Austin?

[bu fan 9]

Why didn't he get any playing time?Is he that far behind and out of shape?Or is he just not that good?

[shaunguth]

I'm guessing he's that far behind. He played 16 minutes against St. Ambrose and only had 2 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 fouls to show for it. That was followed by just 3 minutes against Quincy with 0 points and 1 rebound. Hopefully he will be able to see some time against Iowa State and much more time against MD-ES and Florida GC.

[BradleyBrave]

Austin won't see time anytime soon. Singh and Collins both looked great last night, and we've seen good things from Egolf, and even Salley early on.

[SaintLouBrave22]

You boozing it BB?


Salley has been awful!


Far from this whole playing him up like he's one of our best guys...


Singh, Collins, Wilson...they all looked much better than Salley did

[SaintLouBrave22]

My previous post being said, I'd like to see what Austin can do....

Give him about 8-10 min a game against Iowa State and then play him a little more against the next two teams...

I think the guy could be a horse if you just ride him out

[Double D]

What have you seen that gives you any reason to believe the guy could be a "horse?"

He looked slow and "behind" in his only preseason action.

If the coaches see a player who looks lost in practice, odd's are that is what you are going to get in the game.

Now, I think as with most juco's after some time he will begin to get a feel for what type of awareness and effort you have to have and he will help our team. He does look to have the physical tools.

The good news is that we have enough bodies that JL is not forced to play someone who doesn't deserve to play yet.

[BradleyBrave]

My previous post being said, I'd like to see what Austin can do....

Give him about 8-10 min a game against Iowa State and then play him a little more against the next two teams...

I think the guy could be a horse if you just ride him out

Austin will play when he's ready and when he's earned it. Clearly, he isn't ready and hasn't earned minutes yet. Our post play was the least of our concerns on Saturday. In fact, we won't lose too many games when we get that kind of production from Salley, Singh, and Collins (19 pts, 18 rebs, 2 blks). If there's any positive to take from Saturday, it's that those guys continue to get better every game.

[tornado]

The loss Saturday was a mix of BU playing badly in certain areas, and UIC playing amazingly well in some areas, too.
If your shooting is 54% overall, sometimes against good defense, and 69% from 3-pt range, and if your major ball handler only has 2 turnovers and hits 9-9 from the FT line, then let's give the Flames a little credit...they could well have beaten a lot of good teams this past Saturday with that kind of performance.

UIC beat Butler on its home court last year with a similar type of good shooting performance.

Ruff passed well (14 assists) and JC showed he has his stroke back (5-7 from 3-pt), add to that, as BradleyBrave says, we had a decent inside game and none of our big guys got into early foul trouble.

So I think there is a lot to build upon and if we take a little better care of the ball, and if we don't get whistled for nonexistent carries and fouls, and if we don't encounter an opponent that throws up shots from the sidelines falling out of bounds-that go in anyway...I think we can bounce back in fine fashion!!

[real fan]

He played the last 3 min. of the Quincy game and appeared to be out of gas after 2 min.; he looks as if he could help us out inside if he was in shape but who knows when that will happen.

[shaunguth]

Austin won't see time anytime soon.

Really? Not even in what should be easy home wins against MD-ES and Florida GC? I'd be very surprised and very disappointed if he didn't see time in those games!

[BradleyBrave]

Really? Not even in what should be easy home wins against MD-ES and Florida GC? I'd be very surprised and very disappointed if he didn't see time in those games!

Well, he didn't see much against Quincy, so I don't see why that would change against those teams until he gets up to speed.

[real fan]

With as many games that we have coming up I do not see how he will be able to get into shape unless the coaching staff keeps him over and has him running after practice; I would have to think he will get some min. in the Sunday and Tues. games but if that does not happen then he is farther behind and may never catch up this season.

[Big Mike]

The best way to get into shape is to get into a game and get some minutes.......this will bring you up to speed!

[BradleyBrave]

The best way to get into shape is to get into a game and get some minutes.......this will bring you up to speed!

Agreed...but at whose expense?

[Big Mike]

Getting a taste of a real game in front a the huge crowd might come at the exspense of iowa state imo! No kid gets any better riding the bench....give him a taste....he might surprise everyone....he can't do any worse stat wise than our starting center MS....zero pts and fouling out?