My fan day impressions:
We are now pretty much a 180° from Lutz ball in terms of the style of team we have. This team is big and athletic at every position, but also, unsurprisingly, appears to be challenged to shoot jump shots. We only have one small player on the entire team (Ingram), and he appears to be the type of crafty little guy that inhabits most rosters.
The only question mark on the starting lineup IMO is whether JT Thompson starts. Common sense says yes, in terms of experience, he brings a lot to the table. But based on a limited scrimmage, it looks like we have a lot of viable 4 guys, including our Sr C who should be playing 4. I havent seen enough JT or the new guys to make the call there. Otherwise, the starters are going to be what everyone has been guessing: Henry, TWill, Mayfield, Bras, X. That may be our best 5, but that is a team that will face a 2-3 zone every night except for teams that specialize in man to man.
As I said in the season prediction thread, and encouragingly, Major hinted at it, for this team to succeed, heck - for it to even average 70 PPG, we are going to have to turn up the pressure on defense to create turnovers and stay out of a halfcourt offensive game. If we have to play halfcourt for 40 minutes, we might have trouble scoring 60 most nights.
So we have depth and size for more guys to play all out, and I am hoping it translates to 5-10 more easy pts in every game, and that could easily flip flop our record from last year. Here’s hoping.
The pessimist in me says we also lost any semblence of a put-the-team-on-his-back shooter - we have no Leemire or even a JB on this team. That is going to cost us some games too. We’re going to have to be more consistent from timeout to timeout, because we have no one who can shoot us back into a game.
Quick comments on a a few guys:
Pierria - looks 100% again. (thankfully).
EVic - bigger, but big enough? Maybe not yet. Didnt take a jumper.
Thorne - RAW. This season, I suspect we use him situationally. He is still a matchup problem for small teams, but I do not think he is ready for major minutes yet. He’s probably best suited for solid off the bench minutes, and to exploit a small post defender, which he can do.
Clayton - really hard not to love what you see on first glance. He may be the first big we’ve had who looks and plays bigger than his listed height. He has a motor and tons of charisma. Flaws - his hands when he takes lots of contact. FTs were an adventure.
Clark - if he were 2 inches taller, he’d be the feature player in every write up on us. I still do not know what his position is. He’s not as thick as I remembered, but he is very athletic and has a nasty streak.
Ingram - we have a legit backup PG. Not sold on his jumper tho, and yes, he’s small, especially on this team.
Benkovic - our best hope for a shooter. This kid is huge compared to what I expected. He might be an inch smaller than Evic, maybe less (he looks 6’5 on the court). He’s still freshman skinny and he plays deliberately (good and bad). Had one really nice looking stroke. The rest was kinda meh - finding his way out there.
TWill had the wake-the-place up play on an alley from Evic on a break. He is absolutely explosive. Did not see him make a jumper though. Even in warmups.
All of the freshmen looks like solid role players this season. Depending on JT’s health/effectiveness, Clark or Clayton could possibly see some significant PT. I do not think any of the freshmen (including Thorne) are ready to be difference makers in year one, but they all look like contributors with future starting potential.
The season will come down to how well we defend, and failing that, if we can find a dependable shooter to play at the 2. What we really need is another dependable scorer to compliment Bras & Mayfield.
