Making the most of his opportunities with Cam and Brandon out. What do you think his role and minutes will look like when they come back (which I assume is very soon in Brandon's case)?
Stats and stuff (Stanford game)...
- Thread starter gary-7
- Start date
I thought both Sterling and Huff looked good on offense. Garrison had a rough game, but he's a freshman and he's going to have some of those.
Massive foul problems across our front line:
3 - Luke (in 31 min; not worried about him)
4 - Garrison (12 min)
4 - Sterling (12 min)
4 - Huff (9 min)
I recall thinking at one point that Huff had played probably 7 minutes or so with only 1 foul - and feeling good about that. Two minutes later he was on the bench with 4 fouls.
Looking at their per-40-minutes stats, I was surprised to see that Sterling is not really a foul magnet so far this season. Even with 4 this game, he's only projecting 3.7 per 40 minutes.
Unfortunately both Garrison and Huff have scary numbers:
12.7 - Huff
9.8 - Garrison
By this time next week, we will have played
22 Oklahoma or 38 Arkansas
- and -
12 MSU, 33 Oregon or 65 UConn
(Pomeroy's current rankings; ours just moved up to 10.)
Should we face them, Oklahoma and MSU look like they will be difficult for our front line.
So . . . the good news is our font line survived a good test. But more hard tests to come.
Should we face Arkansas and/or Oregon, those teams are shorter. But both of them will have revenge on their minds. Always a good motivator.
No easy games in this tournament after Portland.
I went back and watched today..at least 3 or 4 of those fouls were terrible calls! The one on maye at the end was ridiculous..hopefully they don't call it like that all year! If so it's damn near impossible to get any kind of post position
Yes, there were some very sketchy calls, especially the one on Luke, but the freshmen put themselves in bad positions more than once with bad footwork. A veteran Big like Stanford's can make hay out of that... and has the experience to get away with some stuff.
Cam shouldn't affect Andrew too much other than not having to play the 3 (which he did a couple of times last night). Big question will be with BRob. Someone will end up odd-man out as far as minutes.
This week will be telling.
As I posted this summer, what we need to cobble together from these big kids is modern version of "Yon-wolf-sin" from '77. I think we can get a decent pts/rebound line from them --- my biggest concern is holding their own on defense against experienced/talented front lines.
Also Coach, I'll respond here in general to some of the other posts. I see some pessimism here, as well as optimism. I'm gonna come down on the cautionary side of optimism right now. On one hand I'll agree with @dadika13 about the front line deficit we will face at times --- but on the other hand I would say to make no mistake about what we bring to the table.
We have a "core-four" right now with JB/KW/Theo/Luke, who are all getting 30 or so minutes, and can play with ANYBODY. Moreover we have quite simply the best all-around player in college basketball in #2 running the show, with a double-secret green-light from Roy to put this team on his back. And with a perimeter phalanx of JB, KW and Theo we can present a defensive nightmare to opponents. We just need the reinforcements closer to the rim to hold up to their job.
Hopefully by March --- with a healthy Cam to bolster the fire-power off the bench --- we'll be a trademark Roy Williams finished product. If so, watch out.
Man, all I can think about this season is Tony Bradley.
That core-four could easily be a core-five. I love what our freshman bigs are giving us this season, but it would be really cool if they showed us this backing up Tony. Sucks.
I worry about guys like Huff. They get a reputation of being foul prone and it just seems like it gives the refs permission to call every little contact against them.
In fairness to Garrison, two of his fouls were not necessary as pointed out above. Kinda like the mystery touched ball by Sterling. Not even close, Ray Charles could have called that one.
Coach takes a lot of flak for using so many guys early in the year, but there's a method to his madness. Remember a couple years back when Joel James came in and gave us some HUGE minutes in the Duke game? These Bigs will continue to learn on the fly and will continue to get better. Even if they aren't blocking shots in there, if they can just change shots/make people think twice about coming in the paint, it helps our defensive schemes. We can really extend our pressure and be more aggressive in the passing lanes. Don't forget about Jalek as well. He will continue to get better and better and will be a big part of our success.
