What a difference Daniel Ruffin makes!

[AE Braves Fan]

Completely different team when he is on the floor.

When he went to the bench tonight we often looked lost on both ends of the floor. Daniel changes this team in a way that I had forgotten.

Welcome back Daniel!!!

[Big Mike]

You could see the energy level of every Brave when DR hit the court rise to the top! I hope he's OK and doing the right thinmg coming back so soon....but man it's nice to see him and SM on the court at the same time again!

[Anthony Parker is my Hero]

That's great that he made it back for this game!

I wonder if Sam and Ruff may both start in the future, although that would probably imply a 4 guard line-up

[real fan]

Ruffin makes us a lot better on offense and defense and I doubt we win tonight without him; I would like to see us move Theron to the 3 with Austin at the 4 and Singh at the 5 and give some of our guards more rest as they are still logging way too many minutes; I thought Crouch appeared to have no legs left in him with about 8 min. to go and I believe that is why he had trouble at the line making freethrows ; now that Austin and Singh are contributing more and Wilson has proven he is a good shooter we could cut the others minutes so they are not playing anymore then 30 or less.

[Stryker]

I like Singh in there as a scoring threat, but he got beat really bad a couple of times defensively, which is why Salley is in there. If only Salley could play consistently on D he would be worth his minutes. Great to have RUFFIN back!

[MacabreMob]

I thought Crouch appeared to have no legs left in him with about 8 min. to go and I believe that is why he had trouble at the line making freethrows...

Snell said Crouch told him off-air that he was bushed.

[lefty]

Snell said Crouch told him off-air that he was bushed.

I never thought JC was the kind of player to play well if he has to play 37-38 minutes every game

[Bravesfan]

Great to see the spark that Ruffin provides. In a way though, it was good that the team got to experience some time without him, as Ruffin will not be around next year. But it is obvious that this team needs a year of addtional experience before they can earn the confidence to play without him. However, the lessons learned while Ruffin was on the injury list will make this team much better more quickly next year.

Hopefully though, Ruffin will lead this team to a Valley tournament run, and the team will continue to progress when his on the bench.

[numbr_9]

I never thought JC was the kind of player to play well if he has to play 37-38 minutes every game

I agree. Hopefully with DR back, JC can get a couple more minutes of rest a half.

After SM's coming of age, I am really looking forward to seeing him and DR together on the court. If we could just rebound consistently and not give up so many layups, we'd be set. Let's avoid Thursday and prime up for a run.

[basketball nut]

I never thought JC was the kind of player to play well if he has to play 37-38 minutes every game

No player is really going to play their best at the end of a game if they are playing that many minutes. On the post game show they were talking about how ISU ran the triangle and 2 offense and JC basically had 2 guys that were responible for him all night which makes it even harder as he has to move so much more then when just one person is guarding him. The person guarding him only has an area to defend but JC has to run the comlete floor because someone is always their to defend him in this kind of a defense. The nice thing about this and having JC in that much was that it really freed up others to do so much more, so JC became a great decoy to always have in the game. Anyone would be bushed because everytime he moved whether inside or out he was getting banged on all night. The defense that they played really helped out AW, TW, & DR, but after DR hit a couple of baskets then they started to switch things up on D a little more.