Will be the reason we don’t reach our potential. We just dont have any depth that can play on a high level.
Bench and Freshman
- Thread starter General_Tso
- Start date
Enormous issue. Worry about burnout late in season. Just don’t think bench production is gonna be there all year. Hind sight is 20/20 but wish we got a 5th year transfer to log minutes and be productive.
I actually thought Myles Cale played well tonight. Walker is still playing a bit overwhelmed. he always seems to be a step too fast.
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anon_ezos2e9wn1ob0
Guest
Freshman are very underwhelming. The typical pre-season prognostication way off as usual.
They need to play more. Unfortunately we don’t put teams away early to allow that to happen. I thought Sandro looked better in the second half, but definitely still a ton of work needed.
Unfair assessment. Cale has played well. Walker was injured for 4+ weeks and is behind because of it. Sandro is a freshman big which always take longer to develop.
The bench gave nothing, but the starters weren't very good tonight, which is the reason for the loss...
Absolutely unfair. Walker had gotten a grand total of 10 minutes played since back from his injury. I've played and coached sports most of my life and you don't get better in practice. Nothing takes the place of game experience. Until they are forced into action and given significant minutes you can't make an assessment that they are below average players.
The starters play too many "hard" minutes. It's a combination of consistently falling behind and the lack of production from the bench. It takes a ton of energy to comeback from these double digit deficits and there's no room to sneak in minutes from the subs.
Cale has been showing steady improvement but this is not the case with the other 2 freshman. The good news is there's still plenty of time left in the season. I'd also like to see Sandro get some minutes with Angel on the floor. Could help his confidence.
Gordon's plus minus is not good but he seems to be in control and does not hurt us when he is in there. His D is not bad for short spurts.
Cale seems to be getting his feet under him a little bit more the last two games. I'm hoping the light bulb does on for him and we get some more good minutes from him. He is really good defensively and is starting to show just a little on offense. He really lost a lot of off season time with his shoulder injury and it kept him away from the gym and practicing unfortunately. He needs a summer of lifting with the other Myles and working on his shot and handle. But you can see how fast and athletic he is. Long-term he is a tweener that we can play at the 2 or 3 but I think he will be good. Reminds me a little of Brian Lang or a longer Brian Caver.
We do not have a scorer off the bench which hurts. Ish definitely energizes us but he needs to start IMO.
Cale seems to be getting his feet under him a little bit more the last two games. I'm hoping the light bulb does on for him and we get some more good minutes from him. He is really good defensively and is starting to show just a little on offense. He really lost a lot of off season time with his shoulder injury and it kept him away from the gym and practicing unfortunately. He needs a summer of lifting with the other Myles and working on his shot and handle. But you can see how fast and athletic he is. Long-term he is a tweener that we can play at the 2 or 3 but I think he will be good. Reminds me a little of Brian Lang or a longer Brian Caver.
We do not have a scorer off the bench which hurts. Ish definitely energizes us but he needs to start IMO.
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anon_4htvdezyfe7k9
Guest
Really? Maybe if you're Allen Iverson and you're more talented than everyone else on the court. I haven't played organized sports since high school but I'm going to take an educated guess and say that practice is pretty important for freshman college basketball players.
Speaking of which, anyone catch the comment last night by one of the commentator's about how a couple of our freshman act like school kid's goofing off in class during practice? Hmmm
We are in a bit of damned if you do and damed if you don’t. I hate seeing the subs on the floor because we don’t seem to get any production. They may always not hurt us, but it doesn’t help either, and sometimes they just let it get away from them, like last night. If the starters are battling from behind they are using up extra energy. Playing 38 minutes a game with a 10 pt down comeback in mind is very hard on the legs and the overall energy level. So if we don’t sit them a little more (and I am talking about reducing 3-4 minutes a game per the top 3) the bench has done little to nothing in those extra combined 12-14 minutes that we would pull Desi, Deeno and Angel off the floor. Also Deeno was taken out of the game last night which is what happened at Rutgers. That can’t happen again.
We are essentially playing 6 guys, 7 if you include Cale.Maybe we have to slow the pace of the game down. We have to take our time scoring. Maybe we need to try to play in the low 60s and not be so concerned about who is putting up 20-25 points until we can get Mamu, Gordon, and Walker more time. The one thing I have noticed is teams are pushing tempo against us. I think Creighton was starting to run their offense with 27, 28 seconds left on the shot clock. Butler and Marquette both pushed the ball up the court quickly against us after we made field goals. Eventually we want to play with tempo with our big 3, but until the other guys get quality minutes that might not be our best strategy.
