I am going to give this a whirl as I stole this little bit from Mike Wachsman over at Buckeye Sports Bulletin, our Ohio State affiliate on Rivals. He does a little piece each week of his gut feelings on what will happen throughout the duration of the Ohio State football game. Since basketball is obviously our biggest sport (and very comparable to with the passion from our community), here it goes.

* Dayton will be very sluggish off the bat, with a three hour time difference from the Dayton area and Malibu, CA.

* Ramod Marshall will have a very solid all around game, both offensively and defensively. He will likely have his way with PU freshman Shaun Davis.

* Sean Finn will get two fouls in the first half and see some extended time on the bench. James Cripe will step in and do a good job guarding the Pepperdine big men.

* Alex Acker will get his shots off and will be close to 20 points for the game. Terrance Johnson will be in double-figures too, but falls under his 15 points a game average last year.

* Pepperdine’s backcourt will out-rebound the Dayton guards. Dayton’s guards will pull down more offensive rebounds than the Waves though.

* Dayton will have more offensive rebounds than that of Pepperdine, it may be even a double digit advantage by the time it’s all said and done.

* Keith Waleskowski will have a big night tallying a double-double. He’ll set a new career high in points and will pull down close to 13 rebounds on the night.

Difference makers

James Cripe – I have a feeling that Cripe is going to see a lot of minutes tonight with Finn getting into foul trouble against the smaller Jesse Pinegar. If Cripe is able to duplicate the performance he had in the last outing, I like the Flyers by double-digits. I anticipate Cripe showing fatigue at some point as the Waves like to run down the floor. Cripe will definitely need to give some solid contributions in the minutes he plays tonight for the Flyers to be successful, and I expect nothing less from the blue collar worker.

Robert Turner - Turner could be the biggest threat for Pepperdine. He’ll struggle to get rebounds as he’ll likely draw a match with Waleskowski, but he’ll still end up with his share. Look for him to be comfortable at times as well as frustrated. He’ll need to be able to find ways to score against the durable Flyer frontline, otherwise they will settle for jump shots.

I think this is going to be a battle to the end. I think with some late free throws and some solid minutes from players 1-6 on the depth chart, the Flyers will eek out a six-point victory.