Samford

[Bearcat Rob]

Heres my take a ways from first few games:

-Mick will start kevin all season long, its not going to change. I am very hard on kevin but with three steals last night i thought he played alright. He needs to take it in more for easy mid range jump shots and use his athleticism. He has become a set three point shooter who cant shoot the three very well.

- Cumberland will not start or get more minutes if he doesn't start doing something. He gets in there and stands there in the corner then gets the ball and is no threat immediately looking to pass. Hes a thick boy drive in be a threat. The last three games his stat line has been 0 pts, 2 pts, and then 0 pts. And his D isnt that good. He needs to get some intensity and fire in him this isnt HS anymore. For as high of a recruit as he was he hasnt showed me anything yet at all

-JJ has been solid needs to keep his confidence and be all over the ball on defense.

-Gary will fine I think he is learning to play with a scoring big this will be an adjustment he will get used to (hes now the second low post option for the first time in his life). He will be a very good four year player but wont take that next step and be the danny fortsen type player we thought IMO. He needs to get around 10-12 pts a game and 7-10 boards.

-Evans and Washington are our scorers go to guys. Kyle is great love everything about him, is becoming a fan favorite already. Jacob is so skilled but hesitates so much needs to become that constant attack player who takes over. He needs to be our closer late in shot clock thru droughts and at end of games not kyle or troy and KJ should never have ball at end of shot clock. He needs to shoot more! 15+ a game IMO. Seems he can easily get 20 every night. Also when he gets a rebound he needs to go stop looking for troy all the time he can bring it up.

-Troy will be fine.

*Kyle in foul trouble will be killer this year, yes brooks played well last night but his offensive game is liability.
*We need to drive more. Jacob and troy especially. They call fouls these days for damn near looking at the guy get to the hoop get their bigs in foul trouble hit our free throws then let kyle dominate their backup bigs.
*we got a very good team this year. We are a good two guard away from being a great team. Hopefully someone steps up a little

 

[waterhead]

Heres my take a ways from first few games:

-Mick will start kevin all season long, its not going to change. I am very hard on kevin but with three steals last night i thought he played alright. He needs to take it in more for easy mid range jump shots and use his athleticism. He has become a set three point shooter who cant shoot the three very well.

- Cumberland will not start or get more minutes if he doesn't start doing something. He gets in there and stands there in the corner then gets the ball and is no threat immediately looking to pass. Hes a thick boy drive in be a threat. The last three games his stat line has been 0 pts, 2 pts, and then 0 pts. And his D isnt that good. He needs to get some intensity and fire in him this isnt HS anymore. For as high of a recruit as he was he hasnt showed me anything yet at all

-JJ has been solid needs to keep his confidence and be all over the ball on defense.

-Gary will fine I think he is learning to play with a scoring big this will be an adjustment he will get used to (hes now the second low post option for the first time in his life). He will be a very good four year player but wont take that next step and be the danny fortsen type player we thought IMO. He needs to get around 10-12 pts a game and 7-10 boards.

-Evans and Washington are our scorers go to guys. Kyle is great love everything about him, is becoming a fan favorite already. Jacob is so skilled but hesitates so much needs to become that constant attack player who takes over. He needs to be our closer late in shot clock thru droughts and at end of games not kyle or troy and KJ should never have ball at end of shot clock. He needs to shoot more! 15+ a game IMO. Seems he can easily get 20 every night. Also when he gets a rebound he needs to go stop looking for troy all the time he can bring it up.

-Troy will be fine.

*Kyle in foul trouble will be killer this year, yes brooks played well last night but his offensive game is liability.
*We need to drive more. Jacob and troy especially. They call fouls these days for damn near looking at the guy get to the hoop get their bigs in foul trouble hit our free throws then let kyle dominate their backup bigs.
*we got a very good team this year. We are a good two guard away from being a great team. Hopefully someone steps up a little

Good post! I agree with most of that. Cumberland was brought in to score. Hes not going to beat KJ out on D. He has to be more aggressive on offense if he wants to play more.

 

[david aka the TYZ]

calm down if u didnt notice he completely shut down the players he was defending got a ton deflections and was in middle multiple turnovers that led to fast break points. sometimes as fans i think we worry too much about offense and dont realize everything else hes doing. those who say his defense is not good enough to defend keeping him out there i wonder what the hell they are watching. theres a reason we were able to completely shut down the other teams best guard last year in multiple games and the reason was kevin johnson.

i think people need to calm down when it comes to KJ including myself its almost ridiculous at this point. i just wonder what people are watching that they cant see the guy is an elite defender that helps our team in so many ways. they only see the missed three or maybe lazy pass every now and then.

its almost like us uc fans me included have to have a player we blame everything on and get mad if he plays so that the young guy who cant guard a lick that has a better jumper can play more.

Couldn't agree more. KJ was on the bench in favor of JJ when Samford started their run. JJ let his guy get 20 feet from him and drain a corner 3. Caupian was losing his man too. But JJ got benched for awhile and rightfully so. I watch KJ on defense and he stays on his man like glue, picks up the switches and disrupts on defense. This board just got mad two years ago when KJ started over Cobb and Cobb could make shots and KJ couldn't. The opinion on him has never changed. He plays really good defense, especially in our system and takes good, open shots. Yes it would be nice if he made more of them, but he has good for and doesn't force much. His biggest flaw is his lazy passes. Other than that I get sick and tired of hearing everybody dog KJ so bad.

 

[[email protected]]

Your last sentence says it all. And our guard play is atrocious. Jennifer is a much better defender this year, and until this game has looked better shooting, but last night looked a lot like last year's Jennifer. I am the most disappointed by his passing. He has been Croninized. There were a number of possessions where he and Caupain passed back and forth to each other 50 times. When he isn't playing toss with Caupain, he has developed an expertise at playing the good old "toss it around the 3-pt. Line" game until the shot clock runs out and rush a 3-pt shot. Had I not seen a player early last year that would get out in transition and deliver amazingly creative highlight reel passes and incredible drives to the basket with up and under dipsy do layup conversions, I would never believe it now. And KJ is KJ. And unfortunatrely, Caupain is Caupain. What can I say. He is what he is. Player of the year? Come on. He has zero chance at player of the year. He may not even be top 3 on his own team....certainly not top 2. College basketball is guard dominated and 3-pt dominated, and we have neither. We do have a much better inside game, but I'm not sure how far that will carry us.

Last night was a wake-up call for me. I was drinking the Kool-aid a lot and seeing visions of granduer before last night. But, last night I started seeing visions of zone defenses and it wasn't a pretty vision.

Jenifer laid an egg yesterday

 

[L-T]

Jenifer laid an egg yesterday

According to Jacob, he was sick.

 

[david aka the TYZ]

Heres my take a ways from first few games:

-Mick will start kevin all season long, its not going to change. I am very hard on kevin but with three steals last night i thought he played alright. He needs to take it in more for easy mid range jump shots and use his athleticism. He has become a set three point shooter who cant shoot the three very well.

- Cumberland will not start or get more minutes if he doesn't start doing something. He gets in there and stands there in the corner then gets the ball and is no threat immediately looking to pass. Hes a thick boy drive in be a threat. The last three games his stat line has been 0 pts, 2 pts, and then 0 pts. And his D isnt that good. He needs to get some intensity and fire in him this isnt HS anymore. For as high of a recruit as he was he hasnt showed me anything yet at all

-JJ has been solid needs to keep his confidence and be all over the ball on defense.

-Gary will fine I think he is learning to play with a scoring big this will be an adjustment he will get used to (hes now the second low post option for the first time in his life). He will be a very good four year player but wont take that next step and be the danny fortsen type player we thought IMO. He needs to get around 10-12 pts a game and 7-10 boards.

-Evans and Washington are our scorers go to guys. Kyle is great love everything about him, is becoming a fan favorite already. Jacob is so skilled but hesitates so much needs to become that constant attack player who takes over. He needs to be our closer late in shot clock thru droughts and at end of games not kyle or troy and KJ should never have ball at end of shot clock. He needs to shoot more! 15+ a game IMO. Seems he can easily get 20 every night. Also when he gets a rebound he needs to go stop looking for troy all the time he can bring it up.

-Troy will be fine.

*Kyle in foul trouble will be killer this year, yes brooks played well last night but his offensive game is liability.
*We need to drive more. Jacob and troy especially. They call fouls these days for damn near looking at the guy get to the hoop get their bigs in foul trouble hit our free throws then let kyle dominate their backup bigs.
*we got a very good team this year. We are a good two guard away from being a great team. Hopefully someone steps up a little

I pretty much agree with all this. Last night was atrocious for about 8-10 minutes of game time. We kind of had a little melt down. Better to happen vs. Samford than in a conference game vs. A team that might not be so easy to come back from a 16 point hole. Definitely some stuff to watch on film and get corrected. This team is still a work in progress. Lots of new guys and new roles. I like the talent we have and the chemistry and unselfishness of the team. I love how aggressive and more importantly effective kyle Washington has been. Evans looks like a stud. Feed them and everything else will fall in line. Caupain will be effective and play how he's capable of, as will Clark. All the rest are role players -- know your role play your role, when your number is called, step up and be effective. I'm looking forward to seeing how the season plays out. Team is much more fun to watch than past years.

 

[2bearcatdad]

; Well, that's a whole other topic. This might sound harsh Waite, but I think it is impossible to root for both. I hate that school even more than I hate X. Sorry, their fans have surpassed Kentucky as the worst on the planet. Their weak little 55 year old grudge because we beat them twice for the national title, buying their way out of playing us here in football, Thad " chicken-shit" Matta finally signing to play us in Mick's first year and after thumping us saying that they would never play us again, and it being well known that they are blocking us from ever getting into the Big 10......well, I wouldn't even root for that school if they were playing ISIS! Sorry.

Might be the greatest post of all time.

Can I get an amen!

Well said L-T.

By the way, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.