Exhibition game Wed., Nov. 1 - Bradley vs. St. Ambrose 7 pm

[BUfan14]

Well as tends to happen in the offseason our depth seems to have been slightly overrated. I don’t think we have to worry about finding major minutes for 12 guys. Probably 9-10 guys play out the gate other than a couple minutes here or there.

I think Hick and Leons will have nice years still, and Deen and Hannah are nice players. Davis is a solid role player and Burch and Atlason seem to have great potential. Outside of that seven I’m not impressed.

Brian’s record with the transfer portal has not been great. Our best players have been freshman or JUCO recruits other than Deen, who is not a star. Davis is solid too. This seemingly subpar performance with transfers may hurt the potential of this year.

In the very early returns on this year’s transfers Thomas already has to sit out for team rules, Ellis has been disappointing so far as I think the initial thought was impact starter, and Pettigrew has not impressed. If our three D1 transfers can’t provide much, that will hurt us not only this year, but we may be in trouble after guys like Leons and Hannah are gone.

I kept saying I thought we needed another point guard and a wing scorer during recruiting and we got neither (at least a true challenge the starter kind of point guard). I thought maybe Ellis was the wing scorer, but I’m not seeing that early yet.

Since last January (Burch was committed earlier), we have landed Meta, Ellis, Pettigrew, Thomas, and Atlason. Outside of Atlason, that group leaves a lot to be desired so far. Meta should have dominated smaller guys like that, but I still think he has potential to be a solid player.

Having said all that, it’s early. Those guys are transfers adjusting to a new situation, and in some cases have dealt with serious injuries. This team can still be good and will probably get better as the year goes. Certainly doesn’t seem like a perfectly formed team initially at least. Drake beat this team in the regular season 124-48 last year for context.

I think the disappointment for me is that I thought maybe this was the year we just played well from the start, but this didn’t make it seem like that’ll be the case. We are still 0-0 right now, so let’s see how it goes. There are plenty of reasons to still be optimistic, but also some concerns have formed early as well. We shall see!

[tomahawk chop]

Our transfers looked like they had not played competitive games in a long time. Thought our freshman looked good in spurts, Connor has to shoot the ball much better or we will be in trouble as far as winning many games. I still do not like the 3 big guys on the floor at the same time. The defense was fine until the last 10 minutes of the game. Rebounding on the offensive end was non existent. Thomas not playing because he broke a team rule not good for a new player. Lots of room for improvement yet all the talk about our new transfers supposedly being very good was absent last night against a lower level opponent.I definitely expected a lot more from Ellis and Pettigrew.

[houstonbrave]

A few thoughts-First the PJstar indicated Thomas did not play due to "a violation of team standards". Not a very good start but I understand he will be available at UAB. Brian did not do the post game press conference but Bargen did-it said Brian was ill. I guess he was physically ill while I was "basketball ill" after that display (which I only heard/did not see). I am going to Birmingham and am a bit worried what I will see.

Brian's standard is Compete Defend Rebound. We didn't really live up to that standard. I am fairly confident we will do ok on Compete and Defend (although that may be blind faith as we did not show it last night) but I am really worried about rebound. The loss of Rienk and Ja'shon is glaring. I just see a big rebounding fall off from Rienk and Ja'shon to Meta and Darius and am concerned that can't be corrected (although Darius did have 6 rebounds in 20 min). Hell we were out rebounded by St Ambrose-32/25. Sounded like Malevy played fine but subpar from both Connor and Darius. I expect those two to fix that. Meta should have destroyed that lineup-should have done better. Emarion is starting to concern me-right now seems like he can defend and won't make a lot of mistakes but seems very limited offensively-hopefully that is an artifact of being off so long and it will come. Duke played OK.

Almar and Burch look positive but will need to work on their defense to get a lot of time on the floor. Almar seems much closer to getting significant playing time. Burch seems like great potential but has to clean up turnovers and fouls in addition to defense. He seems to have the tools and he will get there, but it will take a bit of time.

I really like Christian and he will get quite a bit of time and he can shoot.

Now it was just an exhibition and Brian was substituting more than he will in a "real" game, but they still were not as far along as I had hoped.