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Message: [QUOTE="Melancer46, post: 2966906, member: 1674"] Found this post from about a month into the season and I think it still basically sums up my thoughts: I disagree with the idea that some people have that returning all 5 starters from a bad team is a good thing. Part of the downside of this scenario is that there's never guarantees that guys will improve. I don't think it was really reasonable to expect much improvement from Battle, Howard, or Chukwu. I do think it was reasonable to expect improvement out of Brissett and Dolezaj though, as well as the influx of Hughes. Battle was coming off a year in which he had shown zero improvement and yet people were projecting a massive leap into the All-American picture for him...it never made any sense. He did end up showing at least a little improvement this year, improving his scoring efficiency a little bit, cutting down on turnovers, and improving his playmaking a little bit (though this was always maybe his biggest flaw). Howard just didn't look right for the majority of the season. Brissett became a better, though still bad, finisher at the rim. I have no idea what happened to his free throw shooting and 3 point shot though. He remains a flat out bad basketball player that continues to soak up a ton of minutes. His lack of meaningful improvement is a major disappointment. In some ways, Dolezaj became a different player, and in other ways, he remained the same. As a freshman, 6.7% of his shots came from 3 point range. That increased in a gigantic way this year, up to almost 30% of his shots, and he converted them at a high rate too. He improved his shooting percentages pretty significantly at all 3 levels of the court as well. He also showed a little more ability handling the ball than he did as a freshman, relying a little less on others to create for him. Unfortunately, his passive nature did not improve this season. I think Dolezaj is a player that we need to utilize more moving forwards, and also think that he would likely impact games far more if he had teammates that could create and pass. The other guys were all basically newbies. Hughes was a nice addition and exceeded my expectations. Boeheim showed flashes of what might end up being a strong college career. Braswell showed a lot in the few minutes he received. Carey looked like a trainwreck. And Sidibe just never looked healthy. Moving forwards, PG and C are the obvious holes; of the three things I mentioned that are necessary for Boeheim's "offense" to work, we should finally have the shooting box checked next season. The other two remain major flaws. [/QUOTE]

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