Obviously looked good tonight, but let's be clear in stating Norfolk State is awful, or at least was tonight. How the hell did they lose by just 1 at Virginia? Anyway...Got a good look at everyone tonight.
- Hard to tell with the aforementioned awfulness of NFS...But I am thinking our defense is solid, and improving. Good hustle, lock down D, and everyone looks like they're in good shape. Tommy in particular played great D tonight. NFS struggled to get open looks all night, particularly on the perimeter.
- I think the frosh trio of Nick, TJ, and Rico are going to be good players. Oddly, I was expecting the most immediate impact from Rico and least from TJ...But it has been the opposite. Rico has great raw talent and has a lot more developing to do, and we need to try to get him minutes when we can to help bring him along. I think we have under-rated Nick & TJ to this point. The shots didnt fall much early for TJ (and he jacked up too many early ones), but he had good shot selection tonight and not coincidentally they started to fall. I really think this 2 will have great careers, and Rico has just as much of a chance but has a longer way to go. Im officially excited about these guys. Nick is already a solid player and should get 20 mins every game...Smart Shooter.
- I think you can see Ethan is still nursing the leg injury when he is sprinting. He looks timid, which isn't surprising. Between his rawness and injury problem, I dont understand why we didnt redshirt...but I can see after losing Alex and being short on big men, Groce could be concerned about depth. I dont hate the idea of redshirting him next year and letting him develop more. He could end up with a KVK similiar career path, which wouldn't be bad at all.
- I am a Tommy homer, but he is still the least frustrating player you could ask for. Hard working, smart, and a damn good shooter. Our bigs need to look for him more for the kick back out 3 ball. He's just too damn good of a shooter to not deliberately use him more as a scorer.
- Ivo & Reggie continue to be on the fence, flashes of brilliance and flashes of inexperience. I'm waiting and hoping for 1 or both of these guys to just have it click and start playing like a beast.
- DJ distributed really well and fired up much less shots...I loved seeing it. I still maintain we don't want an offense that has him shooting twice as much as anyone else.
- Devo looked good tonight and will be just fine.
- Kid wanted a pretzel tonight...Went and got it and had to take it back it was so bad. 2nd one improved to a more mediocre performance. Clearly we have not addressed the LOVE's concerns on the pretzels. But another solid night from the HVAC team.
It has been a disappointing season thus far in my book...But I think we have a LOT more potential on this team than they have lived up to at this point. I also think plainly put, we just haven't gotten the rolls early on and the shooting percentage will rise. This team could start clicking and go on an absolute tear. As a biased fan, I expect it to happen...Soon.