Some overreactions headed into the season:
The vast majority of Judah's value will be tied to how many jumpers fall
Right now Judah is looking for his own. I actually thought there were a couple occasions were Joe seemed hesitant to pass it to Judah, presumably b/c he figured he'd never see the ball again. This is pure conjecture, of course, but thought I noticed it and anyone who's ever played pickup with a chucker understands how this works. But, regardless, we do need Judah's athleticism and creativity, hopefully he develops as a PG but, for now, I think we're going to love him when the shots are falling and be cursing at the TV when they're not.
Here's a hot take: Symir may be the second and is definitely the third-best player on this team
I think most are on board with Symir playing a much bigger role than expected this year. But when you take into account all that he does (defense, ball-handling, passing, running the offense, bringing energy, leadership, ability to create at times, etc.) and add to it that he might even make a few jumpers this year, I'm pretty sure he's the third-best player on the team right now and I'm not sure how far he is behind Joe (who is solid but limited defensively and not really a creator) or Jesse (good skill set, excellent size, but waiting to see him put it all together). Exhibitions don't mean much, but seeing him pull the trigger on 5 threes last night was really interesting.
Benny needs to battle his a$$ off on the glass and cut and dive hard to the rim -- that's where he's going to score
Benny seems like a good kid who works hard and has some talent ... but he is an absolutely brutal offensive player at the moment. Made the three and the baseline jumper against IUP but he needs to be at the rim offensively. Crash the glass, make hard cuts, run the floor, look for alley-oops ... but creating offense off the dribble and shooting jumpers just don't feel like they're going to happen for him at this point.
JGIII will be interesting to watch, as always
Love him or dislike him, Girard will be a big piece of this season. He scored 17 in the first preseason game and then really didn't shoot much or play a ton (25 mins) last night. Yet, if they didn't wipe that late three off the board for no reason, he would have had 18 last night too. Regardless, he's firmly entrenched in the Brandon Triche/Trevor Cooney Lightning Rod category of player. Some folks will pick everything he does apart. Others will look over any weaknesses and extoll his virtues. It will divide the board sooner rather than later. That said, will be interesting seeing how he decides to go about being the de facto go-to guy on offense. Really wish at some point -- and maybe it's really difficult on the cardio/agility side b/c of the asthma complications -- but I really wish we had seen Joe come into the season in phenomenal shape. I just always figured at some point he'd go into an off-season, cut out all carbs and dive head first into conditioning and agility just to see what that extra stamina and half-step of quickness might allow him to do. But, alas, we'll never know.
Edwards is very good ... but I don't think he's great
Could be wrong here but for some reason when i watch Edwards I'm left wanting more from him. Like, he's an excellent athlete with excellent size. His hands are good, he moves well and plays hard defensively. He does a lot of really good things. But will he knock down some mid-range jumpers? Are his post moves good enough to be a primary option offensively? Will he show a little more alpha energy playing against better bigs moving forward? He's clearly not the problem with this team, but he and joe need to be outstanding for us to really have a shot at doing something this year and I'm not sure he's outstanding.
We're definitely more athletic than last year ... but I'm not sure we're really THAT athletic
I like all the frosh and, generally speaking, we simply weren't athletic enough last year to create problems for people with our defense. JB did a nice job of adjusting to a 1-3-1 and the team battled, so we were at least competitive. But ultimately, we just weren't athletic enough to sustain anything. We are more athletic this year, but I'm not sure anyone outside of Mintz is so athletic that we're really going to have an advantage in that department, even against a lot of our early-season opponents. Copeland and Taylor have good athleticism and nice skill, but they're not blowing past people or jumping over people at this stage. Benny is athletic and will play a bigger role, but I'm not sure he knows how to leverage that athleticism. Carey has a really unique combo of size and athleticism but, at a minimum, it appears its going to take him time to adjust (and it may be next year, for that matter). Brown is a really intriguing player but doesn't look athletically like he's at the level of Grant or even Brissett/Guerrier. Definitely more athletic but not sure it's enough to really give us an edge against very many teams.
Brown looks like the most comfortable freshman
It's not really the made shots that I'm looking at here, though I'm happy he's 6-for-6 instead of 0-for-6. But I think Brown is in the really nice spot of fitting in nicely at the 4. Mintz feels like a guy who hasn't really run point, but is doing so. Taylor/Bell/QG have some nice tools but guessing Taylor may be a 2, but may not shoot quite well enough for that just yet. Bell has athleticism but seems uncomfortable on the floor. I like QG but not really sure what position he is at this point. Brown, on the other hand, seems really comfortable in what he can and can't do and what his role is.
Our half-court sets aren't helping anything
Watching IUP and Southern NH run all over the place setting screens and cutting and then watching us go 1-on-1 all night is depressing.
We might actually play m2m
Thought the m2m was much better last night than against IUP. Not sure how that looks against a real opponent but I get the vibe our zone is struggling. Maybe if the lineup ends up being a heavy dose of Symir, we can find our footing in the zone but I do wonder if we might actually see some m2m for stretches, maybe even fairly prolonged stretches, at least early in the season.
No idea on rotation or best lineup
Really have zero clue what our best lineup is. I'd say Symir at the 1, Joe at the 2, Edwards at the 5 are locked. For now you've got to go Benny at the 4, but Brown will be interesting to watch there. The 3? I guess QG, though he's a bit undersized. Bell hasn't done much for me and Taylor has looked pretty composed. But I guess I'd go with QG. Then the rest of the rotation is I guess Brown (4), Hima (5) and Mintz 1/2 with maybe some minutes for Bell/Taylor if one shows they can contribute against better teams? Really not sure.
Feels like it could be a really, really long season. Hope I'm wrong, but JB has his work cut out for him to even figure out who he's going to run with.
