I think Davis' comments, and some of the faint praise we've heard from ESPN, have been justified to an extent.
Before the Providence game, we were playing like a tall mid-major team. Lots of outside jumpers. MCW driving but not finishing. And almost no balance inside with underperforming DC2 and Rak and offensively limited Keita. Outside, aside from JS, who's streaky, MCW has not shot the ball well and TC hasn't contributed offensively. So I think DC2, MCW and TC are the inexperienced players Davis is talking about. For a while, our length in the zone covered this inexperience up. Temple exposed us as young team with too many question marks inside.
I'm not sure when Davis wrote that article, but obviously he didn't see the Providence game. Last night, our best players were a sophomore and a junior inside and a sophomore on the perimeter. It was the seniors who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. MCW not only drove .. he finished. His 17 pts, 5 steels, 6 rbs and 6 assists (actually 8, but who's counting) and 1 TO in 38 minutes, carried the veterans. In the future as his shooting and finishing improve, teams are not going to be able to stick on their men .. they'll have to collapse on Michael. His assist numbers will go back through the roof (my prediction) and Davis will get back on his bandwagon.
Even more importantly, from a front line that had given us very limited production (mostly glue points from CJ), against PC we got 28 points, 19 rbs and 7 blocks out of the 4 and 5 (CJ and Rak). It's not like the Friars didn't have any size. Cooley started 6'9" Kadeem Batts and 6'10" Sidiki Johnson to counter our size. Johnson played hard, pulling down 7 boards. But he only scored twice, and Rak erased Kadeem Batts, who had 1 basket and 5 boards in 37 minutes.
Do I think our bigs have arrived? No. Rak is not yet a consistent post player. DC2 is turning into a bit of an enigma on defense. But our rebounding numbers are starting to look pretty good. And that was a helluva performance from Rak last night ... a "flash" of what he's capable of.
The game was ugly, another BE half-court grinder. And 2 of the 3 newer players didn't do much. But at least we had enough inside offense to beat a pretty hot-shooting providence team on the road, while BT, TC and JS were a combined 1 for 13 from 3.
If our bigs keep producing at anywhere near their level at PC, Seth will forget about the "freshmen" problem. Trust me.
