I am incredibly excited to be back for a new season and reviewing the first game of 2026-2027! And what a game it was! There was a significant lull throughout the first 8-9 minutes of the second half or so where we were not locked in, not taking good shots, and not playing with the same energy as in the rest of the game. Other than that, though, we were electric and looked great… and despite the lull, we won by 29!
It’s pretty good when you can have those stretches and have a player like Chance Mallory have 6 turnovers in the game and still win by almost 30. It speaks to the ability of the team to absolutely turn it on for stretches – which was evident in their 25-4 start to the contest. As people are fond of doing (hey, I’m doing it now!) people like to have something to react to with a live game having taken place. As such, I’ve seen a decent amount of focus on the sloppy and lower energy start to the second half, and well as some light worry about Chance’s turnovers and wondering if he’s ready to carry the load he has in front of him.
I’m not worried about either of those things.
It’s sometimes hard for teams to keep the same level of intensity in a blowout. It’s a challenge that many coaches of high-quality programs face. There are many reasons behind it, mostly psychological, but I very rarely worry about sloppy stretches early in a season, unless the team never really shows that it has the ability to turn it on. OR, in some cases, if they look like there’s a fatal flaw or something a lesser team is doing to them and they’re unable to respond. This was none of those things – just some bad shot selection coupled with some lax energy coming out of halftime up 24 points. That’s the kind of stuff that is coachable and is usually not indicative of any kind of problem that will rear its head later.
As for Chance… the guy was just hyped like crazy and wanting to show out and shot off a little bit. During warmups before the game, one of his teammates bounced the ball off of the floor so that it went up by the rim and Chance jumped, cocked, and dunked it! It was pretty wild to see, and I don’t remember him dunking in warmups last year. There were plenty of stretches where he just looked electric with the ball in his hands and felt like he was making an impact in one element of the game or another, whether it being causing the first turnover of the game or delivering an awesome box out (that we’ll see later). We’ve seen his ability to play in control and to take over games last season. We saw him absolutely spark what we did in the preseason against better teams. This isn’t anything to make note of aside from the fact that it was nice to look so comfortable in a contest where he was nowhere near his best. In fact, that was especially notable because the first time he came out of the game, we didn’t replace him with Jan Vide (who only played 7 minutes), so there seems to be a level of comfort to stick things out with other guards. But I digress and we’ll get to that. Point being, I strongly believe that Mallory will calm down as he logs many more starts under his belt and that electricity that’s in his game will be bottled for good.
But that brings us to – what to actually write about this time of year? As the season unfurls, we’ll start to uncover trends over games, potential strengths and flaws of the team that are recurring patters. That’s when we take some deep dives. When the season starts off, though, it’s more investigative. We start to get our first glimmers of concrete information around how Odom is thinking about the team. We also see some of the glaring strengths on display. Such as…
Thijs De Ridder Revenge Tour
It would be downright inappropriate to start this season off by spotlighting anything other than the debut of Thijs De Ridder 2.0. Not only is he the ACC Preseason Player of The Year, but he kicked off that campaign by scoring 12 of the team’s first 16 points and having a heavy hand in the remaining four. He finished the game with 24 points, 9 rebounds, an assist, two steals, a block and only two personal fouls and ZERO turnovers across 27 minutes of play. He had 12 points within the first 2:20 of game play and pretty clearly backed off of the scoring aggressiveness with the game so quickly out of hand early to allow others to get more into a flow.
I’ve been writing this offseason about how improved De Ridder looks with his outside shot and his handle, and both were on display in this one… but I still think it was being slept on a little (maybe no longer, but this is a nice illustration) at how the game should orbit around De Ridder more so than anyone else. Let’s take a look at some of his total game dominance that caused such a quick runout to start the season (we could focus on later in the game as well but need to be mindful of time).
This was the first play of the season and De Ridder scored within the first few seconds. I love how he starts just completely straddling the half court line taking up all of the space. If you look at Sam on the jump, he’s on our side with his man on his side. Thijs is full on either side of the half court line, which asserts his physical space and is relevant because he’s got the inside angle and is quick to get to the missed jump ball. It’s from there that you see the added growth and confidence, though. He immediately explodes toward the hoop with his left hand, splits two defenders, is strong with the ball, and finishes at the rim.
Recall how his handle in the open floor often led to turnovers last season. He has more control now, is more purposeful, but still has his aggression. I loved this determination to make an impact early and how he was undeterred at splitting two to get home.
This next clip shows off his mentality and his shot. I mentioned how this offseason he’s looked more like he’s hunting his outside shot as a first priority when it’s open and then playing off of that as opposed to last year when he was more willing to take the open looks that came to him (if he’d been shooting decently in that game). Here, De Ridder gets the ball after a rebound and brings it up the floor himself – something he’s always done but looks more comfortable doing. We’re not pressing an advantage. Drexel is back. Chance is right there, he could come to the ball. No, TDR is fine initiating the offense himself, and when his man plays way under a ball screen from Chance, there’s zero hesitation from TDR to just move right into his shot.
That’s a notable mentality shift from last season where TDR likely would have looked to run some offense first. Now, the other team is giving him a clean look? He just takes it.
In this next one, we start to get a broader sense of him on both ends. He starts this possession by collapsing down and bothering the dribble on the drive. He’s there for the defensive rebound and quickly gets it out to Mallory to start the break (we definitely saw the team playing faster during most stretches). De Ridder then trails the play and calls for the ball as Sam is starting his drive – he’s actually just crossing half court when he raises his hand – so he recognizes that his man is assigned with getting depth and helping on his drive and is planning on looking for his shot early. It’s an easy trailing spot up on the secondary break from there.
Increased shot confidence, which we’ve discussed, but also a great example of how much pressure he’s going to put on his defenders, who are often going to be charged with helping on the interior, to stay on him and not retreat into the lane.
This next one ties into another theme I’m going to bring up in a bit with regard to our full court press and how much more aggressive we appear to be this year hunting steals. This is a good example of De Ridder’s energy and, what felt like, omnipresence early, though. Firstly, he grabs a nice offensive rebound and completes an easy put back. He’s open for this after a pin down screen by Adekunle that De Ridder just continues through curling toward the rim on a shot. Then Sam does a really nice job of jumping the inbound pass into the corner with an absolutely spicey behind-the-back pass back to TDR who comfortably converts.
Keep that clip in mind as an additional example in the next session, but De Ridder has always been a disruptive presence guarding the inbounder in these situations and an efficient converter of opportunities when we do make soemthing happen.
There were more good moments from this stretch, but we’ll finish up with this one, below, which doesn’t look as spectacular, but I actually think might be among the most encouraging. It’s a nice box out by De Ridder who does a good job on the defensive glass, and he once again brings the ball up the floor himself. This time Johann sets the ball screen for him and De Ridder feathers the nicest little touch pass over both defenders for the assist.
I showcased some last year what an effective weapon it was when TDR ran the pick and roll with Grünloh because it typically forced two bigs to defend and put players who weren’t used to dealing with ball screens as often into those positions. This year, with De Ridder’s improved and more aggressive shot, AND with his improved handle, these are going to be even more effective sets that I think we’re going to want to regularly turn to. Nice to see the passing touch there as well.
As we move into some of these other sections I’ll call out some of De Ridder’s added contributions, but I’ll stop with the showcase section here. The main thing I want to call out that I think is real and should be real all season is that De Ridder is the differentiator and the guy who we’re going to want to lean on in the big moments to make the big things happen for us. He’s equipped for it mentally as we saw in the NCAA Tournament last year, but the skills have come along over the offseason too. He’s just so versatile. Other payers are going to play key roles – Chance as the spark plug (and frequent engine, I’m sure), Sam as the secondary scorer (sometimes primary, I’m sure) and all-around player, Johann as the rim protector and finisher, and a slew of defenders/shooters mixed in – but De Ridder is the guy around which our team will orbit.
Press Defense
Last season our full court pressure was something new to us under the Odom system. It was always described as a “Token” press. We always tried to deny the ball inbound last year but, aside from a few really spicy Mallory plays, it wasn’t fruitful very often. Our main purpose was just to slow the other team down enough so that they didn’t get quick offense themselves and so it took them longer to get into their own offensive sets.
That’s different this year. This year, we have the personnel and appear much more aggressive at trying to take the ball away from our opponents. For one, we’re really physical on the ball and aggressive trying to deny the ball in bounds. Watch this possession early – Martin Carrère, all 6’9″ of him shadows the inbounder, making the pass difficult. TDR is manhandling his man, full-on holding at one point (not a foul if it’s not called). Sam Lewis truck sticks his man, putting him on the ground (also not a foul if it’s not called), and Chance Mallory jumps the inbound pass forcing the refs to make a difficult decision on who it went off of.
I had the opportunity to watch Ryan Odom coach in his conference championship game for VCU, in D.C., his final season there. I remember being impressed in person with just how physical they played. They imposed their will and made the game such a defensive slug fest through their rotations, activity, and physicality, that the refs ended up just kind of swallowing their whistles because it became normalized in the game (and as a ref you start to second guess yourself most of the time if you feel like you’re calling too many fouls). Basically, they had a chaotic and active defensive identify that they layered throughout every possession (even the ones that didn’t go well).
Last year we didn’t really see this. We saw tough defense at times backed up with absolutely elite rim protection, but we didn’t have the athletes or length to just harass the opposition like this. I believe we’re going to see it this year.
I’m short-changing some of our pressure to fit it into a smaller section – but we set a JPJ record with 18 steals in this game (all-time record is 22), and forced 21 turnovers in total. Here’s a nice 5-second violation with Martin on the ball again, this time veering off at times to try to deny the inbounder, and with Vide and Gertrude shadowing their men.
And then we also got some individual excellence with players directly picking the pocket of the man they were shadowing. Here’s one from Adekunle:
And here’s one from Dixon (who we’ll talk about later):
Last year, sometimes Mallory or TDR would make something happen, but often we had Dallin Hall, Malik Thomas, and Jacari White in these spots and they (especially Hall and Thomas) were collectively more cautious about the blowby. They didn’t often offer the same level of harassment, nor did we see as much of this individual playmaking.
This year we have a slew of defenders well-suited to give our opponents a hard time for the full 94 feet.
Of course, being as aggressive as we are, especially while improving our craft early in the season, there are going to be some easier opportunities created for our opponents than we’d want. Blown assignments and late rotations… or imbalances created by someone getting beaten. Here’s an example, below, where we are really doing a nice job of pressuring, but eventually Anya gets blown up by a ball screen. This leaves his man with a full head of steam running at De Ridder. Thijs could have done a better job of not letting his momentum take him out of position as the last line of defense here (and recognizing that his man was trying to go all the way earlier), but it’s still a tough spot to be in one-on-one with someone at a dead sprint and that much room to operate.
In this next one, we see De Ridder take a shot at coming off of his man and trying to make a play on the guy that Chance was bothering up the floor. He misses on the ball, which leaves his own man wide-open and gets a relatively easy bucket (Johann also rotates a bit late given the help he had from Adekunle).
This is going to happen. Hopefully it will happen more now and then with decreasing frequency as the season progresses and they get the feel for when the opportunity is right. Chance also picked up a foul early collapsing down on a trap like this and being too aggressive swiping at the ball. It demonstrates, though, that they are much more willing to be proactive. There was discussion throughout most of last year on whether or not we would mix up our press with some trapping. That appears fully on the table this season.
So, we’re almost assuredly going to face some hand wringing this season around easy baskets that we concede due to being over-aggressive in our press (in our halfcourt too but we’ll look at that another game). Given the turnover output and how well it translated to instant offense, though, I would suggest that it will be well-worth it in the long run. There may be games against some of the best teams on our schedule with elite-level athleticism where this isn’t a viable strategy and we will want to play a little more conservatively – but I expect that those games will be in the significant minority and that, with this roster, this will be an edge for us the majority of the season.
Centerless Basketball
In my writing and in basically every opportunity I’ve gotten to talk about the team coming into the season, I’ve indicated that my biggest concern is the backup Center position. We only have two true Centers on the roster. One is one of our “Core Four” returners and one of the best shot blockers in college basketball last season, in Johann Grünloh, and one is the 7’1″ (with a 7’6″ wingspan) ultra long, strong, and mobile Freshman, Favor Ibe.
Ibe has all of the potential in the world to be exactly what this team wants – as Odom’s scheme heavily favors this type of player in both his offensive and defensive systems. The problem is, he’s just so raw. Gone is the experience and natural shot blocking (and underrated offensive contributions) of Ugonna Onyenso to take some of the workload off of Johann and, many times, being an even more impactful player. Ibe is still figuring out where he should be on the floor, he’s still getting used to dealing with the speed of the game, timing his jumps while rebounding even… just learning. There are a couple of clips that I could point to that illustrate how his length and presence out there did actually make things very difficult on Drexel when trying to go to the rim – but I won’t focus on that now because the key takeaway is that he wasn’t ready for primetime yet. He did play 6 minutes – but mostly after the game was well decided and not as the primary replacement option for Grünloh when he sat.
The encouraging news was that Johann logged a game-high twenty-nine minutes – 8 higher than his average last season. Some of that was because he only picked up one foul (which is also good news, broadly, you could argue you want him to be a little more aggressive but careless fouls are the big fear this year), but it was notable that he also had the endurance to effectively play almost 3/4ths of the game. That’s great news because, surely there will be times where he will get in foul trouble, but in most contests it means that the amount of time we’ll need to find a solution without him has been minimized from approximately a half of a game to approximately a fourth of a game.
And, while I do think that the hope is Ibe will be ready to fill these shoes at one point during the season, that time does not appear to be now. So, we’re going to have to play some Centerless basketball, which is going to change the way we play on both sides of the ball (and come with pros and cons). This game, we played five minutes without either Center. I’m going to focus entirely on the defense, as that’s where the biggest liability comes in. Moving TDR to the five, in some ways, can be an offensive boon and put pressure on opposing Centers to defend the perimeter. If and when that becomes relevant, we can look at that at a later time as well.
Here’s a first look. Now, interestingly (and I don’t think I would advise it moving forward), our first reps without a Center had neither Nolan Adekunle nor Kalu Anya on the floor… both I’d consider essential. Here we have Chance Mallory, Jan Vide, Sam Lewis, Martin Carrère, and Thijs De Ridder as our five. I do NOT recommend this lineup. In part, I still don’t love Mallory and Vide together and it was odd that some of his mere seven minutes were with Mallory instead of spelling him, but also because I think you need one of those two previously mentioned guys (at least, maybe both and Sam) to support this style of play. Carrère is not a natural PF and is better suited at any of the 1-3 positions. Perhaps the idea was not to play Kalu with Vide… but then I’d suggest not playing Vide with this lineup or just playing Adekunle instead of Kalu.
Here’s an example of it going well. At the beginning of the play, you see us switch 1-5, which is not normal. TDR jumps aggressively on the ball handler and Chance switches onto the Center. Drexel attempts to exploit the mismatch but Carrère comes over to help and Vide collapses down on Martin’s man before closing out on the shot. Drexel attempts to drive the close out but there’s too much congestion in the lane, so they kick it back out, TDR contests the shot, and Mallory lands an absolutely awesome box out on the opposing big (I gasped seeing this live), allowing Vide to collect the rebound.
This is notably different. We often switch 1-4 but not 1-5. We do here, which puts Mallory in a very difficult position despite him holding up more than admirably. Doubling the post and rotating out of it is more of a CTB staple and isn’t something you saw from us much last year. Most of the time we leave our post defenders on an island and, if it’s the Center we trust them to defend straight up and, if it’s not, we have our Center lurking to swoop over and contest a shot, where appropriate. The goal is rarely ever to proactively double and fore the ball out of the post before the shot – but that’s what we did here. It worked well, but it required a lot and was a core schematic change.
Here’s the same group, though, and this time Drexel is able to turn the corner on TDR. He is switching the ball screen rather than playing drop coverage, but he doesn’t get a good enough angle to stop the drive. With only Sam and Martin on the back line, they aren’t going to be able to offer the rim protective support needed here.
It ends up feeling like the Red Sea has parted… but really it’s just a personnel issue coupled with a scheme change that wasn’t executed properly.
Now, I thought it did look better overall with better lineups and they did come back to this later in the game. Here, for example, is a continuation of the time above, but Adekunle is in for Carrère. We mix our coverage up here, a bit. Chance pressures the ball and TDR and then navigates a dual screen which TDR does play with drop coverage this time. However, as he drops and Chance chases, Adekunle tags TDR’s man physically and, rather than continuing to give depth like most of our Centers do, De Ridder sets the trap and then attacks the dribble of the ball handler. This forces the turnover that we use to generate offense the other way (shout out to Vide leading the break and TDR’s nice attack of a close out, which gained gravity from his shot making earlier).
Next, below, we move forward in the game and this is a defensive lineup that I really like if we’re going to be playing like this. Kalu Anya is in the game at PF which is likely the best complement to De Ridder at C but we also have Sam Lewis at the SF, Jurian Dixon at the SG, and Elijah Gertrude at the PG. That’s a ton of athleticism on the floor 1-5 and even if it’s not our lengthiest supporting option, it does have good length and quickness in spades. You see it on display throughout, but most notably with Gertrude’s quickness to help shut down driving lanes from the point and Sam sitting in the driving lane of Anya’s man without worry about his ability to recover to his own. Ultimately Eli gets his hands on the ball and stops Lewis’s man on his drive. Sam then does a really nice job of contesting the jumper with length but without fouling, and then Anya puts his strength on display by overpowering his man for the rebound.
Here’s the counter to that, though, and it ties back into the earlier point of pressure causing us to give up some easy buckets at times. Adekunle does a nice job of pressuring the ball up the floor until he crosses half court. He goes for the steal, but then gets lost on a fake which buckles his knees a bit. When that happens, there’s no one back there in the lane capable of stepping up and erasing space vertically like we’re so used to having. TDR has to stay plastered to his man. Chance steps up but he’s not going to be formidable attempting to contest a shot… so Adekunle giving up the advantage while pressuring the ball ends up leading to an easy bucket.
Overall, this is still my largest area of concern. I think there’s some opportunity to do some interesting and unique things with these kinds of lineups that we don’t often do, but I also think the players who play around TDR at Center need to be carefully considered. Some of the combinations that we were trying weren’t fully baked yet and felt much more experimental than logical. But, if you’re packing 1-4 in these situations with any of (one of Mallory OR Vide, not both), Gertrude, Dixon, Lewis, Adekunle, or Anya (not with Vide), then I’m more optimistic than if you’re doing other things.
Which brings me to….
Jurian Dixon
The starting five seems pretty solidified. Kalu Anya played 16 minutes and seems like a staple in the rotation as our first big off of the bench. Elijah Gertrude appears locked in as our first guard off of the bench, and even hit the floor first for Chance Mallory OVER Jan Vide who we assumed would be the 1-for-1 Point Guard backup. We’ll briefly talk about that in a second, but the remainder of the rotation – how much Martin Carrère, Jurian Dixon, Jan Vide, and Christian Harmon play – is the early thing to watch this season. At various times throughout, Odom appeared to be auditioning all four. Carrère was first into the game after Eli, but it was Dixon, I thought, who made the biggest case for himself of that group.
He popped more than he did in the preseason. His scoring was a solid 7 points on 3-4 shooting in just 12 minutes. He created his own bucket through his pressure, as we saw earlier, but we also saw him more confidently get into his shot more like his tape showed from UC Irvine than how he looked in the preseason. I thought this midrange jumper came easily to him and was very timely at a point in the game where the lead had been trimmed and was at it’s second closest in the second half.
Nice and easy set up of the ball screen and then patiently and confidently elevating into his shot. It’s not like this was a clutch shot, or anything, but it did come at a time where our offense had been at a lull and our shot selection had been poor.
And here he was toward the end of the game very comfortably dribbling into a three and with a more fluid release than I thought he showed last year.
If he can come into situations like he did, or even just show out generally, with some supplemental offense like this off of the bounce and taking what the defense gives him, that’s going to be fantastic for our prospects. Back before Adekunle signed, before Eli showed what he’s become, before Carrère had some really solid moments and showed improved defense, this is what we envisioned that Dixon might be as a starter for us. That took the back seat a bit during the preseason, but if he can play his role like this as maybe the 8th man as opposed to the 5th or 6th, that speaks well of our team depth.
It wasn’t just his offense, though. I really liked what I saw on the defensive end. I thought he was incredibly active trying to get his hands on the ball, chasing down rebounds, jumping passing lanes, and all of the time, pressuring. I liked the quality of his movement and thought he looked quick and athletic out there. Here’s just one example, but was his second defensive possession of the game (after he got a deflection that forced a steal on his first).
First of all, this is kind of a neat lineup. It has TDR and Johann 4-5, but instead of our wing army, we go three guards with Chance, Eli, and Jurian. Eli and Johann slow down the break, but watch Dixon’s lurking invasiveness on the collapse; helping Grünloh with the double team and leaving nowhere for the Drexel player to pass the ball. Chance and TDR and Eli do a nice job of spacing out to defend the remaining four, and the awful pass is jumped by Eli and turned into explosive points the other way.
We’re trying out a lot of stuff right now, as we should and as we will for the early part of the season. I do anticipate, though, that our best options are going to be mostly tightening to an 8-man lineup with Gertrude, Dixon, and Anya as the key contributors off of the bench – and then you sprinkle in Vide and Ibe to fill necessary roles – but not at huge minutes.
Dixon showed enough fluidity, versatility, and athleticism for me to like the way he pairs in a lot of situations. Just absolutely loved the energy, too!
To piggy-back after that last thought, though, I want to revisit one quick thought in a mini-one-clip section….
No PG!
I theorized about this prior to the preseason and eventually came off of it because of Vide’s Summer, how we played those rotations for the three preseason games, and other rumblings. But, much to my shock, our first subs out of the game were Chance Mallory and Thijs De Ridder and they were replaced with… Elijah Gertrude and Kalu Anya!
Maybe the rationale behind that decision was not playing Vide and Anya together. It happened a little but, aside from Ibe, they’re really the two non-three-point shooters on the roster. Not saying they won’t shoot threes… the will, but they don’t want to be (as seen in a shot clock violation later in the game that had good ball movement but both passing up clean looks… which I’m regretting not clipping now… you know what… what’s an extra 5 minutes?) Here’s the clip and you can see good ball movement but they run out of time because neither Vide nor Anya want to be taking open looks from out there:
But a really interesting thing was that we were willing to try out Eli and Sam running the offense. It wasn’t as clean as other situations and there was a turnover from Eli getting knocked over (I did think he was fouled)… but it wasn’t too bad, either. I liked the lineup broadly and I thought that this clip, below, was a sign of its weakness but also our potential to overcome that same weakness.
Lewis brings the ball up the floor and we’re playing five-out. Sam does a nice job running the pick and roll with Johann and finds him diving toward the bucket. Drexel sends help, but that allows for an easy kick out to a spot on the floor where Adekunle is an absolute sniper. Of course, he misses the shot, but it’s a nice look generated and we grab the offensive rebound. Now, from there, they have a harder time getting penetration and touching the paint. Drexel is in their rotations and we’re being fairly passive around the perimeter with Sam bobbling and Anya not wanting to drive. But, what happens? We overcome with shot making because Sam just lines up and steps into a three that’s open… but just because he’s such a good shooter with length.
The offense wants a PG, to be sure. That being said… none of our three best operators (Mallory, TDR, Vide) are on the floor and we still generate one great look, an offensive rebound, and then make a difficult shot. It wasn’t a disaster, in fact, was very serviceable and then defense you get with a lineup like that on the floor is a boon. There are tradeoffs.
This is where I go back to – there’s an absolute role and need for Vide… but I’m not sure it has to be as extensive as once thought. Maybe he can fill some number of PG minutes but we can also fill it through a committee, like here. Something to consider but not definitive. Okay, time for something I like to do early in the season sometimes and showcase a….
Sweet Play
After having spent a lot of time this preseason on the emergence of Elijah Gertrude, he’s been more of an afterthought in this first piece. Some of that is that his outside shooting came back down to Earth compared to the insane percentage in the preseason. BUT, I thought he still played really well, clearly proved he belonged and had solidified himself in the rotation, still shot 50% from the floor, looked incredibly quick… and was kind of everywhere. I’m not even showing the baseline play where they got him the ball standstill under the hoop and he just jumped up and two-hand dunked it easily (and no, I’m not going to pause this time and go get that clip).
THIS play, I will show, though. I’ve long touted Eli as a one-man fast break which I’ve anticipated will suit Coach Odom’s style incredibly well. We’ve seen flashes of it even with CTB as the coach… but here was another great example as he flies in, grabs the rebound, starts his dribble basically while still gathering himself, and then finds Chance with a fantastic thread of the needle, leading him behind the Drexel defense.
Yes. Get the ball up that floor, Eli! We have so many who can run with you and do it themselves… but you are the most gifted at it. These Chance/Eli, Eli/Jurian combos offer us a lot of quickness and speed that we should be able to weaponize in many ways this season.
In Conclusion
I thought it was a great first game! It was not a perfect first game. There are weaknesses on this team that we’re going to have to grow into through player development. There are weaknesses on this team that we’re going to have to grow into through schematic adjustment. There are lineup adjustments and honing that need to be made to optimize our options and get us playing our best basketball – which I do think will result in us shortening our rotation and making it tighter than our players may all want.
That being said, the upside is really there. I think we’re going to be earlier in our development than a lot of teams due to our continuity; but I also think we have a lot of room for growth due to our bench, Odom figuring out rotations, scheme, and role players growing into what’s needed from them. There’s nothing that keeps me up at night yet and there are plenty of things that I’m excited to see more of. Looking forward to seeing it all unfold as we start to get additional pieces of the puzzle Friday before the first true (and serious) test of the season on Monday.
Quick Programming Note: I try to do as many regular season games as possible but I’ll be travelling this weekend and won’t be able to turn around the Northeastern game in the two days. I will be at the Arkansas game in person, but will try to turn around at least a shortened version of that write up before the Tuesday contest against Bucknell.
Until then! It’s good to be back in it!
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