Alley hasn’t gotten enough minutes and touches to be effective offensively yet. I would say the same thing about Gorham outside of the Alabama State game.
I’m not ready to write off Alley and the baseline 3 quite yet.
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I pretty much agree except the bigs outside of Fabian haven’t had enough steady mins to make a judgement at this point. Gorham and Gresham haven’t played a lot of minutes the last 2 games. Gorham has played 13 mins and Gresham 22 combined.
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greshman didnt get a lot of minutes but he wasnt noticeable at all in his minutes, which i thought was disappointing considering there are few games we will have a size advantage, the last 2 were one
i expected a trade off with him in…tons of rebounds and dunk for him but potential getting beat on the perimeter…it was just the ladder …he was getting easily boxed out of the paint …
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True he hasn’t been impactful at all in his mins. Last night should have been a chance to impact the game but he got 2 fouls and that was it really.
I think that had to do with him fouling so much. I mean everytime he got close to the ball a foul was called on him. He only got 4 minutes last night.
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I like his aggressiveness/energy defensively but sometimes it gets him into foul trouble against soft teams like Rice who don’t bang in the post. He’d be one of the bigs who’d benefit from international goaltending rule like Avery Johnson was talking about, haha.
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I think we all are gonna need to be a little patient with Gorham. The guy hasn’t seen meaningful action in 20 months. Gotta give it some time. I fully expect him to be a part of this rotation and I actually still see him as the starting PF eventually. Sampson is gonna need to have his best offensive team out there as much as possible, and Gorham could very well be our best overall front-court scorer. Besides, stretch 4s play a long time in this day and age.
Not worried about the defense. Sampson will continue to make it an identity. No one on the roster would even be here if that wasn’t a strength. Finding the offensive identity will be the challenge, and the best way to do that will be to go with your best scoring options on the floor as much as possible.
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If he develops a consistent shooting motion, he will become a better outside shooter. I noticed not only did his follow through break very right last season, now Im seeing this year is right elbow is bowing out very far on certain shots. When the elbow has been down a bit he has hit the shot.
From what I saw with the BYU game, Mills was the only one who looked comfortable out there. He basically took over in the second half and fueled the come back.
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My major disappointment so far is the general sloppiness. We’re not blocking out much, we’re throwing the ball away a ton and the perimeter defense (while in man-to-man) has been very bad. All of these things are the exact opposite of Kelvin Sampson hallmarks, so I’m going to chalk it up to (1) it being very early in the year, and (2) a lot of young guys out there and not much chemistry yet. The lack of outside shooting (outside of Sasser and maybe Mills) is disappointing, but it is what it is. Grimes going 4-6 from deep last night was awesome, but I’m guessing that will be the exception to the rule for him.
On the bright side, this team will not quit. When the pressure gets high, they don’t fold and that’s something we can build on. Grimes realizing he can take over games is going to be huge. Mills is going to be an offensive juggernaut. If he can build up his defensive game, we won’t be able to afford to take him off the floor. When Sasser gets comfortable enough for the game to slow down for him a bit, he’ll be every bit as lethal offensively as Corey Davis, Jr. There is a BIG difference in his shot when he’s in rhythm and when he’s not. Right now he’s thinking way too much but that will correct with experience.
The question marks for me are the bigs. I know Harris wasn’t a great matchup last night, but when Rice was getting buckets at the rim as easily as BYU did, I couldn’t figure out why Harris wouldn’t have been helpful solely as a rim protector. At the very least he forces people to change their shots, something we certainly could have used last night. Of course, those refs probably would have called a foul on him just for checking in. I expected a bigger level of improvement from Gresham this year, but so far he hasn’t really shown any improvement. I really hope that changes, and soon. I hope Gorham gets more minutes because I can see him as a Devin Davis kind of player. It’s just going to be hard for him to get there with limited minutes.
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This is a good observation we still have not had a bigs vs bigs matchup like we’ll have most nights in the AAC. Oregon will tell us a lot about the bigs.
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