My thoughts...
- Great crowd. Great energy once we got back into the game. I went with a friend who's an OSU grad and he was very impressed with the barn and the crowd.
- As someone else said, this team is bad, but it's still fun to watch.
- As someone else said "We have four Seniors, if this is a rebuilding year, what does that make next year?".
- I don't blame Pitino for not taking a time out at the end. What for? Too let OSU get set defensively and then run a play that we can't execute? Our best shot was letting Lil Dre race up court and make something happen. It didn't work out and the better team won.
- Lil Dre is solid, but limited offensively due to his size. I enjoy him and what he does, but look forward to next year when we start fresh with the new guards and Mason.
- Dre Hollins pulling it out of the ditch is our only shot at winning some games this year. Pitino is still on his honeymoon, so people are being nice, but if it was Tubby at the helm people would be asking how a player like Dre could "regress" this much under a coach? I really think Dre is a player who's better with the ball in his hands. While he doesn't drive the hoop very well, he can create his own shot off the dribble. Without the ball in his hands he has a hard time getting open due to his lack of athleticism.
- Mason is the most complete player on the team, hands down. He plays ferocious defense and really shut down their stud Freshman after he'd been abusing Dre Hollins. He also has a swagger and confidence that this team is desperately lacking. He's probably the toughest guy on the team as far as I can tell. That said, he still has some things to work on. He still gets lost on defense at times. Against Maryland it was so bad, Carlos Morris bad in fact, that he sat for a good chunk of the game. He's also a poor free throw shooter. I've been thinking all year that a PG has to be better at the line than he is and that it would hurt us at some point this year. Last night was that night.
- Carlos Morris is maybe the worst defender I've seen since...Charles Buggs. Ugh. He's a guy who needs to sit and be taught by the coach when he messes up, but with McNeil looking at jail time, we have no other option but to let him play through it. Not only is he awful on defense, he's really not that great on offense either. His shot selection is brutal. His basketball IQ, is just not that high. The drop off from Austin Hollins last year to Carlos Morris is huge.
- Charles Buggs is brutal as well. He looks like a carton character out there. Like he's not even taking it seriously. He just doesn't get it and he's a pretty old player (21 y/o) to not get it yet. Add in the fact that he's booby soft, and it's not pretty. To put it in perspective, Joey King is our starting PF, Carlos Morris is our starting SF, we have no reserves ahead of him and Buggs can only get a total of 6 minutes backing up both of them.
- Joey King does the best he can. He's completely outclassed playing PF in the B1G, but at least conceptually, he understands what he's supposed to do. I'd like to see him try a little harder at rebounding and boxing out (looks like he has T-Rex arms when he boxes out), but he's physically outclassed against every single PF in the B1G conference, so it is what it is. I remember a lot of debate about this last year, but does anyone think Oto wouldn't be an upgrade right now if healthy and eligible?
- Apparently Bakary & Gaston between them aren't capable of giving us one single minute. Doesn't inspire much confidence for next year, does it?
- Mo is what he is. He can score with his finesse stuff, but If we had a "soft" contest, he and Buggs would face each other in the finals. He gets the ball ripped away by guys half his size consistently. He doesn't box out at all. He doesn't rebound unless it falls into his lap and only then if it's below the rim. On that note, he may be the shortest 6'11" player in basketball. Everything is below the rim. Lay ups, finger rolls, tip ins. He's not the reason we're not playing well, but he's frustrating to watch because I really get the feeling his problem is lack of effort, not lack of talent.
- Elliot of course is like a photo negative of Mo. With Mo, you have to check his pulse every two minutes to make sure he's still breathing. With Elliot you have to shoot him with a tranquilizer dart every two minutes to calm him down. He really provided the spark last night that led to our comeback with his defensive aggressiveness and scrappiness under the basket. He is literally the only big on the team who wants to rebound.
- We absolutely HAVE to find a willing rebounder at PF for next year. Even someone like an Andre Ingram (who took a ton of abuse on GH) would be a huge, huge upgrade. Next year we return Mason, bring in Jarvis & Dorsey, so the future should be bright in the back court. We also bring in McBrayer & hopefully Ellison (who visited last night) to play with Morris at SF. At Center we have Bakary (couldn't earn a single minute last night) and Nwanko. I like what I've seen of Nwanko. He looks like he'll rebound and plays with power, but he's limited offensively and will probably be in foul trouble all the time, as many Freshmen bigs are. That leaves PF, where we return King and Buggs. We HAVE to find a PF who will rebound or it'll be another long season.
