Charleston Southern has enough to hang around but probably not win in Mizzou Arena

With Missouri releasing their season non-conference schedule, we’re taking a brief look at each of their opponents. You can catch up with the previous posts in the series here:

Coming off the Hall of Fame Classic, the Tigers get a slight respite upon returning home to face the Charleston Southern Buccaneers. The Bucs hail from, ironically enough, north of North Charleston, South Carolina. That’s a lot of directionals, but it’s about a 25 minute drive to the Charleston city center.

The Bucs participate in the Big South conference with the likes of Campbell, Winthrop, High Point and Longwood, among others. At the helm on the sideline is the expertly named Barclay Radebaugh, who’s been the head coach at Charleston Southern for the last 14 years. He’s been the conference coach of the year twice, but still looking for his first trip to the NCAA tournament.

Charleston Southern Buccaneers

Last season: 18-16, 160 in KenPom

Torvik Projection: 181

Head Coach: Barclay Radebaugh

Michael Shroyer-USA TODAY Sports

Last season was a good one for Charleston Southern as they were 18-16 and and 9-7 in the Big South and made the CIT tournament, their third post season in the Radebaugh era. They were led in scoring by Christian Keeling, who parlayed his success into a scholarship at North Carolina. Meanwhile, the rest of the team returns four of their top six scorers, which should help CSU compete for a Big South title.

RETURNING PLAYERS OF NOTE:

• Phlandrous Fleming — 49.8% %min, 12.5 ppg
• Dontrell Shuler — 69.0% %min, 10.9 ppg
• Ty Jones — 56.0% %min, 7.8 ppg
• Deontaye Buskey — 44.7% %min, 6.2 ppg

The guy here to keep an eye on is excellently named Phlandrous Fleming, a 6’4 junior wing from Athens, GA. Fleming was the second leading scorer a year ago despite shooting a less than ideal 28.9% from deep. He missed 12 games with an early season knee injury, but I’d expect him to be the focus of the offense early.

The reality with this team, however, is they’re projected to be pretty good, but for a Big South team. Last year they played three games against Power Conference teams and they closest they came to winning was a 21 point loss to Marquette.

I don’t expect this as a game Missouri should lose, or one that should be particularly close. Southern doesn’t have a lot of size, so competing with Missouri on the glass should prove an issue. Still, the Bucs are continuing the theme of at least being a decent mid-to-low major team on the Tigers’ schedule, and according to Torvik’s projections, the Tigers are still currently projected to win by more than 19 points.