I agree with you. I feel like two things hold us back, being physical and establishing an inside presence. If Felder is not a legit inside presence w CC then he’s got to play and truly develop JJ. His size and physicality cannot be taught ( have said this 100 times). Him getting 5 points and 5 rebounds a game while eating space in the lane would change things for this team.
My takes: McKissic is good. Has such a soft-looking, effortless 3-point shot. Duruji looks improved. He was always an athletic, active, hustling player, but looks more under control now. His jump shot and his free throws look way better than last year. Castleton struggled shooting but was solid in everything else. He'll be fine. Did a better job with passing out of the double-team (and he got doubled a lot last night). Appleby had some great highlights, looking All-SEC at times. His trouble last year mostly came in dribbling himself into jams. Jitoboh looks a little quicker, and seemed to have a better grasp of team defense. Felder struggled all game. Phlandrous had good and bad moments. I think he'll get more consistent with a few games under him. Myreon Jones is a smooth player on offense, solid on defense. I don't know if he'll be a star but he'll be consistently good for us. Reeves looked like a freshman. Lane was solid again on defense, still a little too chaotic on offense. Gatkek needs work but he might be able to help in some games. If he focuses on rebounding and defense and setting picks, he can earn minutes. Embry Riddle is better than I expected. They're D2, but could compete in a bunch of midmajor D1 conferences, and have a couple of guys that can play at high-D1 level. Crouch and Alesandro certainly.
I mean a short leash with fans. Anyways, I wasn’t intending to go back and forth with this. We’ll see how it all turns out.
Yeah, and I would agree with that. It's totally fair IMO for fans to have high expectations for this program.
Nice breakdown Planet. Embry was scrappy. Nice W for the Gators. Kinda wore them down the second half. Hoping Reeves gets comfortable and into the flow as the season starts / progresses. Overall a nice effort and much to like, so many new faces, App hit a couple of baseline 3 bombs that were fun.
I think FSU has been more athletic/faster than us on the wings for the past few years, I don't think that will be the case this year. Just have to hit shots, can't shoot in the 20%s on 3s.
3 rebounds and a put back in five minutes of playing time, good showing from the man needing a few more pounds. Surprise, surprise, surprise! When we play the big boys, D-1 teams, his quickness will be good but I suppose he will be knocked around a lot. Way to play Gatkek! Everybody give him fast food cards for pizza, hamburgers and chicken, or whatever food he likes, he needs to eat twice, morning, noon and night. LOL.
Only got to see the second half and most of that on my laptop rather than my TV. I had just "upgraded" to Windows 11 that afternoon and the the syncing process has a different look and feel. I suspect that we shot a lot better in the second half, especially from the arc. Good shooting erases a lot of problems. I liked how committed this team is to the extra pass. Saw some very nice interior passing as well. Still need to work on staying "connected" on D. Help rotations were a bit slow, but these guys haven't had that much time playing together. CC is a nice player, but he is no Noah at protecting the rim as a help defender. And we cannot afford for him to get into early foul trouble against quality teams. 21 to 9 turnover ratio is outstanding.
You are overrating height. I'd rather have better basketball players. A shorter better basketball player can make a taller lesser basketball player look silly. I'm not sure who has the better players, but that is what's going to determine the outcome.
they’ve been much more athletic also. Just going off memory but I’d say they’ve dominated us in the paint and rebounding the last 4-5 years and much of that has to do with size and athleticism. That shorter better player will still have problems when encounters 7”2 at or near the rim all day long everyday. Changing or altering the trajectory of shots doesn’t make a player great but sure does add to his defensive value. I am a huge defender on size isn’t everything but you have to have some. What we have in Jitiboh we don’t use. Tired of hearing he can’t do this and that and watching us get dominated by FSU teams in the paint. If he can’t it’s because he didn’t have the chance or wasn’t developed. by the way if there were ever a year when FSU is beatable it’s this year. They lost a ton of talent and I’ll be beyond disappointed If we don’t beat them.
Basketball is not all about height, but height matters. Coach Meyer at DePaul in Chicago recruited George Mikan. He was the first truly tall player in the game and they changed the rules because of him. Before him the free throw lane looked like a key hole and it was called the key. It since been widened at least twice. Dunking rules were changed with Kareem known at the time as Lew.
They were taller and more athletic last year, yet we were beating them pretty soundly until KJ collapsed. Does it help to be taller and more athletic? Yes. It’s not always going to be the difference, though. Basketball skill is more important. Stephen Curry is 6’4” tall and not the most athletic guy, but if you put him on our current team, we will probably go undefeated.
Curry is 1 out of 10,000. Not many Steph Curry’s in the world. Steph ain’t walking in that door anytime soon.
Maybe, I think you missed mine. let’s hopefully agree on this, we’ve got a great shot to beat FSU this year.
Its late Saturday night. The first game thread can't come fast enough. Fall sports has nothing more to follow. I hope winter sports keep my interest until baseball season starts come first of February.
Yeah, football has disintegrated into a hot mess, so I need Gator basketball NOW. And to keep going deep into March. Baseball won't save me, because I usually have something more exciting and urgent to attend to, like expanding my collection of toenail clippings and cataloguing them by date and/or interesting shape.
