Mine were yours at first especially the interior defense and rebounding and worried about getting pushes around with our slenderness inside. But Franck made me feel a lot better about that. And Pope may have to experiment with more zone next year cover for some on the ball defensive weaknesses but an aggressive zone with athletism and length is not a bad thing at all. I can see trapping and disruption out of that that we can feed off of.
No way this team will be worse on defense than last year's team. If you blindfolded three of our guys, we would still be better than last year's team.
I was waiting for you to.
Yeah, I'm not worried about interior scoring, or about our 5 spot in any way. But I AM worried about defense and rebounding from the forward spots. Kam can defend the perimeter but isn't a great rebounder. McBride is a decent rebounder, defense a question mark. Momcilovic isn't known for defense or rebounding. N'Diaye could be the best rebounder/interior defender (depends on how he adjusts to the college game) but his offensive game is to sit on the perimeter and shoot a mediocre percentage on high volume from three. Hawthorne is the wild card. Noah is actually a pretty solid rebounder. You're right, we'll need our guards to crash the boards. We WILL be tall and long across the board, so maybe we can use that to our advantage. But defense and rebounding are largely about instinct and drive, you have it or you don't.
Does anybody know if we have regular season games next year in Nashville or MSG?
Living in the past. That was back when you could hand check.
Some teams still do it like Texas A & M and Iowa State. A lot more enjoyable to watch imo.
Man, I hope not. Last year, between poor ball security and bad decision making, we were turnover terrible. That was one of the hardest things for me to watch about last year's team. Just an absolute failure to value the possession.
Absolutely. Something bad happened to the team chemistry early in the season and they never got over it. Hopefully Pope learned something from that.
Oweh was a dog but he was kind of a quiet dog. I want to see some Ramel Bradley level fire on the damn floor.
Yup and game preparation. If he could ever get us to play an entire game I’d love it.
What's the last FF team that you can remember that primarily played full court pressure defense?
This is my concern too. The makeup is very similar to the 24-25 team, especially if Mom plays the 3. It's deeper than that team though.
That’s another reason why people are down on Pope. It seems like for whatever reason whenever a team comes out ready to really compete for 40 minutes we have to many instances of just quitting. I’d love to know why that is and how he can fix that.
Most teams don’t even know how to press these days. Not properly. They rarely force guys into the sidelines but when I watch teams who do guys turn it over like crazy. It’s risky all game because so many big forwards can handle the ball now, but I still believe it has a place in the game.
I really think we are better than 24-25 and that bunch could have been E8. Pope has yo get to the S16 minimum IMO to keep his gig
I think my fear is that I just don't know to expect from these new guards.
