Thoughts from my seat.
Have to survive these first few games until Tadric and then Josh return.
Jose is this year's Josh, 3 star kid who is going to play way above his ranking. Love how he plays. I thought he started slow and sluggish, but after coach pulled him and "talked" to him, he was like a different player. amazing how many Rebounds he pulls down. Wish all our guards rebounded like him Strong at the line as well. Not afraid to take shots.
Ben was gassed late in the second half. He needed more breaks, that is on Pastner. He had AD chained to the bench for no good reason for a good bit of the second half.
Brandon provided a big lift especially in the first half. He is aggressive and you can tell he has played college basketball. He looked slower to me in the second half, I think playing alot of min wears on his knee a little. Much better game than against UCLA. Really took care of the ball, was money at the FT line and solid on defense. Not afraid.
Moore was a disaster today and I agree with those who think his min are going to get cut significantly once Tad and Josh are back. Right now he is the 5th best guard on the team behind the 2 suspensions, Jose and Alston. He is unable to score. B-C was daring him to shoot, just like every other team we will face. He cannot shoot at any of the three levels. He was poor with ballhandling today as well. Played decent on defense but that was it. I would bet that he avg less than 15 mpg once Tad and Josh are back. Actually I think it will be less than 12. Jose is already a better PG than him and Moore can't shoot so he is a liability at 2. I think he could end up avg less than 10.
AD was one of the PotG today. He plays strong defense and he was very good at the line in the 2nd half. He should not be 18 ft from the basket ever. Just keep him close. If he is in the game with Lammers it should be a high-low setup. I hope he stays for a SR yr. He is never going to be a big scorer, but if he can be a great defender, strong rebounder and hit FT's - there are needs for players like that.
Wright - once again shows a few flashes, I think he is going to be a good player in time. He is a sneaky good passer. He had 2 scores off of good passes from teammates for easy shots in close.
Haywood - Way too passive. Jumpshot looks pretty, but he has to hit it. Looks like he is in quicksand right now and thinking too much. He will be largely on the bench once Tad and Josh come back. Doesn't make major mistakes, but doesn't make plays either. Nice long term potential but a little disappointed he is not more ready to contribute now.
Cole - needs time. Doubt he plays much this year,
Phillips - he is a little bigger than I thought, seeing him for the first time in person. He is taller than Tad and at least at built as tad and Josh if not more so.
in this game the offense was Ben, Brandon and Jose. No one else looked comfortable taking on an offensive role. Actually Wright did a little, but he is not ready for that role yet.
The reason for the weird big lineup was foul trouble. We got about 8 fouls in a 4 min stretch in the first half. At one point in the first half every guard had either 2 or 3 fouls.
Defense was good inside the paint but inconsistent outside of it. B-C basically had 2 guys - Tabb and Maitland that could hurt you, yet Tabb was able to get shots all game long (and hit 8-17 from three).
Rebounding was not near where it needs to be, way too many offensive rebounds by B-C. Guys have to understand you don't need 3 guys blocking a shot - that just leaves backside players open for easy shots.
Once again our fastbreaks were atrocious. We had multiple occasions where we had a fast break opportunity and screwed it up and it led to an open 3 on the other end. Ballhandling in general was really poor today.
Frankly, the team played better against UCLA than they did today. Very sloppy today. Focus and execution was better against UCLA.
Glad to get the win. A long ways to go.
The lack of substitution by Pastner in the 2nd half was perplexing. Lammers and Jose played 20, Alston 19. When you have 4 TO and a really tired team (you could see it in the body language) you need to use 1 or 2 to give your guys a break. B-C did a great job of using the press to disrupt the offense and tire the team out.
Finally, major problems with the center hung scoreboard today. It started having issues shortly before halftime. The clock was not working and the score and stats were wrong. It was not used at all for significant stretches of the second half and when it was the only things it was used for was score and clock. No player stats. Sort of summed up the day for me. Almost the whole game felt out of sync.
