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Message: [QUOTE="sutomcat, post: 4311281, member: 27"] Thought Symir was our best guard defensively last year. Faint praise but I think it is clear he is a better athlete and can do things our other guards could not do last year. Look at what he did in the Duke game in the ACC tournament. He should be an above average player defensively. And I think he could be above average playing zone or man. Mintz got a lot of praise from people in the know for his defense for Oak Hill. He has the ability to pressure the ball extended far from the basket; a key element you need to play man effectively. There has been talk about SU possibly playing some man on and off for decades. If Mintz is the defender some think, hey, it might just happen. Even if only for short periods. Anyway, I agree you can't bank on frosh playing good defense but Mintz might be a guy who is good defensively from day one. I hope so because we need him to be good on both sides of the court right away. Edwards should be really good defensively. Just needs to learn to stay out of foul trouble better. The upgrades defensively at other positions should help here; guys got to the basket way too easily against some of our slow footed players last year and Jesse was left trying to defend his man and the guy with the ball too many times. I expect Hima will be an upgrade over Anselem defensively at center. Frank was not a shot blocker. That is important for our defense. I think at forward, we have a similar situation to guard, where Benny is going to be an upgrade over the guys we had at forward last year. Not sure he will be great but he is faster and more athletic and he has been around long enough that he should be pretty solid. I think the other forward is probably going to be a mix of Symir, Taylor and Bunch. Maybe some Brown or Carey (would love it if Carey is ready to help at PF). I think Symir will be good against lesser teams but his lack of height will hurt us against good teams. Someone needs to step up here and it is very possible we will have someone who is a major liability on defense playing the other forward spot. I will say this: whoever turns out to be the best defender of all the other forward candidates will likely be the one playing the most minutes. Very concerned over this position, and who the backup forward is going to be. [/QUOTE]

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