Quinnipiac vs Vermont prediction: Vermont's veteran core tests a rebuilt Quinnipiac in Burlington

Continuity against a clean slate

This is the opening weekend of the first America East–Metro Challenge, and the two programs arrive from opposite places. Vermont returns 82.0% of last season's minutes from a team that went 22-12, and coaches picked John Becker's 15th team first in the America East with seven first-place votes.

Quinnipiac has lost all five starters from last season's 19-13 team, to transfers or to uncertainty around the new fifth-year eligibility rule. Only 25.8% of last season's minutes are back. Gone are Amarri Monroe, who averaged 15.6 points, and Jaden Zimmerman, who averaged 15.1. Preseason views of the rebuild split sharply: Metro coaches picked the Bobcats sixth, while one preseason yearbook ranked them first. With so little of the roster back, last season's Quinnipiac team numbers tell you more about the departed players than about the group Tom Pecora brings to Burlington.

Yalden and the Vermont engine

Vermont's offense runs through two players who are back. Yalden, a preseason all-conference pick, carried a 33.6% usage rate last season, meaning about a third of Vermont's possessions ended with him when he was on the floor, and he still averaged 16.1 points. He led Vermont with 23 points in a 77–61 exhibition win over Stonehill on Oct. 24.

TJ Hurley is the shooter. He made 38.5% of his threes last season and 87.3% of his free throws, and his offensive rating of 127.7 points per 100 possessions led Vermont's high-minute players. Noah Barnett made 66.3% of his shots inside. Momo Nkugwa missed the first exhibition, then came back to score 12 off the bench against Stonehill.

Last season Vermont took 44.9% of its shots from three, 70th-most in Division I, and made 56.2% of its twos, 44th nationally. That inside-outside balance is what the Bobcats' new pieces have to slow down.

The glass and the clock

Vermont's identity last season was patience and rebounding. Its pace of 64.3 possessions per 40 minutes ranked 330th, among the slowest in the country, and it grabbed 77.6% of opponents' misses, the best defensive rebounding rate in Division I. Vermont also protects the ball, with a turnover rate of 14.5% that ranked 37th.

The tradeoff is that the Catamounts rarely take the ball away. Their steal rate ranked 350th. Any Quinnipiac path to extra possessions runs through the offensive glass rather than through forced turnovers. McKnight, the Bobcats' top returner, averaged 5.9 rebounds in 24.8 minutes last season. He is the player most likely to keep second chances alive against a frontcourt that rarely allows them.

At Vermont's pace, expect fewer possessions than a Quinnipiac team that played at a faster tempo last season would like.

What Quinnipiac has to work with

McKnight was efficient in a supporting role last season, averaging 11.0 points with a 55.4% effective field goal percentage, a shooting measure that counts threes as worth 1.5 times a two. He took only 15 threes all year, so his work comes inside. Tai Turnage gives Pecora a ball handler who made 81.1% of his free throws. Pierre-Louis blocked 1.2 shots a game at Cleveland State last season and is the Bobcats' most likely rim protector against Barnett and Yalden.

Health is a question. In mid-October Pecora described a camp with injuries to players he didn't name: "We had one guy out with a hip and two guys out with broken noses, so we have been practicing hard, and I am OK with that." No update on those players has surfaced since, so who is available Nov. 8 is unsettled.

What to watch

• Vermont's second exhibition: Saint Michael's visits Patrick Gymnasium on Oct. 28, another look at Nkugwa's role and the rotation.
• Quinnipiac's opening games: the first regular-season box scores will show who Pecora trusts in his new rotation.
• The line: none is posted yet. When one appears, the gap in returning minutes is the number that bears on it most.