, although they also beat St. John’s. Detroit lost to the likes of George Washington and Illinois-Chicago this season.

How’d they get here?: The Titans struggled earlier in the season, but they earned the No. 3 seed in the Horizon League tournament, running through Youngstown State and Cleveland State before beating Valpo by 20.

Outlook: Detroit is now, all of a sudden, one of the most interesting teams in the entire NCAA Tournament. There is no question about it -- this Detroit team is very, very talented. Ray McCallum is a McDonald’s all-american that ended up at Detroit because his father is the head coach. Eli Holman was a center at Indiana before issues with Tom Crean boiled over. Chase Simon and Doug Anderson are both probably good enough to play at the high-major level and LaMarcus Lowe is 6'11" and a very good rebounder and shot-blocker. Believe me when I tell you that there is no No. 1 or No. 2 seed that is looking forward to having to play Detroit; there were people that had the Titans top 50 in the country in the preseason.

Rob Dauster is the editor of the college basketball website Ballin’ is a Habit. You can find him on twitter @robdauster.