Mintz - me first player. Talented but not a winning player. Hey judah, when your team is down by 11 and you make a shot, that aint the time to stare down the opponent.
Starling - a 2 guard who cant shoot. Not ideal.
Mcleod - literally did not belong on the same court as duke. He should not be starting unless we’re playing Cupcake University
Taylor - you know how in football they talk about wide receivers creating seperation? Well taylor creates ZERO seperation. No matter what he did with the ball, a duke defender was as close to him as the close talker from seinfeld.
Bell - he makes the same mistakes i made playing ball in 5th grade. By the 6th grade i learned not to leave my feet with the ball and have no idea what to do with it and chuck it outside to a covered teammate. Unfortunately hes the only guy i have any confidence could hit a couple 3s in a row so we need him.
Copeland - if michael jordan and magic johnson had a kid he thinks it would be him. Unfortunately hes not. Stop with the flashy passes and 360 layups and play smart and youll be great.
Brown - always in the right place at the right time. Winning player. Knows his game, knows his role, and plays it well.
Williams - i like his game. He needs to play more and just hope everything clicks for him and he can be more consistent. We need him.
Overall its a more talented and athletic team than recent years, but frustrating and dumb as hell. And cant shoot, which will ultimately be our downfall. I think the ceiling for this is beiny squarely on the bubble in march.
Agree with most of this. Maybe not the harshness of every point. Like McLeod — he really has not been good lately, but i still think there's more potential not being shown. I have a complete lack of trust in the staff toward getting it out of him. He has 'fixed' a couple of glaring early season problems, but then has regressed against better competition lately in other areas. Should he be starting? Yeah. I just hate seeing Maliq at Center. Brown can score 20, get 5 pokes, and still get abused by the opposing center. Since we're used to having both Bell and Taylor on the court, starting, and not scoring, i'd like to see a lineup of McLeod/Hima, Brown at 4, Benny 3, JJ 2, Mintz 1. Unfortunately, that's a really bad team from 3, but it should be defensively okay and strong at rebounding.
Mintz... is not a point guard. He either makes non-playmaking passes on the perimeter, or he's going for his own. Q is the better setup guy, but he's lost in his own personality, which is just a weird way of saying he enjoys the flash more than the 2 points... which is an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
JJ — i really am confused. I don't quite understand how shoulder issues could be ameliorated by the shot form he's currently employing. It's just whack. And yesterday, i swear it looked like he was taking a Cooneyesque leaning three from the corner, when it was completely not necessary.
Essentially—and i'm not going to be a masochist and rewatch any of that—it seemed like Duke got a lot of easy shots, and all of our shots were quite difficult, aside from a couple of Maliq dunks. We don't get separation—Taylor or Bell—against good defensive teams, and we don't have the schemes/plays or playmaking from the PG to create good looks for anyone. Bell's shots seem to come when a guy is right there in front of him but maybe a bit fooled into not thinking he's going to shoot, because... he's not really open. Mintz' 3s sometimes are open, sometimes are desperation heaves, and/or he's trying to draw a foul. And they look like his body is sideways. Starling takes shots i want him to take, but i don't know why he can't shoot as well as he did in previous years. Unless i'm completely fooled by the nature of highlight 'tape.'
Benny just needs to play more. Unfotunately, he's his own obstacle. Not sure why he didn't play more, and earlier yesterday, though. Kinda like Red forgot he wasn't still on double top secret probation. Or maybe he was. Maybe Benny shat in his shoe or somesuch. We just don't know. We don't have the technology.
Cuffe is a mixed bag. Sometimes looks like he deserves minutes, sometimes not so much. Seems to be dependent upon quality of opponent. Maybe he's not an ACC level guy after all? Not giving up on him, and maybe he needs another year. I thought, from the early promise, that he was going to have more impact. Maybe that's still to come.
I guess this team is pretty much what i expected it to be. We'd beat some people because we have some talent and can play fast and crazy, and we'd get blasted when we're forced to play too fast and crazy and the crazy turns into stupid. I thought we'd have Chance by now. I really hope he gets fully better before he gets into games. I really don't want to see any setbacks or him having to do this all over again.
Back to Red... Jury's still out, as everything is an incomplete project, but... So, yes, he did completely change half of our team scheme by taking us from zone to M2M. And i applaud/appreciate that. But, we're not a good man team, and i don't like the frequent comments that it's because he doesn't have "his guys" yet. D2 schools have lesser players, with freshmen and transfers, and they still know how to play that defense. What i feared is what is reality—we have a staff that is a relic of the JB era, and they haven't learned the new tricks. Or, they can't teach the new tricks. It's not much different than if we played man under JB in spurts, except we're more athletic than in the Buddy/Jimmy year(s), and we ostensibly have practiced it and committed to it more. But, we're not more skilled at it than that. Worrying. I'm not really seeing what Red is doing better, and then i have to look down and see that we beat Georgetown and Pitt. So, i'm giving him some space. But, the eye test still has me worried.
