UCLA season opener

YlJacket

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Just a couple of things to add.
One solid perimeter shooter and we win that game. The way they were playing Lammers and looking for cuts our guys had set shots from the 3 point line pretty much any time the ball went inside back out. Looked like Lammers got tired of being double teamed in the second half and started floating the baseline. Not sure if that was a second offensive set or his adjustment.

Beyond the comments about Jose, I was happy with the way Cole and Alston played. Got to make shots and a long way to go especially for Cole but they started to look like they belonged.

Last year we had a team that mostly were experienced and knew how to play college BB. Outside of Okogie they "just" had to learn how to play CJP's system. This year we are really young and these guys have to both learn how to play the college game and learn CJP's system. That is a tall order. Having said that, the debut today was an order of magnitude better than the debut last year. If we can improve any where near the amount we improved last year during the season then we will be a pretty good team. This team has a lot more talent/raw athleticism than last year's team. Needs to improve on D, and get comfortable making plays and making shots.

Going forward playing time is going to be really interesting. As Red said, Okogie and Tadrick will at some point eat up a lot of minutes. The question is at what position. While I expect CJP will give the freshmen as many minutes as he can during the suspensions, once they are back and we are getting ready for the ACC, I expect he will go to a 7/8 man rotation. The question in my mind is whether we stay with 2 bigs with AD, Cole and Wright fighting for time or do we go small and put Okogie at the 4 and the opening is for Hayward, Alston and Moore fighting for minutes. One structure or the other, there are going to be some interesting fights for playing time over the next 5 games or whatever the suspensions are.
 

AE 87

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Central Arkansas took UCLA to overtime on Wednesday, shooting 48% from the field and 51% from 3pt. TIFWIW
 

FightWinDrink

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well we probably figured it out based on how close it was playing them without Tadric and Okogie and using so many true freshman... but it looks like UCLA is probably not too good. lost to Creighton, scraped out a close one to UCA, and struggling against a 2-2 Wisconsin team that's expected to be down relative to the norm this year. although tbf Wisconsin has only lost to ranked opponents so far.
 

YlJacket

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If we can play with UCLA and Wisky without Tadrick and Okogie at this time of year then we are light years ahead of where we were last year.

UCLA beats Wisky by 2. About the same as us. I don't see a problem here.
 

FightWinDrink

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If we can play with UCLA and Wisky without Tadrick and Okogie at this time of year then we are light years ahead of where we were last year.

UCLA beats Wisky by 2. About the same as us. I don't see a problem here.
Oh I agree I think we're definitely ahead. I was just more making a comment about ucla still being ranked when I doubt they are top 25 quality. They don't look like they're a team that's going to be making a run at anything notable this year
 

YlJacket

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Oh I agree I think we're definitely ahead. I was just more making a comment about ucla still being ranked when I doubt they are top 25 quality. They don't look like they're a team that's going to be making a run at anything notable this year

Of that I agree. To paraphrase Groucho any team that only beats us by 3 can't be much at all. :cool:
 
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