It doesn’t make it less true. We were all pretty excited until Hofstra
The issues on offense were there from the jump:
- JJ is the only one who can create for himself consistently… but his ability finish and shoot isn’t good enough for him to be the number 1 option
- Donnie is the closest we have to a number 1 option but he is the classic 3/4 tweener so he only was able to sporadically take over games
- Kingz never got enough shots
- George either got worse in the offseason or was not set up for success in this offense because he does very little to pressure the defense
- Kiyan was getting big boyed even in exhibition games but his he kinda could make it work against lower caliber athletes
On defense there was some hope but even then it was fairly obvious that the better D was a because of improved intensity and better athletes and not that much because the system was better. The open question was whether the intensity would hold up all season and it turns out the intensity barely made it to the new year.
So in summary, yeah all the signs were there.
My biggest criticism of Autry is that he wanted the identity of the team to be intensity and they quit on him very early on in the season. They didn’t believe in him and that’s the worst thing to happen to a leader.
