Zink

The Trilly video noted that he wasn’t very good shooting off the dribble though, which limits him a bit in that regard. Definitely seems like a good passer, which is awesome, but I think it’s more TBD if he can be the guy with the ball in his hands in crunch time or with the shot clock winding down.

Feel like a “creator” is our biggest need at this stage, no? Who on the current roster is going to bring the ball up and initiate the offense or create scoring opportunities on isolation plays? Still have a glaring Swope-shaped hole in the roster from my perspective.

Sat near midcourt, dear god Valentine is a whiner. He was chirping with the Swope contingent as the clock ran down. Hate to see another Brian Gregory/Danny Hurley join the league.

Avila with 28 on 9 FGA. Absolutely ridiculous efficiency.

Yeah, tbh there were a lot of parents too so I may have fibbed, but they definitely had more 7 year olds than 70 year olds

Reporting in from Richmond - Robins Center parking traffic flow is horrible. Also the crowd got loud for Gibby’s free throws which netted us free BWW’s on the ride back to DC, but was otherwise entirely benign. Median fan age is tough to discern due to the bimodal distribution but I’ll settle on 7yo. Never underestimate the power of 2nd graders screaming, glad we pulled off a road W.

Interesting… I feel like our short rotation won’t help us in a compressed tourney schedule, but I do think the fact that we are playing way better all of a sudden shows that our ceiling is very high even if our non conference was a disaster.

Said it before, will say it again: when we’ve switched to our grind it out, kill the clock offense, we struggle. Leads evaporate. Gotta just keep rolling, the Swope PNR is not working.

Unfortunately the lesson of our first 4 games is that we have 5 players, and that they pretty much all need to be clicking for us to have a shot at winning. Kobe/Hughes/literally any of the other bigs need to step up here in the remainder of the non-con. Save Robbie for conference and have a trial by fire for the others so that we can get a decent seed in the tourney. That’s our shot.

I do think that the staff is learning a lot about the players and team. Dotzler looks way more comfortable as a ball handler than either Hughes or McCottry. TBD on Kobe coming back from injury. But that’s an important revelation. Him and Swope can pretty easily beat a press. The other is that we can’t slow down. Swope is dominant in the context of the offense, but is more limited in isolation. We can’t play a pure time wasting offense. Have to either keep it flowing or run set plays that take us deep into the shot clock. The Kwamain/Jett years of having a guard who could reliably dominate in a simple pick and roll late in the clock to kill a game were great, but that’s not really what we’ve seen from Swope so far. We need to run the offense and take the shot, it will be more effective and efficient than wasting an additional ten seconds dribbling before scrambling for a desperation look.

Feel like the lesson from today is that we can’t play in first gear. Gotta keep it full throttle.

Bizarro 48/50/43 slash line so far.

Also why did we not foul after any of those offensive rebounds? We don’t seem to be playing very smart down the stretch.

Why on earth is Swope on the court to give that foul?

Weak on the ball, weak on the glass. Hopefully Kobe brings some of that. We’re seeing the truth behind the “6 guys deep” quotes coming out of preseason.

If Hughes can’t hit open threes he needs to hit the bench.

This is dumb.

Tool.

Posh is a really good player and fits the description we heard to a T. Averages over 4apg & 2spg, he’d be a perfect defensive PG.

Fletcher has actually been solid in limited minutes on very talented teams, while the other two have been unimpressive throughout their college careers. He’d bring elite athleticism, great rebounding, and above average defensive chops. Plus it’s always nice to have more locals, all else being equal.

He’s going to have a lot of joy setting screens for Avila. Bigs aren’t really used to guarding the ball-handler, and Avila really just needs a bit of space to get the shot off or hit the open guy. And you have to account for Casey diving to the rim with another helper… queue some defensive musical chairs and wide open looks!

Looks like a high flying, long rim runner. If everyone else on the floor can shoot, those guys can be lethal.

Yeah, I'd just tend to value on-court performance more than fan hype... Josiah hasn't done anything as a college hoops player. he could become a stud. He could wash out. Just way harder to count on versus someone like Thames who has shown us that he can be an above-average player even on a pretty bad team.

This guy looks like he'll be a stud... would be wild to land him. Too perfect tbh.

I'd put Thames over Dotzler tbh - I think Thames could make a leap this year. He is an athletic freak who figured out his shot. Plus, he was a 1 in HS and has solid court vision, so I think he'll fit the pass and move offense incredibly well and really break out. His trouble has been that he doesn't really have the ball-handling to go with his vision, but I think that the more ball movement pass & cut oriented way that Schertz's team runs (versus dribble-drive) will be to his benefit.