High Point at Liberty

High Point went 31-5 last season and beat Wisconsin in the NCAA Tournament in Flynn Clayman’s first year as head coach, and Clayman is back with a new roster around him. His Panthers averaged 90 points a game in the regular season, third in Division I, and led the country with 10.9 steals a game. Across all 36 games, opponents turned it over 16 times a game against them, and High Point scored 20.4 points a game off those turnovers. Terry Anderson and Rob Martin, who had 52 steals apiece, are gone. Conrad Martinez had 50 and is back, and so is Cam’Ron Fletcher. Clayman reloaded with six transfers who averaged double figures elsewhere last season, led by Jason Rivera-Torres, who scored 15.8 a game and had 70 steals at Monmouth. Liberty has the bigger rebuild. Ritchie McKay’s returning players scored 7.9% of the team’s points last season, so the roster that turned it over just 8.8 times a game in the regular season, fourth-fewest in Division I, is not the one taking the floor. Those 36 High Point games averaged 161 combined points, and the Panthers scored 80 or more in 29 of them, which makes the OVER the bet in Rock Hill tonight.