He's hard to figure out. Sooo much talent, so little basketball IQ. That can and should change over the course of the season, but some of his late-game moves yesterday were confounding. Confounding, I say!
Riley has so much god given talent, he knows one on one he will win most times, good defender and quick as lightning. It brings to mind Scottie Lewis. Physically gifted, but since he was so fast and gifted, his shooting from outside needed a ton of work and he was so thin physically that he would drive inside and a bump would send him to the bleachers. He was still filling out as a human. Riley is more advanced in his shooting, but he is in a slump right now. Forcing his drives inside, he can finish but his basketball awareness/focus is not good, too many turnovers, opposing teams are waiting for him and Walter. CTG needs them to slow down when forcing the ball inside. As soon as they feel three or four closing in on them, either shoot a close range two or get rid of the ball before you are surrounded and the resulting turnover. These two guys will be in targeted all year and we have a really good set of guys around them to assist in scoring, Will, Zion and all the bigs. Riley and Walter, Riley in particularly, should watch how Zion is going deliberate going inside, takes his time till there is a crack in the defense, then he finishes. Riley, if he doesn’t have but a few great games all year, he will need another year working on his game and basketball awareness. If not he will end up in the G league or overseas, this after the pros see the limitations I am hoping for getting better on these fore mentioned problems he is having and having a great year with his teammates!
I am sure he worked on driving the ball and shooting, but he doesnt have the patience to let the game come to him and know when to stop before four bigs has him surrounded. He has talented teammates that are open but he gets trapped. He was wide open at least five times last night and let it fly. Never made a three. Tell me what he needs to work on because I know myself and CTG are getting frustrated with all the turnovers and missed shots. Right now his contribution to the team is counter productive. You Have played a lot of basketball, could you ask Tauren to help with his stroke on threes and give CTG a way to get him inside to shoot a short two or finish a drive and when to let teammates get easy scores from his talent. I knew with this amount of talent that the Gators would have trouble early trying to get it right to knock out good teams. Right now the SEC looks like a tough uphill climb. Worried….
Hey we have a good team but can we beat the lower six on the road is a question this team will have to fight through refs bias, crowds and poor shooting nights. Maybe even injuries. I am hopeful, Kentucky every year with a great recruiting class and now we have a great class of freshmen and transfers, will we mould into a great team, one that is 12-6, or 8-10, under perform in SEC play? Only lacing the sneakers up and proving we belong in the top 6-8 teams will we have our fate to show what we did in 23/24. Here’s hoping We are able to come together as a team and work out any kinks that hinder a run to and after we get in the NCAA. Not going to be easy, look at our schedule both home and away.
Lurker, I guess I was frustrated with his latest few games. Probably too hard on him. Hoping for him to turn it around and reach for his dreams, which all of us want.
2023-24 Resume SEC Men's College Basketball Power Index - ESPN For comparison, here's where we ended up last year.
They are not the best team in the SEC. However, they are 9-0 with wins over Temple, NC State, Memphis and UCF. They also are still waiting for the incompetent NCAA to approve the eligibility of Georgetown transfer, Brandon Murray, who is a 6’5” guard and averaged about 14 ppg last season.
Why shouldn’t he have to sit a year? He already used his freebie. Doesn’t ever seem like someone coming here gets a waiver for no reason.
We haven’t had the situation come up at Florida since the transfer portal rules changed. I don’t know whether Brandon Murray deserves a waiver or not. But, what I do know is that Ole Miss is 9 games into the season, and the NCAA has yet to rule on Murray’s situation.
I’ve been frustrated too. His disregard for basic fundamentals when shooting a jump shot, he appears to try to give the shot a style/using bad form but also increasing the odds it won’t go in, a good 70% of the time it seems…drives me almost as crazy as the unforced turnovers.
Well it's the NCAA and ole miss isn't a blue blood. Toss in the fact that their new coach is very good but has a checkered past and this could take awhile.
I think Riley is the swing player for this season. Right now, I think he expects to be leading the team and he's pressing. He needs to let the game come to him and he can still stand out on a more talented team. IMO we're a top 5 SEC team with the potential to be top 3. I love our big rotation and Clayton & Pullin should steer the team well.
I'm biased. But....... 1- Our team is almost all new guys playing together with 2 True Fr as major contributors as bigs. 6 of top 8 players are New to team and each other. Need time to develop chemistry as in 12-15 games, imho. 2- We lost to a good UVA team by 3 without ZP. Do we win with him? Maybe. 3- We lost to a top 10 ranked Baylor by 4 without our starting Center. We went with small in that game. Do we win with Micah? They hit 14 treys in that game, 14 of 25, insane? Maybe we win. 4- If we get experience into Condo and Tommy H will the team get better and better (to quote Zook)? Likely. 5-At 6-3 now, can we get to 10-3 by SEC play? Likely since Michigan has started at 5-5 going 2-5 in last 7. So 10-3 plus 10-8 = 20-11 is the floor in my opinion. I really think this team can jelly up to 22-9 in regular season. When Clayton is off, Richard is on. When Kugel is off, Clayton is on. Samuel is a consistent 11-16 pt/game with 8-10 RBs. Our FT shooting is bad, our Rebounding is near +10. Bad Rebounding is basically incurable. FT shooting is curable. Just an opinion.
