The Official “Regular Posters of the Basketball Forum” Thread

#13,601
#13,601
cardvolfan said:
Yeah, Awaka is my dream player. One last thing on Aidoo is that he has nice, soft hands and from a turnover standpoint he’s going to be much better than Uros and ON. His vision is really good, too, and he’s a good passer and makes good decisions.
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I think for me that's been the best surprise from Aidoo. I am also pretty impressed by his court vision and ability to make great passes, something Grant was superb at that didn't get enough attention when discussing his games. Uros and ON both are terrible in this area, they know the double is coming but never seem to know where to go with it or they react to the double rather an anticipate them. Aidoo had a great one where he caught it high and then found ON under the basket when the double came. All in a matter of moments and it was an easy 2 because of his catching of the pass and anticipation of the double and delivery of the dump off.
 
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#13,602
#13,602
MoCo_Vol said:
Yeah Pons was an elite defender for us...but it's not quite the same as having a nearly 7' guy that's actively in the paint position for rebounds or waiting to erase interior shots at the rim.

Kyle is probably the last true one we had...his career 1.4 was a bit low though. I think Aidoo's upside is just higher and if he can be a 24-26 mpg player then he'll have more opportunities to get blocks and rebounds.

Per 40s are useful for this sort of assumption
Kyle's per 40s for his career 10.3 ppg, 11.1 rpg and 3.1 bpg
Aidoo's per 40 for this season is sitting at 9.2 ppg, 11.2 rpg and 3.1 bpg (but he's a lot more active in assists/steals than Kyle was)

The really encouraging thing though is looking at Awaka's per 40s, 10.9 ppg, 20.0 rpg, 3.6 bpg :oops:

This is just an exciting roster to see develop for this season and hopefully into the future with the crazy incoming talent.
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Pons was great shot blocker, but had to come from weak side often. As you point out, it's different when you have a rim protecter already in the paint. Our perimeter defense is also better than any Barnes has had-- he always been superb at teaching help defense, but when the first guy gets beat, that help creates swing pass open shots. This year our guards/wings are not getting beat and it is completely destroying other teams' offensive flow.
 
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#13,606
#13,606
VolsSportsFan said:
Not to pile on Harper and the LV, but can you imagine this forum if the men started ranked #5 and had 5 losses before mid December?
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I was giving her some time...but at this point I feel like it's pretty clear.

Cause the only reason why more talent (from the portal and recruiting) isn't performing better than they are is just being a poorly coached team. Holly was a career 72% winner here and Kellie is already performing below that mark, don't think it's going to improve. She is who she is and I think if DW had been AD at the time of that hiring she may not have gotten the job.
 
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#13,607
#13,607
MoCo_Vol said:
I was giving her some time...but at this point I feel like it's pretty clear.

Cause the only reason why more talent (from the portal and recruiting) isn't performing better than they are is just being a poorly coached team. Holly was a career 72% winner here and Kellie is already performing below that mark, don't think it's going to improve. She is who she is and I think if DW had been AD at the time of that hiring she may not have gotten the job.
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It was a weird hire when it was made, but because she is a former LV a lot of people were being nice about the hire at the time. Seems pretty clear by now those initial instincts were the right reaction, and just hiring someone who played under Pat isn’t going to bring the team back to the prominence they hope for.
 
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#13,608
#13,608
Jeff Walsh having a “down” year at Lousiville could open the door for him to come here. I want Harper to be good, but I just don't know.
 
#13,609
#13,609
Super small sample size ofc but -

TRB% : Awaka - 28.2. Tshiebwe - 26.9. Zach Edey - 23.2. Joel Soriano (current leader in rebounds) - 24.2. The highest recorded TRB% since 09 (min of 20mpg) is 27.78 by Fardas Aimaq.

TRB (per 100 poss) : Awaka - 29.2. Tshiebwe - 28.2. Zach Edey - 24.9. Joel Soriano - 24.5.

TRB (per 40 min) : Awaka - 20. Tshiebwe - 20. Zach Edey - 16.8. Joel Soriano - 18.1.
 
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#13,610
#13,610
Tennessee #5 in the athletic power rankings

Men's college basketball power rankings: Illinois, UConn and high ceilings

5. Tennessee (8-1)
There’s nothing like a random early-season loss to throw the hounds off your scent. Losing to Colorado in Nashville Nov. 13 was a shock, yes, but it’s one of those things that can happen the first week into your season, particularly if you’re an experienced team with high expectations both internal and external. You come in thinking things are going to be easy, that this will be another simple step in your nonconference dominance, and then, bam: Colorado gets you out of your preferred pace and into an uptempo game, shots don’t fall (UT went 6-of-26 from 2 and 10-of-37 from 3 that day), the second half starts to tilt away from you, and the next thing you know everyone is asking if you were overrated from the beginning.
It does not appear that Tennessee was overrated. Not only have the Volunteers soundly beaten Kansas since, but they have spent most of their time boat-racing everybody else they’ve played. Are some of these teams pretty bad? Yes. But casually putting up a 94-40 night, even against the likes of Alcorn State — or Wednesday’s 84-49 annihilation of Eastern Kentucky — still suggests a level of ability that plenty of other teams can’t match.
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1. Purdue
2. UConn
3. Houston
4. Virginia
5. Tennessee
6. Illinois
7. Texas
8. Arkansas
9. Kansas
10. Indiana
11. Alabama
12. Miss St
 
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#13,611
#13,611
To be where the basketball team is with JJJ and Santi each missing games is big.

We will need to get healthy and stay healthy to keep ourselves in the conversation though. Unless we see some more growth from BJ, Mashack, or Key at handling the ball to help ZZ run point teams have shown how they plan to pressure him full court and try and force mistakes that way.

With KC you couldn't do that because both of them on the court meant getting by bigger defenders and avoiding the trap and then having numbers for a quick layup on the other end. ZZ doesn't have a running mate at this point, and with Santi out it showed up even more.
 
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#13,613
#13,613
omghulkhands said:
We aren’t super healthy right now with Santi likely out and JJJ still rounding into form heading into the Maryland game.

Would be a significant victory
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Didn’t Barnes say he expected Santi to play Sunday ? Or did something else come out suggesting he won’t play.
 
#13,615
#13,615
cardvolfan said:
He said he was “hopeful” he would play.
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Ah okay, thank you. I thought I had seen a quote post game where he said he expected him to play or something similar. If it’s really a grade 2 sprain, it would be a quick return by Sunday.
 
#13,617
#13,617
creekerballer said:
Ah okay, thank you. I thought I had seen a quote post game where he said he expected him to play or something similar. If it’s really a grade 2 sprain, it would be a quick return by Sunday.
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He was moving the left arm yesterday, but still seemed to be somewhat guarded with it. I have no way of knowing the extent, but if it is a Grade 2, I would really be somewhat surprised if he plays Sunday. Shoulder joints and knees are just so unpredictable and hard to heal. Here’s hoping for good things this weekend. If he doesn’t play, that’s more time for Mashack to get some really good experience.
 
#13,618
#13,618
I'm not so worried about who is playing and who is not. It just seems that things don't go well when we play in the Northeast.
 
#13,619
#13,619
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#13,623
#13,623
Will be interesting to see how ZZ and Awaka play Sunday since both are NY guys and I'm sure will have friend and family there to support them.
 
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