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Response on Ask The Experts Question on Hoops Center Situation

lion1983

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May 2, 2024
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A poster asked about the Center position for basketball, based on the St. John's exhibition. The post asked, amongts other questions:

"3. Finally, the 5 spot. Ogbole is supposed to be providing defense and rebounding and we didn't see much of either last week. Is there a chance Sommerville or Martini starts at the five? Is there any reason for hope here? I feel this is the position that's making our ceiling lower."

I'll chime in (not supposed to respond in the Ask The Experts thread).

First, here is a link, again, to my post mortem on the exhibition, that gives one person's opinion on the game and players: https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/threads/post-mortem-on-exhibition-game-one-persons-view.283338/

Second, as a follow-up to that post mortem, I then charted every RU defensive possession vs St. John's and reached some conclusions ... again, just one person's opinion. See this thread: https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...ge-every-defensive-possession-charted.283494/

Third, especially following up on the thread involving the charting the defense, I concluded that though Ogbole still has a way to go, and maybe has not shown as much improvement yet as the optimistic people like myself had hoped, I DO see signs of improvement from the glimpse we had last season (which is important), and some hope for Ogbole's continued development. No, he is not going to be much on the offensive side - a few put backs, a couple of back-door or transition baskets (he DOES run the floor really well). BUT ... upon a close review of the exhibition, Ogbole was better than I initially thought, and as I said in my thread, I suspect Pikiell will be happier with Ogbole than many of us when he reviews the film.

Specifically, though Ejiofor chewed RU up, most of his 27 points were when Ogbole was NOT in the game. I counted that Ejiofor scored just 4 points when Ogbole was in the game (though the replay I watched from BTN+ missed 2 minutes of game time where St. John's scored 4 points - not sure if Ejiofor had any of those points - nor if Ogbole was in the game). So ... his defense vs Ejiofor was actually just fine. For what that is worth.
 
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