I was there - first 6-7 players looked good, other than Q could not hit anything (saving them for BC I hope).
Good energy and put it away early - real early. End of the bench really struggled - but we knew that.
Tusculum had decent size (6' 10" center, as tall as us on wings), but other than one guard they could not match our athleticism - GT speed/quickness advantage was clear in first 5 minutes.
CJP did play Tadric several minutes at the point with first group - not sure how much of that we'll see but it does put more offense on the court.
Ogbonda, Matthews, and McCormick got good number of minutes.
My impressions of them given more minutes and a longer leash than usual
- Matthews - was already a threat on offense, never met a shot he won't take, defensive liability is limiting minutes, needs to get his shot 'higher' or will have trouble when tightly guarded
------ Got beat bad once, reached and committed a foul - Pastner pulled him over and let him have it ... he tends to stay 'too high' and as result lateral quickness (you play defense with your feet not your hands) was a problem more than once
- McCormick - comments about slow release are dead on - but if time can really shoot it. Below average handling the ball and below average quickness ... defensive liability and not that good a rebounder ....will see minutes as backup for Q going forward (since Gueye is out) - will struggle to score against good man defense, could play big role against teams playing zone or be used as threat to keep other team from collapsing too much
- Ogbonda - No dumb fouls, played hard, nowhere near as effective as Lammers running the offense from high post (one nice pass to cutting CMatt for a layup), did hit a foul line jumper - very clear he's still raw with limited offensive moves at this point but plays, bangs and rebounds hard ... I think he'll do fine if all he is asked is to spell Lammers for a couple minutes here or there - but if he has to play over 10 minutes it hurts our chances in ACC play -that is complement to how good Lammers has been, I do think Ogbonda will play hard with energy when he gets in.
Heath played well - looked recovered from the flu or whatever he had. He did tweak an ankle late - looked to be walking ok on it, but with ankles it is often the next day before you know if it's serious or not.
