Well said. All the more reason to admire the squad they have.
Possibly is a money situation. If so, Iām willing to walk-on instead of taking a scholarship.
They do have 13 guys on their roster.
Shaw #0 was a fantastic player. He came with the new coach from Winston Salem State.
I must admit, I laugh at the ālong seasonā comments when weāve only played 3 games with 5 new pieces plus trying to reincorporate Potter into the mix.
First, there are no apologies for winning. This game was close and our guys played better down the stretch, specifically Elmer. He had a nice balance to his game, taking open 3s and also taking it into the mid-range and inside on occasion. He was a force on the defensive boards and was probably our most consistent defender, though he can be even more consistent at that end.
I think it also helped that we settled on 5-6 guys to finish the game and quit rotating so frequently.
However, I will say that pulling away at the end was also a product of them getting tired. I think our defense was better in the last 8 minutes but that was an improvement from very little defense. They hit some tough shots, but their shooting numbers are solid this year so far. Kenpom has a lot of preseason projections in their numbers and will until a little after halfway through the season so this team is better than their ranking and even with the tough shots they hit, they got to spots they wanted to get to. Our defensive closeouts werenāt good. We came at guys on the perimeter almost standing up. It was no wonder they were driving by us. Transition defense was an issue too, even after a made basket. Michigan could put up a big number against us the way they want to play, be forewarned.
Iād be curious what our best defensive combo has been so far (Jive). Thatās who should be playing as no one on this team is an offensive liability at this point.
So there is work to do. I would add that point guard play, while better, still needs work. I was ready to say that Skajac was our best guard, but he didnāt play as well in the 2nd half. Ipsaro impacted the game more than Cooper even though Cooper had 5 assists.
But learning after winning is the best. Weāre a young team trying to reestablish a winning program after arguably 10-12 years or so in the wilderness. Itās going to take some work.
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Will Potter be back next week vs Michigan? Gonna need someone to guard Vlad Goldin
Quaaludes guy agrees https://youtu.be/IG2JF0P4GFA
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Heās made some good points
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Ball knower!
We got a good test last night and ended up covering anyway. Moving onā¦
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Cooper has had two straight subpar performances.
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I would guess it is going to take awhile for him to be back to normal proficiency.Really, you want him full go by the start of MAC play.
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Their team photo showed 13 guys. Probably a travel budget issue.
Michigan is going to be a challenge especially in the post as they start 2 players at least 7 feet tall. One of whom, transfer Danny Wolf, who was first team all Ivy League at Yale last year and has guard skills as well. Iām curious to see how we match up against them. I think we need to have Potter healthy and ready to go Monday.
Iām not surprised the freshman who missed an entire season of basketball is taking some time getting up to game speed. Heās one of the top 3 shooters on the team. Iāll be more worried deeper into the non-con season.
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One other thing that nobody mentioned was that our offense was really good when we went inside then out. Suder penetrating and finding the open shooter especially. The easiest perimeter shot is off an inside out pass and we drilled those the whole game.
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I thought we looked best when we had someone at the free throw line facilitating. We did that the last 5 minutes or so of the second half. Perhaps we are talking about the same thing.
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Agreed. I said this after Wright State, but I would flip our pg minutes. Right now Cooper is playing the most, followed by Ipsaro and Luke. Iād reverse that. Cooper is a solid defender/passer, but heās a minus on offense and it shows in the ways other teams defend him. Itās really hard in modern basketball to survive with a point guard who is a non-scorer.
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I donāt expect much out of our teams other than regaining bragging rights over our local teams, like Wright State, and returning to the days of playing Dayton and Cincinnati and having bragging rights over them also, kind of like the good old days.
@Gene Iāve got a lot of good old days in my rear view mirror and I donāt remember having bragging rights against Cincinnati basketball very often.
Itās funny to think Owens beat GA Tech and almost Cincy his last year. Havenāt beaten UC since like 1993.