Jump to content

HookEm

Legacy Members
  • Posts

    2872
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by HookEm

  1. I can blame Miller for Traore. He recruited him from Xavier, so he knew what he was getting. And that is a one trick rebounding pony.
  2. I like that Mark only played 17 min. Codie and Duru didn’t even get in the game. Love that Miller is confident enough as a coach to play the players most able to get us a win on a given night. When Heide fouled out, I felt certain we would replace him with Mark. Nope, here comes Wilcher. Awesome.
  3. Man, Traore with another 14 rebounds last night in just 13 minutes. The dude cleans the glass so well, but the rest of his game just isn't very good. Dude is averaging 21.4 TRB/40 min, which is insane.
  4. Our "go-to" guy who has a potential NBA future was shooting 2 free throws to ice the game with 20 seconds left. And he bricked them both as an 85% FT shooter. 2% chance of that happening. Fail.
  5. That was one of the least fun games I’ve ever watched. Holy hell.
  6. Pope with the corner 3! My shit talk earlier worked!
  7. Oh my fuck can we go 30 seconds without a foul
  8. We aren’t a good shooting team, but we are a very good rebounding team. Kind of covers the weakness a bit.
  9. It would be cool if we could feed the post
  10. If Pope would work as hard to get open off the ball as he does once he gets the ball, he would have some wide open shots. He isn’t good enough to be constantly trying step back 3s. I don’t care that he hit one. That will just encourage him to jack more.
  11. If Pope can’t hit that corner 3, he is basically worthless.
  12. As I’ve said before, I’m not certain our 1st unit is better than our 2nd unit.
  13. Lol. I made a single short post and then a follow-up. Relax.
  14. All of that is fair, but it also seems like a lot of our fans are more interested in rooting against our former coach than learning about and watching our current team. This team has a shot to make some noise IMO and yet there is almost zero excitement around the new coach and team.
  15. It annoys me that this thread gets more action than our actual 25-26 Texas thread, and that our game threads have 15 posts.
  16. Agree on the lineup tinkering. This team has 10 players that are pretty much interchangeable outside of Swain and Mark (who should be in any starting / closing lineup). Those two can also play multiple positions, so there are a ton of lineups that could work. For me, Pope is the player who has been the most inconsistent and sloppy. Dude is averaging 0.271 FG% and 0.667 FT%. Horrid given this level of competition. And if he isn't shooting well, Pope doesn't add much else as he isn't a good distributor or defender. Wilcher on the other hand has been getting more comfortable, is more efficient and well rounded than Pope. He has much more upside IMO, plus he is just a junior and his development will pay longer term dividends. I would bump Pope down to ~18 minutes and bump Wilcher up to 26 and move him into the starting lineup. Last night was a career high for Cam Heide at 20 points. Good to see what he is capable of with the extra minutes. A starting lineup of Wilcher (6'4), Mark (6'5), Heide (6'7) and Swain (6'7) gives a good amount of size and the ability to play position-less basketball on offense and switching defense on the other end. (plus Vok / Traore at center). Or against some teams you could bring in Duru (6'8) as the 5th player in the lineup. I would love to see what Chris Beard would have done with all these forwards.
  17. I like this team better playing small with Swain and Heide at the forward spots. That gives us so much more scoring and versatility than with Codie at the 4 and Swain at the 3. Codie didn’t play at all today. I think he will be a very key player next year, but this year I would rather see more minutes given to Vok, Traore and Swain. And probably Heide and Duru.
  18. Traore with 11 boards, including 5 ORB In 23 minutes. Pretty good. I guess his minutes restriction is off? Vok got 25 minutes so I guess they played part of the game together?
  19. I think we actually go 10 deep. You could make a case that Cam Heide is our 10th best player, and he was a major contributor on a team that made it to the title game his FR year and then barely lost in the sweet 16 the next. Hopefully Miller can keep them all bought into the team concept because that is a lot of mouths to feed.
  20. Agree. I also think our depth is going to lead to some serious blowouts against the crap opponents we are playing. I'm not actually sure that our 2nd unit is worse than our starters. What would be the point spread in this matchup: Team A: Jordan Pope, Tramon Mark, Dailyn Swain, Nic Codie, Matas Vokietaitis Team B: Simeon Wilcher, Chendall Weaver, Camden Heide, Declan Duru, Lassina Traore If those two teams played 10 times, Team B might win 3-4 of them.
  21. Another point on Duru.... He was going for a loose ball and collided with a FDU player. The other guy went flying like he was hit by a truck. I was like daayummn! Duru is listed as 6'8, 235, which makes him 20 pounds heavier than Traore while being an inch shorter. When you watch him play, he moves so well, you think he is more like 6'5. Apparently he played a lot of soccer growing up and you can see it on defense and when chasing boards. He runs through traffic supremely well for someone his size. This guy is going to be a real test of how well Miller can develop players. He averaged 11.4 PTS, 5.1 TRB for Germany's silver medal U19 Euro team. It isn't like we are starting from scratch here. But the sky is the limit and he has the look of a potential NBA player to me. I think Damion James could be an ok Texas comp. The bad thing for Duru is that we have a ton of depth at the forward position. Swain is probably the best player on the team. Codie is starting and is built like the complete opposite player from Duru. Long and lanky and a little gangly, but has a lot of tools. Plus Heide, who is also a proven contributor on a title caliber team. So I don't really see a path for more than ~18-20 minutes.
  22. Went to the game. It is the best we have looked all year. Good to see Heide get back in the game. He didn’t do a lot (hit a 3), but his defense looked very sound to me. That said, Duru passes the eye test for me at a much higher level. Dude is just built like a brick and seems to have great instincts for the ball. Traore once again crushed it on the glass. Came in and got 2 offensive rebounds in about 3 min. But he also struggled with his shot around the rim. Bro needs to make them if he wants playing time. Wilcher looked more comfortable. And Mark looked a little better primarily playing off the ball. Thought he had a good game.
  23. You are probably right, but I wish we would play them both together for part of the game. Traore averaged 30 mpg for Long Beach, and Vokietaitis is averaging 24 currently. I would like to see them both get 25-26 mpg which would mean there are stretches where they both are playing together. Traore is such an exceptional rebounder that we have to get him on the floor. His career rebounding rate is 14.4 TRB/40, which is up there with the best rebounders in Texas history. We also aren't a great shooting team and his offensive rebounding will offset it and help us get extra possessions. I also think their games are somewhat complementary as Traore is most at home on the blocks, while Vok can get the ball outside the paint take it to the rack. Again, not saying they should play all of their minutes together, but 5-8 minutes per game would be good. I also don't think Codie is bringing a ton to the table yet. I would give some of his minutes to Traore, and I would move Swain to PF for some of the game and get Duru / Heide more minutes.
×
×
  • Create New...