First off the loss sucked, and we really gave up a great opportunity for an eye opening early season win. With that said I find myself very excited and optimistic tonight. Aside from the first 15 minutes (which is no excuse and shouldn't be taken lightly) I saw some great things. I came in expecting our defense and rebounding to be good and hoping that our offense would be. I left expecting our offense to be good and hoping our defense and rebounding will be. Fortunately I think both of those will come around. There is no excuse for opening night jitters seeing as though this is an experienced team with a European tour, but I think our guys definitely had a bad case of them tonight. The first 15 were tough to watch. They were way to excited on defense and there feet and hands were all over the place. They need to realize that playing really overly physical defense isnt exactly a great thing. You have to be in control.
The second half though I saw Hardy and Brownlee out there again. Harrison and Sampson both played phenomenally on offense. Harrison to me looks like hes almost a full step quicker and his game looks great. I look at the game he had tonight and I think to my self what would have it looked like if he actually shot well from the outside? Hell go for 40 this year. Jakarr should watch the tape of this game and emulate his approach around it. He should stay 15 feet and in, and literally try to dunk everything. Sanchez is too good a player to get into foul trouble, we need him out there as much as anyone. Jordan will be a really good player, with him and dlo both getting into the lane we got a lot of easy shots in the second. They will get teams into foul trouble! Obkepa should NEVER be further than 15 feet away from the hoop on defense, your a rim protector Chris, protect the rim.
Things that will hurt us all year are stupid fouls and giving up 3s , no reason why just because .. We Are..