I really loved what I saw in the backcourt. I really loved what I saw in the frontcourt. Midcourt needs work.
First half was very worrisome, but there may have been some jangly nerves. Plus let's not forget the USF guys were bound to play with some fierce emotion. Second half the emotion wore off and the better team gradually pulled away.
We were 28-38 from 2 (almost 75%) and held them to 15-36 from 2 (barely 40%). That is tremendous. Drew 27 fouls and got 33 free throws off them. Forced 16 turnovers, 24-8 in points off turnovers. Bigs struggled in ball screen coverage, but that should be expected with two new guys and two sophomores, plus Condon being on the bench so much. Just need to clean up our coverages/rotations.
And he is. Pretty high usage with low turnovers. Got his own shots, got to the line, didn’t make mistakes, got us into early offense, and made good passes that other guys didn’t finish.
Yeah, you expect problems in the first game. It took us quite a while to find our groove but we looked like a different team once we did. Gotta stop giving shooters open 3s though.
Two trips out of three he stood there dribbling back and forth between his legs. Too many touches. Defender just sized that up and pounced. Easy to fix, just surprising DA thought he could get away with it
USF is a pretty good team playing with a lot of emotion. The Gators shot poorly from beyond the arc, but they limited their turnovers, drove the lane well and won the game fairly easily. Room for improvement, sure, but nice way to start the season.
Well the backcourt returned a superstar, a solid veteran, and added another solid veteran. Not to many questions there, other than Pulin was just so damn solid as a ball handler and decision maker it might be hard to replace even with the lineup still being pretty stacked with experience. Front court is similarly stacked with 4 solid players in the rotation, just as we were last year. Are we better, as the pollsters seem to think? Hard to say, but eyeball test is we are at least similar (and that’s a good thing). Hopefully our overall depth is better and we can go 4 or 5 deep in the back-court to match 4 up front. Last year our rotation was too thin by the end imo.
Props to the players and coaches for being ready to handle game one with all the emotions in the arena. Its only one game, but I'm liking what I'm seeing. Clayton - improved overall Richard - improved game and physical body change Condon - improved overall Haugh - improved Martin - a plus contributor Alexis - promising start Chinyelu - TBD Aberdeen - TBD Rioux - much taller than the average Canadian The first 8 could make a solid unit for the season but hopefully a few young guys step up and give the backups some challenges to help push their improvements.
Good start to the season. It was a good night for the Florida directional schools so I'm glad we escaped unscathed.
In the second half, we got into the bonus early, kept driving the lane and made foul shots. Only committed 10 turnovers for the game. We cut down on the number of threes attempted in the second half, but still shot poorly for the game. Our defense of the three was terrible in the first half, and not sure if the second half was any better, but it was clear that USF was getting worn down by the physical ability of Martin, Clayton and Richard.
Yeah, a USF player (the big guy) cramped up a couple of minutes after that. That happens a lot in openers.
