RK ain’t found his groove yet. Sometimes he looks like his head isn’t in the game. I’m hoping he continues to get some minutes, he’s gotta come out of it as we need him down the stretch. Let’s go RK!
He had a few straight games where he looked like he understood his role and fit within the team. Even though the numbers weren't jaw-dropping, he was helping the team win. Then yesterday, he just backslid quite a bit. He seems overly affected by any mistakes and it snowballs on him. Gotta understand, basketball is a fast, complex game. All players make mistakes. If you make one, put it aside and move on to the next play. With RK's athleticism, he is one of those guys that can just go out and make something good happen, and can really help this team IF he plays within the team concept and doesn't allow one bad play to become two, then three, then... He'll get his chances again at UK. He deserves them, and has the natural ability to compete with UK's talented guards.
You will not see me badmouthing our players, ever. For Riley, I would just say he might want to put scoring aside for awhile and focus on being a lock down defender. No one needs to say for the fiftieth time to "let the game come to him."
He made a couple really bad turnovers/decisions in a row and coach basically benched him the rest of the game. Otherwise he probably would have had a more normal minutes allotment in the mid 20’s. I don’t think there’s any mystery. He was having an off day. That shouldn’t be a big deal but sometimes with egos these are delicate situations. Hopefully he has a bounce back. This team really does need him to be more solid and consistent all around. I agree with the sentiment he seems to get down too quickly.
The inconsistency of youth. He will grow into a great ball player if he gives himself time, but he will have people in his ear telling him to transfer or just jump straight to the NBA (or Europe). He has made progress since he has been here, but being 20 years old is hard, especially when you are living life in the spotlight.
When he gets the ball on offense, he doesn't make quick decisions. He'll usually hold the ball for a few seconds, which gives the defense time to recover and guard all our other players. Then he makes really bad decisions/low percentage plays (driving into the lane with their bigs waiting for him, driving baseline cutting himself off, etc). Yesterday, he did the same thing (held the ball too long looking to feed the post) and tried to pass it back to the top, the defensive player cut off the pass & dunked it on the other end. You may say he needed time for our big to get position...but he let his guard down and made a really bad pass. Golden Todd needs to coach him to play faster, anticipate what's going on the court and make quicker/smarter decisions...and stay away from low percentage plays (see above). His defense is usually good...just needs to play at 100% effort and make better decisions on offense. He's an awesome player...just needs to get some coaching and put it all together.
Extremely low basketball IQ. His only offensive weapon right now is driving to the basket, and his slow decision making, bad decisions, stunningly poor finishing ability and poor free throw percentage make him a big offensive liability. Our offense just does not flow the same way when he is in the game.
Hopefully it comes together for him. If he can start playing like last year, that’ll take the team to another level.
The Gators had 19 turnovers at home! Just rewatched the game via YouTube on Planet Gator and there is no way is hades Kugel only had two turnovers as I counted 5 all unforced. Also driving into a double team and bouncing the ball off your leg (with 2 teammates trailing and wide open) out of bounds should also count as a TO imo. I have no patience for unforced turnovers even at the middle school level much less a SEC home game. Golden has a lot more patience than I do because after yesterday, I’m done with Kugel. Speaking of CTG, think he’s done a great job considering our preseason most talented player has become a bust (doesn’t start and almost single-handedly cost us a home game) and we continue to get better and win games. The growth and improvement of Micah, Condo and Richard (Zion MVP too) is one of the reasons to be optimistic for the future. He’s doing a good job imo.
No way he had only 2 turnovers. No way. His one basket was a wide open dunk. Just an awful performance
