This team — with 9 new pieces and being led by freshmen — was ALWAYS going to be better in January/February than it would be in November/December. The hope was that Ace and Dylan would be SO good, and the supporting pieces would be good enough, so that we would overcome the assimilation process and not stub our toes in the OOC.
Unfortunately, nobody could have predicted just how bad our portal additions would be. Martini a complete whiff at this point. Acuff’s season derailed by a broken foot in preseason, and clearly not 100%. Hayes a solid shooter but not good enough to get more than 10 mpg. Only Derkack has produced consistently, and he’s a bit erratic.
Further, the defense and rebounding have been worse than anybody would have imagined. We thought these areas would struggle a bit, but not to the extent they have.
The Columbia game showed progress in all areas, but is that due to the competition or is it the natural improvement we would have expected by this point? Hard to know.
Ace and especially Dylan have been phenomenal — actually better than advertised. But the supporting cast has been worse than we would have hoped, with porous interior defense, poor defensive rebounding, and no consistent third and fourth scorers.
So we sit at 8-5 with two Quad 3 losses and zero Quad 1 wins OOC. We NEED to go 12-6 in the rest of the B1G schedule, but it’s pretty unlikely the negatives will improve (1) enough, and (2) in time, to enable us to win 12 of the next 18 games.
I hope I’m wrong, but frankly, with our inherent deficiencies, I think the ceiling is probably 8-10 UNLESS the light goes on defensively and Hayes and Acuff suddenly become consistent scorers off the bench.
Unfortunately, nobody could have predicted just how bad our portal additions would be. Martini a complete whiff at this point. Acuff’s season derailed by a broken foot in preseason, and clearly not 100%. Hayes a solid shooter but not good enough to get more than 10 mpg. Only Derkack has produced consistently, and he’s a bit erratic.
Further, the defense and rebounding have been worse than anybody would have imagined. We thought these areas would struggle a bit, but not to the extent they have.
The Columbia game showed progress in all areas, but is that due to the competition or is it the natural improvement we would have expected by this point? Hard to know.
Ace and especially Dylan have been phenomenal — actually better than advertised. But the supporting cast has been worse than we would have hoped, with porous interior defense, poor defensive rebounding, and no consistent third and fourth scorers.
So we sit at 8-5 with two Quad 3 losses and zero Quad 1 wins OOC. We NEED to go 12-6 in the rest of the B1G schedule, but it’s pretty unlikely the negatives will improve (1) enough, and (2) in time, to enable us to win 12 of the next 18 games.
I hope I’m wrong, but frankly, with our inherent deficiencies, I think the ceiling is probably 8-10 UNLESS the light goes on defensively and Hayes and Acuff suddenly become consistent scorers off the bench.
