Your thoughts on Reggie Bryant and other thoughts

[BLIKNS]

In my mind I figured Reggie would be very close to Justin Love,in performance,so far I would say he is about what I expected from him.Would you say he is,a)what you thought he would be,b)better than expected,c)less than expected,or d)didn`t know what to expect? Here`s something I saw today while casing my route,Angie Harmon and Jason Sehorn on the cover of Good Housekeeping,should we as Rams fans be concerned about the Goodhousekeeping cover jinx,or is this making something of nothing?

[Quality Is Job 1]

...or maybe he's doing a little more than I expected. I think he's having to score more than I thought he would, because Izik Ohanon isn't scoring as much as I thought he would.

[TheA_Bomb]

A is my vote

TF the past 2 games more than expected. With him picking it up the last few games it could take some pressure off of IO. IO improving the defense hopefully it will only be a matter of time before he puts the offense and defensive games together and plays a complete game. He is playing more min. now he should get into a groove.

[cheeseman]

Reggie has blown that old excuse we hear all the time about how players that sit out a year take awhile for the rust to shake loose. He stepped in from his first game and delivered - he doing what we needed - thank goodness!

[Quickdraw]

I am not aware of any Good Housekeeping jinx. I think you're confused. It's the Woman's Day and Redbook jinxes that are so notorious. If I ever see Aeneas Williams on the cover of Redbook I will really get worried.

[Schasz]

On Reggie, I expected him to be good, but not this good so he has more than met my expectations.

I don't know about any jinx for the Rams, but Jason is one lucky dude because Angie is one fine looking woman.

[slufanskip]

Why don't we go down the list ... who has exceeded, met or disapointed you at this point in the season.

Exceeded=E Met=M Disapointed=D

RB ...E

JF ...E

CS ...M

AD ...D

IO ...D

TF ...M

RV ...M

JJ ...M

DC ...D

PH ...E

I'd say Josh would be the MVP at this point with RB a close second.

IO - we need to find a way to utilize his obvious talents ... he needs to stay more focused and finish stronger. He also needs to rotate the ball quicker up high. He always stops to think about his options when he receives the ball ... rather than just having a feel for it.

AD - I think he has been to inconsistent ... maybe it is due to being injured ... he is the player I most expect to step up as the year progresses.

DC - Maybe my expectations were too high ... I thought he would be playing 10-15 minutes a game with great D and the ability to score a little.

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[3star_recruit]

"DC - Maybe my expectations were too high ... I thought he would be playing 10-15 minutes a game with great D and the ability to score a little."

This is a coach's decision. Brad would rather have 25 min of Drejaj's defense instead of 15 min of Drejaj's defense and 10 min of Clarke's defense.

[slufanskip]

Obviously it is a coach's decision ... I was hoping DC would have forced his way into some playing time by now. The coach's decision is based upon what the player has shown.

My expectations of DC were not to be playing 25 minutes and scoring 10 ppg ... it was to be playing great D for 10-15 mpg and scoring about 3-5 ppg.

I am just responding to expectations of Reggie and expanding it to the entire team. We are about to begin conference play ... it seems like a good time for a report card.

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[3star_recruit]

"was hoping DC would have forced his way into some playing time by now."

So was I. But Brad's defensive expectations are pretty high, significantly higher than they are at Charlotte, for instance.

[billiken_roy]

i dont think anyone should be disappointed in darren clarke. the fact is out three guards are very very good. they can play with any set of guards in the country. georgia tech and arizona proved that. so darren's problem is he is stuck behind three deserving minute hogs.

if darren wants pt, as 3 star indicated, he has to make himself an equal defender of drejaj. otherwise he will wait his turn.

[billiken_roy]

i think only izik hasnt performed up to the level i expected. frericks has exceeded my expectations and i am thrilled about that. otherwise, this is the billikens team i expected.

[jjray]

As to Drejaj always getting the minutes and DC riding the bench, it works fine when Drejaj can provide some offense. However, when Drejaj is playing 25 minutes and goes into a crater on the offensive end, it puts an aweful lot of pressure on Reggie to score and the team goes into a funk on the offensive end when Reggie is out. If we have a large lead, fine, defense is more important.

There was a 4 game stretch where Drejaj was a huge liability on the offensive end:

Opp. Field 3-pt Minutes

AZ 4-13 2-8 24

GT 0-4 0-4 24

Gram 0-1 0-0 15

SMS 2-7 1-5 27

** I believe AD was sick for the Grambling game so we should cut him slack for that one.

[billiken_roy]

the georgia tech game he was playing on what appeared to be a badly sprained ankle as well. he had on a brace that looked more like a splint for a severed leg than for playing basketball.

[Schasz]

Anthony is a warrior on defense and he is obvioulsy keeping DC on the bench. Unless someone gets hurt, I really see limited minutes for DC this year. Coach has a very tight rotation and we have won a couple ball games. As I said before, hard to argue with success.

[brehms13]

I think Reg has done okay so far, I have seen much better from him. I want him to step up a little more in his role as an aggressor. He needs to get to the foul line more, he stresses about his no calls, thinks the refs aren't on his side. I would like for him to play thru it, to get mad, Reg doesn't get mad enough for me, but he's certainly helping the team. I feel the guys aren't getting their feel for shooting early in the game. Guys like Sloan, Drejaj and Ohanon, need to get warmed up early so they won't be afraid to shoot, if you miss go for the rebound and move on. Frericks is always good to me, his intensity will pump up any player on the team. Their defense is tight, that offense needs work. But right now, I think they all can do much better.

[Taj79]

My first run in with brehms13 was on this very subject ... and my take was that I thought it unfair to place all the burden of scoring on a guy fresh off a sit-out year. Rustiness. New setting. All that jazz. As I stated then, I thought RB was under the radarscope and to put that type of pressure on him was completely unfair but the norm since our returning guys were slightly "challenged." I still adhere to that belief.

But RB has exceeded my expectations. He has stepped in and done so quite nicely. All the games I have seen and all the commentators I have heard talk about RB being the only guy on the squad with the hops and go to challenge some of these "big name" guys on teams like Arizona and GaTech. I agree. He has responded very well to the burden. It will be interesting to see how he plays when the guys-that-know-us-best (i.e. Conference foes) come to town or we visit there. I think he will do quite well.

More guys like RB are needed to make this program excel. Again, I like where Coach seems to be taking us. I like the incoming class quite well. If the status remains quo, we will also have to add DC and JJ to next year's class because it appears their time this year will be limited. But learning can occur on the bench and in the gym.

Now, let's see if my earlier fears about the Greek kid can be addressed. Time for him to enter the court and "show me" what he's got.

[thetorch]

Even with AD struggling mightily on offense DC has done nothing to deserve any more minutes. DC has been tentative on offense, making mistakes on passes and drives frequently. We have to go with our best guys and DC has not proven to be one of the best 8 guys on the team.

[3star_recruit]

"DC has been tentative on offense, making mistakes on passes and drives frequently."

It's called lack of experience. He'll be just as tentative next year if he doesn't get any.

[Bluecrewwebmaster]

Reggie has played to my expectations...he has done a good job stepping in and providing a spark in the absence of Marque.

DC - lil disapointed in him...thought he would play a bigger role at this point in the season but give him time, he is just a frosh.

Tom - wasnt very impressed to start with but he has really elevated his game of late and has become an important part of this team.

JJ - i thought we'd see more of JJ...his play, when he actually gets in a game, has been great. I like him in the lineup but it looks like until he proves himself to Coach in practice, he will still be riding the pine.

[westcoastballer45]

What do you think of fishers play this year

[Quickdraw]

Actually, BLIKNS was wrong. The magazine with Angie and Jason on the cover was, in fact, REDBOOK! I was joking, but I guess it was probably more likely than Good Housekeeping. But it still wasn't Aeneas. And, let's face it: if not for Angie, Jason Sehorn would not be on the cover of Redbook.

[Taj79]

.... some fat, overweight coach-wannabee said "Jack of all trades, good at none" in describing my ability to fill a lot of holes on the court, on the diamond and on the gridiron. Maybe he was right ... once I cut all the fill-in positions and decided on one, I was able to walk-on to a collegiate squad for a year and prove to myself that he could have been wrong.

Who cares, right? But that is something close to what I think of JFisher's play, minus the acrimony. I have said that he might be the most valuable player on this team. Against KState it sounds like he was for at least the last offensive play. But he doesn't excite me as a point; he's not a pure two shooting guard remotely close to RB; and he certainly is not athletic enough for the all-encompassing three ala Dwayne Wade. But he has continued to excel and that's good enough for me.

This team could not be where it is (7 - 4) without JFisher's play. Even if this were a great team, JFisher would be a valuable asset. He would be a heady leader with court smarts and defensive stopper responsibilities. In the long run, I'm glad he played at SLU. But as I've said before, does the level of competition make him look better? Broy used to go to practices and comment on how tough the team looked. I argued that the could look real good in the gym against each other but fail miserably against the competition. While I don't think JFisher fails miserably, I think he is asked to do more than he might be capable of in a longevity sense.

But his play this year is great as far as I'm concerned given what we have to work with.

Will JFisher lead us to the promised land? No. Will Tommy Liddell or Kevin Lisch? I don't know. But more of that type seems to be the way to go. Would JFisher have a place on that team? Absolutley!