Based on current player development. Payne rising So. Carrington rising So. JOJ rising So. Garcia just second year coming this fall. Ihnen who could be a huge difference maker returning. Fox returning. Betts with a full year of practice and strength and conditioning. Christie is one of the best freshmen we have had. Mitchell transferring in. battle gone. The belief that our coaching staff is working extremely hard to get up to B1G level coaching. What’s not to be enthused about? But yeah, I still want another high quality guard that can handle the point at least at the Cooper level. This team is just starting to develop its chemistry. Maybe a chemistry. I think I’ve said this a few times. I would like to see them start with a few cupcakes to get rolling and build confidence. They need on court leadership and a bit of swag. No need to throw them right to the wolves.
Payne and *maybe* JOJ are the only players that have shown any improvement under BJ, imo. This is the first off-season BJ has had with sophomores who have played meaningful minutes in his system. So we’ll see.
Garcia’s weaknesses are matchup related because he needs like 40 lbs of muscle. Has he improved here?
Ihnen hasn’t played in 2 years, but sounds like he’s been practicing?. Lower body strength comes back more slowly - can he bang enough downlow to allow his height to bother stronger post players? What gives you hope he’ll be effective on the wing? He wasn’t under Pitino. He added a pump fake/pull up jumper to his bag near the end of his sophomore year but he doesn’t offer the versatility necessary on the wing. He’s easy to defend unless he greatly improves his shooting.
Fox… I’ll believe it when I see it, but I won’t even entertain it until he’s back at practice. Ffs.
Betts and Christie are wildcards. Cautiously optimistic with Christie, but I don’t expect much out of redshirt freshman typically.
We lost a lot of games by a lot of points last year. We need a lot of improvement just to find ourselves to be an adequate threat to most teams in the big ten.