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Message: [QUOTE="dcw914, post: 4812979, member: 6001"] Surprised to be seeing a lot of negativity in this thread after two exhibition games that I think were more net positive than anything. This team surely has some deficiencies, but what team in the country doesn't? There will absolutely be some rough shooting nights but I'm not overly concerned here because I think we have enough players who can get their own in other ways. Taylor and Bell [I]should[/I] be legitimate threats and I think there's plenty of other guys who at least can be serviceable from distance. Duke is widely considered a top 5 team but look at their roster and tell me what shooter on that squad scares you from deep. Proctor shot 32% last year on a high volume. When the rotations tighten and roles get established, I think our offense will generally be good to very good. Rebounding... yea I can admit I'm probably pretty concerned here. I think it's fair to be. I just don't think our centers and Benny have the motor to be dominant rebounders. Athleticism on the wings is going to hurt us against top competition. It'll be really important for guys like JJ and Cope and JT/Bell to crash the boards consistently. Especially given that this team is going to look to push and get out in transition... rebounding will be a big swing skill for this team. And then there's the defense... the biggest question mark and the utmost most critical factor to this team's success. I go back and forth on this team's defensive chops. I like our guards defensive potential a lot. The rest I'm less confident in. As mentioned above, I think a lack of athleticism on the wings and combined with motor questions will rear its ugly head at times. Copeland is the guy to me who could make this team better defensively and hope Red is preaching to him that his defense will be what gets him the most minutes. He has the potential to guard atleast three positions and do so effectively. It's hard to factor in Chance at this stage since it's anyone's guess as to when we'll see him play meaningful minutes. Rebounding I mentioned is the swing skill but rebounding is only going to matter if this team plays strong enough defense to collect those boards. But even with these things, there are a lot of positive elements to this team. Ultimately, if I'm taking anything away from these past two games, it's that we have the most depth since likely the 2012-2013 final four team. And that's without Chance. The depth matters and it'll give us a solid early read on Red's coaching chops as to how me manages his rotations and exploits matchups based on the opposing team's personnel. Like I mentioned, defense I see as the absolute key to our season but also think how quickly JJ and Judah figure out how to play with one another effectively will be the other major key. Super excited for the season, will be critical to get some momentum in year 1 and Red knows it. Go orange! [/QUOTE]

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