College basketball is back, and Villanova is set to open the season against Army at the Finn. Let’s jump right in and get familiar with the Black Knights.

Army is coming off a disappointing 13-19 campaign in 2018-19 where they finished ranked 242 in KenPom. The Black Knights kick off the 2019-20 season ranked 226 by KenPom, while ‘Nova enters the season ranked 8 in that metric. For reference, Army’s best KenPom win last season was against Colgate, who was ranked 126.

Synergy doesn’t have numbers for Army, so we’ll be relying on KenPom and traditional stats to break down the Black Knights. Let’s start by seeing what we can learn from their KenPom numbers.

Right off the bat, we see that Army was poor offensively (312) and middle of the pack defensively (147).

Offensively the Black Knights really struggled shooting the ball, ranking 227 with an effective field goal percentage of 49.6 percent. They were particularly poor from 3, hitting just 31.8 percent. Struggles from the free-throw line (68.1 percent) and difficulties rebounding the ball and forcing turnovers made it difficult for Army to make up for the shooting woes.

Army was among the worst in the nation at grabbing offensive rebounds, although they did a surprisingly good job keeping opponents off the offensive glass.

6-9 senior Matt Wilson is expected to lead the way for the Black Knights this season after leading the team in scoring with 13.8 points per game as a junior. He also averaged 8.6 rebounds.

The backcourt is propelled by 5-11 senior Tommy Funk, who put up 12.6 points and 5.9 assists a season ago.

While that duo will be the focal point, Army went incredibly deep on its bench last year, with 12 players averaging at least 9.6 minutes a game. 11 of those 12 played more than 10 minutes per game.

Alex King, Lonnie Grayson, and John Emezie highlight other key returners. They averaged 7.1, 7.3, and 5.6 points per game respectively. Tucker Blackwell played 9.6 minutes per game as a sophomore, averaging 3.2 points, and could be in line for an expanded role. He was one of Army’s best 3-point shooters last year at 36.5 percent, along with Funk (35.4) and Emezie (36.5).

Size was an issue for the Black Knights last season, and they add a pair of big freshmen this season in 6-11 Sam Parini and 6-10 Ben Jensen, although it remains to be seen how much of a role they will have.

Army struggled last season defending the 3-point line, so it will be interesting to see if the ‘Cats can get things going form deep after struggling in that department against USC.

Villanova should be able to handle the Black Knights, but it needs to be careful not to look past Army to the Ohio State game set to follow.