Ahh! I’m back sooner than expected. Just couldn’t leave well enough alone. I’ve had quite a few interesting and insightful discussions since my last piece but many of them came with questions. Questions such as, “Why are you down on (insert player)?” or “I didn’t see what you saw regarding (insert player)…?” Or “Aren’t you supposed to be a site with actual video Cuts????”
Fair.
So, I return to you today, with 12 different Cuts from the first two periods of the scrimmage (this hero got great footage of them worthy of using) that I thought were especially impactful and informative. I suppose I’ll just present them one by one and then say what I took away from them. These are selected to be most illustrative, but there are often many more examples I’m not using that further flesh out these thoughts.
Cut #1:
Starting out easy on this one but still quite interesting. This set Jalen Warley sets up closely resembles Sides because Elijah Saunders, late arriving looks as if he wants to set a pin down screen for Isaac McKneely on the top of the screen at first, and then when that timing doesn’t work out, Warley reverses it to the bottom where Buchanan has done the same for TJ Power. Power, notably playing the Small Forward in this lineup (see my thoughts on the big lineup in my first piece on the scrimmage) takes the screen and curls into the paint. As he does, though, notice that there isn’t any screening action on the other side of the floor. iMac and Saunders are simply shelled around the three-point line spotting up for a potential kick out. That’s different. Buchanan takes this opportunity to post up after Power probes the lane, takes the return pass, and then hits Anthony Robinson with a really nice drop step to make the layup over his contest.
It’s notable because it resembles Sides but it’s out of the new offense, AND because it involves an intentional Buchanan post up (which, we so rarely looked to post up players last season), and that’s a pretty slick looking drop step. I’ve been clamoring for a drop step from our post players for years now!
Cut #2:
This is a cool little set which starts by illustrating that we are pushing the ball up the floor a little faster. Saunders grabs the rebound and everyone takes off with Saunders pushing it up himself. He sets up the offense as the PF, which is interesting itself, and goes into a DHO with McKneely. Saunders then dives down the lane and pops out to that strong side corner with Power on the wing. Meanwhile, McKneely passes the ball over to Warley with Buchanan available to set a ball screen for him. At this point, the set looks like offset Flow with one side of the court cleared out and the other three shooters spread around the arc from the point to the weak side. The key difference being how they set it up as, previously, we’d typically get into this look just by having the PG bring the ball up the floor to get right into it. Warley uses his size so effectively here as he rejects Buchanan’s ball screen toward the paint and pushes down the bottom side of the lane. Ames reacts quickly enough to cut off his driving lane, but he’s isolated one-on-one with Warley now, and when Jalen spins back toward the center of the lane, he’s got a huge advantage from his size without having to have created a ton of space off of the bounce. This mismatch brings Cofie over from the weak side to help, allowing Warley to zip a pass out to Saunders in the corner for the wide-open three, which he drills.
This clip pretty quickly illustrates (what will be a trend) how clearcut of a superior option Warley is at point and what a mismatch he creates when opposing players in that position have to cover him one-on-one. He didn’t out quick Ames here, he just used the formational positioning and that spin to get the much smaller defender at a disadvantage.
It’s also notable because this was the first of two threes from Saunders who had all of the time in the world for this one (less for the second) but drained them both comfortably.
Saunders’s career three-point shooting % is less than 32%, so there’s been some push back ever since my transfer piece on him when I described him as a shooter. So let me give some thoughts on what I believe is mounting evidence that he’ll over-perform that number this year:
Saunders improved considerably from his first season (where he shot 18% at less than one shot per game) to his second (where he shot 32% on just over 3 per) and appears to have improved again this offseason in both his confidence and in reports from practice about the quality of his shooting. He actively seeks these shots out, preferring to play outside-in and looks incredibly comfortable taking them. He passes the eyeball test – the shot just looks good and when it misses it’s almost always very close; and his FT% last season was 96% (on less than 1 attempt per game) indicating quality touch and consistency albeit on a smaller sample size. Finally, his role (started just a little over half the season and came off the bench for the rest) and volume of shots were so variable last year on a team whose offense flowed heavily through a ball dominant post player. He (I lied, I guess, that wasn’t the last reason) also had a crazy cold-streak during the Mountain West Tournament which appeared to be an anomaly and a funk which he’s now out of (he shot closer to 35% on the year otherwise).
That’s a lot of rambling to simply say, there’s a lot of reasons to think that he’ll increase that percentage from deep this year. I’m expecting his floor to be that 32% range which is still solid for a PF who is a plus athlete and can defend multiple positions as well as he can – it would be different if he were just a shooting specialist like a Jake Groves. I suspect he’ll end up closer to the mid to mid-upper 30s range by the end of this one.
Cut #3:
This next clip is interesting because it’s the first play after Andrew Rohde came in for Blake Buchanan on the starting White team in Period 1; shifting them from being a pretty huge lineup to a smaller one with TJ Power and Elijah Saunders at the 4-5. Blue hadn’t scored yet to this point. We see Robinson and Cofie start this formation on both elbows with Sharma crossing in front of them and Taine circling behind them to eventually catch the ball on the wing. Cofie goes to set a ball screen for Taine, which Power hedges but then has to recover to a slipping Cofie who has moved quickly. Power is late getting back but does initiate body contact in the post. What’s so impressive, is that Cofie just uses his momentum and strength to muscle Power out of the way and finish with an easy dunk.
This highlighted concerns with playing Power at the post in small ball without one of the Centers at least backing him up for rim protection. It also uncovered some new concerns about his ability to defend the PF in general (as opposed to previous concerns which were more about his mobility at the SF). The combination of his limited speed to recovery from the hedge to the lack of resistance he put up at the rim when he got there was concerning; especially contrasted to how he moved pretty well against guards most of the day, comparatively. The White team went from blanketing the Blue team to immediately giving up a bucket when we went to this lineup (and this is where Blue got much of their offensive work done in this period).
But it also spoke to the strength for a Freshman Cofie, and his fluidity catching the ball moving toward the rim (he did have a slight bobble but collected without it disrupting him) and having no issues going right up and dunking it on someone.
Final note about the offense – this once again had a symmetrical Sides look – but the wings didn’t use the bigs to get open on the wing, they aligned themselves on the wing and then the posts broke out to initiate ball screening action. I think there’s some solid shenanigans they could run out of this look that they could set up with the similarity in appearance to the legacy offense – but they can also just play a two-man game on the wing like they did here.
Cut #4:
Okay, there’s a lot to unpack in this next play below and I’ll use it to discuss some things I noticed more broadly but am not including every single clip (some will come up again, though).
The play starts through Warley passing to Power on the extended wing and then giving a dribble-hand off (DHO – I’ll keep abbreviating as such… haven’t had to in the past because we haven’t really had them functionally within the offense much!) to Rohde. The ball goes back to Warley who passes it to Blake out near the three-point line with Bliss guarding him. Warley fakes like he’s going to run off of Blake (with the ball) as a screener toward the top of the screen, but then cuts back to run off of him toward the middle of the lane. Bliss gets completely left in the dust because of the quick change of direction and has to loop around the outside of the Buchanan screen. Now, Carter Lang does a nice job of dropping in coverage and Buchanan doesn’t seem to know where to go to help punish this happening after he gives Warley the ball, so Warley stalls out, Bliss gets back into the play, and Warley kicks it back out to Blake who isn’t going to take that open three….
We swing the ball back to Rohde on the lower wing, who passes to Power. Impressively, Power rejects a screen attempt by Rohde and drives left-handed on Cofie toward the baseline. Cofie gives up the angle at first, but eventually cuts Power off to the hoop while Bliss rotates over to help shut down the driving lane. Meanwhile, Warley fills behind Bliss, cutting in from the corner. Power passes him the ball, but Bliss has just kind of walked himself out of bounds after his help and doesn’t attempt to get back in the play when the pass goes. Lang (won’t analyze Lang that much as I don’t expect him to play) is a little late on the rotation down to help, but Warley is able to pretty effortlessly use his length to finish the reverse layup.
Power putting the ball on the floor and picking out a cutter with a nice pass continues to support his ability to play the SF and our team’s collective ability to make more plays. Warley’s effortless finish around the rim as a PG off of a cut is also a welcome sign.
Now, we’ll revisit Bliss/Ames a little later, but between this and Cut #2, it’s a pretty good contrast between the two defensively. Neither had much for Warley as a whole, but Ames, for the most part did well to stay in front of Jalen, he just struggled with the size he was giving up to stop Warley’s ability to get into the lane and make clean passes. Bliss, on the other hand, really struggled just staying in front on several occasions with the change of direction and the speed. Here he lost him on that initial cut from the top of the key which was about as big of separation as you’re going to see without the screen actually being utilized at this level. It’s because he’s trying to anticipate the move by getting ahead of it because of the struggle to keep up with it and just react to it in real time. The over-rotational piece where he took himself out of the play at the end is correctable; but is something we see from time to time with guards who don’t feel like they can make a big defensive impact around the rim (Ames did this some last year for KSU when he inexplicably kept getting cycled to cover under the rim through switching philosophies). But it wasn’t just this play, there were several times where Bliss really struggled to shut down a driving angle due to quickness and gave up a path to the hoop. On one glaring instance Warley hardly made much of a move but just exploded into the dribble and had a clean path to get deep into the lane. He didn’t finish at the rim when help came over, but there was just too little resistance at the point of attack.
You’re not often going to run into a PG as big as Warley to have to defend, as were Ames’s struggles (and if we do… we’ll probably put Warley on them), but in most matchup as this level a defender is going to regularly need to stay in front of quick players when defending the PG, or SG position; which is why Ames’s defense isn’t nearly as much of a concern (even though I would still say it can be matchup-specific). Whether that’s something time and healing improves for Bliss more immediately, or whether that’s something that takes more time and practice and training like we saw with Taine’s arc (he’s still not the best defender but no longer appears to be a player teams intentionally attack and no longer has those moments where he looks noncompetitive on defense), time will tell.
Cut #5:
This next one is just a great look at Cofie’s ability as a passer off of the move as a big. Ames sets up a ball screen with Lang but rotates the ball back around to Bliss. Cofie runs to set a ball screen for him but slips it and loses his defender. Bliss feeds him the ball and Cofie has it moving toward the rim off of the bounce. Buchanan and Rohde rotate over to stop the clear-line drive to the hoop, and Cofie elevates over them, using his height to limit the arc on an accurate cross-court pass to Taine in the weak side corner. Taine (whose shot looked pure when he was open) easily converts.
We’ve already seen Cofie convert this kind of look on a dunk when the help/rotations didn’t get there fast enough. Now we see his vision and ability to use his size/skill to deliver a crisp pass. Very exciting to have such a raw player look so athletic, active, but also talented. There’s a reason he’s called the “skilled big” and we haven’t even seen his shooting in action yet! In a world where, ideally, Power is playing the SF often, it’s great to have Cofie as an option to back up either PF or C. Lots of lineup versatility and big upside here!
Cut #6:
I’ve spoken to this one before and posted my own video clip. This is a simple thing but is also something that I’ve been asking for a long time but really focused on last season when our offense was struggling so much. Attack a mismatch! Post up when the offense isn’t working! Jared McCain is guarding Jake Groves; just throw it to him on the block!!!
(Ahem) Excuse me.
This is exciting because the offense appears open to allowing players to do just that. Warley gives the ball to Buchanan from the high post again (notice this is a pretty common action in the new offense) and then cuts off of him. But this time, he lingers on the block and, once Buchanan gets the ball to iMac on the wing, Warley posts Ames (who he has 6 inches on) in the mid-post. iMac feeds it in and Buchanan smartly cuts through to the opposite block rather than staying high. Ames makes an admirable effort (and is a physically strong guard), but really can’t slow Warley’s move into the middle of the lane, which draws help and allows for the easy dump off to Buchanan for the dunk.
Positional size advantages lead to mismatches and attacking mismatches is crucial. The fact that we appear willing and able to do this now as opposed to running “our stuff” the way we always do is very exciting! There aren’t many guards who can stand up to Warley inside and, with the shooting we’re able to surround him with on the court this year, help should lead to either baskets around the rim, like this one, or open looks from deep.
Cut #7:
Now this clip below is the last play of the first period and was a little more discouraging. Blue is pushing the ball up the court and looking to attack to get a final shot as the game clock is expiring. They have both Ames and Bliss on the floor and both get the ball on this play. Ostensibly, both are competing to back up Warley as the team’s PG (with Rohde as a dark horse who probably isn’t really in the conversation). The main advocacy for these two (and I’ve discussed recently UVa’s preference for ball handlers) is their ability as creators.
Here we see both, in a situation where they need to create, attempting to take their man in isolation. First Bliss gets the ball against McKneely and attempts to drive with the left hand and then spin back the other way. It’s a pretty methodical move and iMac easily stays in front of it, so Bliss kicks it over to Ames. Ames attempts to drive the center of the lane, gives Rohde a slight push off with his left arm and attempts the step back, but Rohde reacts well to the drive and his length deters the shot. Ames passes back to Bliss who attempts a light shot fake on McKneely and then takes some of the most deliberate, not to belabor the point but, slow dribbles toward the center of the lane that you’ll see from a guard. McKneely bodies him up with ease, and we don’t even get a shot up before the clock expires.
This might not have looked like much more than a throwaway possession in a decided period; but I thought it was pretty glaring. Rohde is a solid enough on-ball defender – and I think he reminded us as much. His length can still give smaller guards trouble, but you’d want Ames to be able to win this battle most of the time. He did have a few moments later in the game in this regard, though.
It’s not like McKneely is terrible in that area (there are probably debates about the scale of serviceable that he is), but he’s also traditionally no suffocating defender, either. When he has struggled throughout his career, it’s normally been defensively. But throughout the entire scrimmage when he covered Bliss, highlighted here but on more mundane plays too when the ball was just being rotated, he felt very comfortable eliminating as much space as possible and just pressing Christian (he actually did the same with Sharma to force a violation once, too, but Sharma also made some solid plays off the bounce getting to his own shot, one of which we’ll see later) because he wasn’t worried about being beaten on the drive. The result here was that we didn’t even get a shot up.
This was pretty consistent, I thought, throughout the scrimmage. Bliss did have one drive where he rejected a ball screen and took the ball down the lane with Warley on his hip and drew a foul; but it was a pretty borderline call and it was one of those situations where even though he created an advantage early, the defender was able to gradually eat into that advantage by catching up/staying on his hip until it ended in a pretty difficult shot attempt. More often, he’d get his space invaded, or he’d get ridden baseline and have to kick it out, or just keep the ball moving without threatening. He had a turnover at mid court that lead to a breakout the other way, and got ripped by Sharma on a DHO. He did some other things well that we’ll talk about (his outside shot did look good all day, and he had a couple of nice passes that showcased his headiness), but the limitations of his current mobility were on full display and those flash moments came more when ball pressure on him was relieved.
If the case for Bliss this season (whole different discussion for the future as he continues to develop) is that he’s the best shooter of our PGs (clearly true) and also can make more plays than our other guards… that didn’t look to be the case. Even iMac and Murray looked more explosive putting the ball on the ground on occasion on Saturday. So, there’s still more development that needs to happen here from just a physical standpoint for him to get to where he needs to be, in my opinion, but which also should explain what seems to be his current positioning on the depth chart; and should align with the rumors that the staff are high on him but don’t think he’s quite ready just yet.
For what it’s worth, I think this is completely fine for right now! He’s still just a Freshman (who came a year early to redshirt) and the HUGE caveat is that he’s been dealing with a foot injury for a long time, wasn’t able to practice as much this Summer, etc. The strengths of his game appear based in his mental acuity/savvy and his quality shooting. Physical limitations (unless it is just entirely from injury) can take a longer to build up, and his development trajectory is in a perfectly good place. Plus, I don’t think we really have the need this year. It’s really just about calibrating expectations for this coming season because this has been the topic that readers have brought to me most commonly and where I think the biggest disconnect is with the roster at the moment. Finally, If he’s actually a quicker/faster player than he’s showing right now because he’ll ramp up from the injury and we’ll see it as the season progresses, that will be a major development toward his ability to contribute – and that will be welcome!
Now, Ames is dealing with his own challenges. Some of them did have to do with squaring off against Warley, but he did show plenty of instances of being sloppy with the ball which showed up from time to time at KSU – it just didn’t always lead to turnovers Saturday (it did some). Sometimes it also lead to scrambles for a loose ball. Once he turned it over and stole it right back. He did prove to be more effective getting to the rim, with a pretty and-1 over Buchanan in the final period and, earlier, drawing a foul (which I thought he embellished a little) by beating Warley and shooting over Robinson at the end of the second. There was a first step that I still thought was inconsistent but sometimes it popped. All-in-all, he showed some quality flashes off the bounce and was capable of creating (was clearly less impressive in this area and defensively than Warley)… but didn’t look nearly as confident with his shot, which we’ll look at later.
Cut #8:
Now here’s a gorgeous play out of the new offense that I spoke about previously and wanted to showcase. Warley brings the ball up the floor and passes to Saunders extending up from the elbow to the three-point line. He cuts off of Saunders into the lane, who fakes the handoff. We’ve seen this action enough to know it’s a staple of what they’re doing, with variation – and here’s one of those variations! Warley goes and sets a screen for Rohde’s man and Rohde then runs into a DHO from Saunders with Saunders effectively setting the stagger screen for Rohde. As Rohde gets the ball, Saunders loops around behind Warley, who flares to the wing. Rohde manipulates the defense with his eyes by looking to Warley for the pass, but Saunders cuts back door and is hit with the gorgeous no-look pass for the wide-open dunk!
This play was sick and showcased Rohde’s passing, but also how the screening/DHO variability is designed to create tension and confusion within the defense having to navigate multiple screens and rollers at the same time. Ours, which presumably defends this all of the time now, still got lost with their communications. Also note how open the rim was for the Saunders dunk because of both Power and Bliss keeping the defense honest with their shooting ability on the back side (Sharma was also too slow to recognize and commit to the help, which we’ll see again in a later clip and is something he’ll need to work on if he’s hoping to get floor time this year).
Cut #9:
This next one has a lot of different looks worth calling out. We start with a very high ball screen from Buchanan for Ames with the rest of the offense spread around the arc. Then we move into a series of attempted screens and slips from each wing, followed by a DHO back to Ames who passes back out to iMac at the point. There’s a rhythm here that hasn’t been overly productive thus far with each of the ball screeners slipping and the action not gaining much traction. This time, though, iMac fakes the DHO to Sharma and explodes on the drive toward the hoop. This was effective and he catches Rohde on his back foot after lulling him to sleep through the repetition. It’s good to see iMac attacking effectively off of the bounce. Rohde is able to recover enough to keep him from getting a layup, but not enough to cut off a passing lane and McKneely throws a cross-court pass to Ames in the corner.
Now, if you pause the video at 1:31, Ames has enough room to shoot this off of the catch, and he really should as it’s the open look of the possession created through the work of the offense. Instead, he hesitates in the face of Warley’s close out, shows the ball as if to shot fake and attempts to drive baseline. This is a great close out by Warley, though, and shows his body control as he goes from running full speed at Ames to stopping and retreating to cut off the baseline on the drive. His defensive fluidity stonewalls Ames, and actually causes him to trip trying to deal with it, having to kick the ball back out to Buchanan who passes the ball out to Sharma all the way out at the logo with 3.2 seconds left on the shot clock on the catch. It’s as if, after all of that, the offense is starting from scratch due to Ames not taking the shot that was there.
And that’s where the magic happens.
From the logo, Sharma takes one solitary dribble to his right, puts the ball behind his back on the step-back, and launches a deep three as the shot clock expires. Cash. The thing about it that’s so impressive is not just the range, it’s how quick the release came – he just flicked the shot up there basically in a blink.
This play was notable for a few reasons. One was iMac being aggressive and deceptive off of the bounce. He was explosive with the ball there and made a nice play to create a shot for Ames. Another was Ames’s reluctance to shoot – folks often ask why people are down on Ames’s shot. We’ll see a bad miss later, but this is a big reason; he doesn’t like to look for this shot when he’s not fully prepared for it and doesn’t have the confidence in it/prefers to try to drive. Warley’s fantastic defense (not in losing Ames on the pass, but on the close out and break down) is another reason. But that Sharma shot was eye-opening. Yes, we’ve seen some of the crazy practice clip shots that are a high degree of difficulty, and we even saw him make a nice little turn around, fadeaway jumper over Power at the elbow earlier in the game… but there’s no one on the team except maybe iMac taking and making shots like this from that range, creating the space on their own, with such visible comfort.
Sharma is also going to need to work on his defense to reliably say on the court. With him, as we’ll see again in a bit, it appears more the recognition and understanding that comes with learning the Pack Line. He’s physical enough – we’ll see how the mental processing translates it all. But, learning the defense typically improves as the season progresses. His shot-making (and everything he took Saturday looked like it had a real chance and most were off of the bounce creating a look himself) is some special sauce. It’s the kind of thing that can bail you out of a failed possession like this one, that requires you be guarded far beyond the three-point line, and that he’s able to create on his own without needing to be set up. Some use their bounce to touch the paint… not to say he can’t (he did and got to the foul line once Saturday as well- but I don’t think that’s going to be a strength), but he’s effective at using the bounce to create space for his jumper which is always a threat.
Cut #10:
This clip builds off of the above clip pretty well because you see Bliss’s comfort with his outside shot in contrast to Ames. You also see Sharma’s need to work on his closeout. But first let’s focus on the offense and nifty set up.
The play starts with a pass to Rohde who flips it back on a DHO to Power with the hope of freeing him for a shot from deep. When that doesn’t take, Rohde pops back out to the wing and passes it back to Warley at the point who goes the other direction. Bliss takes a pin down screen from Saunders and then, when he doesn’t get the ball, cuts through to the opposite corner. Meanwhile, Warley passes it to Saunders and cuts down the lane. When Warley doesn’t get the pass back, Rohde rotates all the way over from the opposite wing to take a DHO from Saunders, who then reverses his angle and sets a ball screen back the other way. Rohde uses it, momentarily draws Blake on the hedge, and then whips a skip pass cross-court to Bliss who drains the three over a closing out Sharma.
Really pretty play and, once again, a perceptive look and set up by Rohde whose passing and vision were on point. We’re going to question Rohde’s shooting all season until we see otherwise, I’m sure, but if we’re discussing secondary playmaking out of this kind of offense, Rohde is going to be in the discussion and is probably the best passer on the team.
This is another good look at some of the offensive options we’re running including more skip passes to reverse the court. And it’s a great look at Bliss’s catch and shoot ability in the face of a close out. Sharma, on the other hand, should have anticipated the danger of this pass a little sooner and his close out broke down too early and wasn’t quick enough – much like we’d actually see from Rohde in games last year where it’d look like he could get there on time but he broke down too early worried about the blowby on the closeout.
Just to circle back, really quickly, this (in addition to intangibles which are harder to quantify now) is a big reason why the promise of Bliss is so intriguing; because we haven’t really had a knock down shooter at PG in a while, nor a SG (primarily because we didn’t play Franklin there, but I digress) who can also facilitate and drive reliably (if he can develop to that point). So, while I think it’s still something that needs to be nurtured, you can see the potential.
Cut #11:
This one’s short but sweet. I liked the design of the play in how the Buchanan screen allowed McKneely to flare out on the catch, deeper, from the wing. He missed the shot, but it’s how he hit is first three of the game.
But, once again, the size and activity of Cofie giving our small ball lineup with Power fits (Saunders is taking Buchanan, the Center). He crashes in hard from the wing and gets the tip in on the board.
Hooray for Cofie as an active contributor/athletic presence… boo for Small Ball allowing easy second chance points after getting a fortunate miss from iMac. To me, the development and presence of Cofie should just limit our need to actually go small with Power/Saunders very often because he brings skill without having to sacrifice as much on defense.
Cut #12:
This last clip is with the White team down 1 point, late in the second period, to where they would have to foul intentionally (and they did) on a miss. I play this to show how the offense, despite it’s moments of refreshing excitement, does still have the ability to spin its wheels without really getting anywhere. There’s continuous movement throughout and continual DHO/screening actions, but not a ton of progress is made.
At the end, Dai Dai Ames does end up with a clean look as the shot clock is about to expire, but you can see again why he might hesitate on taking his outside shot at times (although he made one with a clean spot up in period 3). When he’s rushed into a deep shot like this, often the miss isn’t close – in this case an airball.
This wasn’t abnormal at KSU, and he had another one earlier in the scrimmage as well… and it’s part of the reason why there is concern about his shooting. His three-point shooting % was still almost 33% last season; 7 full points ahead of Rohde’s and almost a full 23% higher than Dante Harris shot last year – so those comparisons aren’t accurate; and the lack of a shooting threat isn’t even remotely close comparing those. That being said, it’s certainly preferable to have your guards at a higher clip and, at the very least, comfortable pulling up from range more quickly without having to wrap their mind around the shot. It’s part of the trade off when weighing the equation and is another big reason you probably aren’t going to see the speculated Ames/Warley combinations on the floor as much as some have theorized.
Now, Ames actually had a chance to tie the game from the FT line at the end of this (went 1 of 2) from a drive he made against both Warley and Robinson that drew a foul, and he had a strong third period where he and TJ Power had some great moments to beat the starting four + Taine Murray. So, I definitely think he’s in that spot to back up Warley right now… but this shines some light on how the puzzle is coming together and the different factors to consider. Warley is the present but not the future. Bliss may be more future than present. Ames is… maybe both or maybe neither? It’ll be interesting to see how it develops.
In Conclusion
This was kind of a “show your work” from the thoughts from my previous piece. Supplemental material, if you will. But please do remember that those thoughts weren’t created in a vacuum nor fully shaped by this scrimmage. These were just the most impactful 12 clips that illustrated many of the different concepts with roster implications and the new offense at work. I still tried to speak to points that were trends more broadly and whether or not these clips reinforced those, as well as how elements of the scrimmage I didn’t Cut up play into that (including the entire third period).
Still, thanks for coming back for round two. If you weren’t there in person or if you hadn’t seen this version of the video yet (shout out to the heroic poster, once again), I hope it was as enjoyable to get eyes on it as it was for me to break down!
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