The opponent was bad, as you pretty much expect first opponents to be and as they should be at this point for UNLV basketball. So it’s all grain of salt stuff until Saturday when they play actual competition.
- Offensively, I really like the spread look, the constant motion, and the unselfish nature. Sometimes too unselfish but that’s easy to correct. They looked really fluid at times and pretty decisive. But there were some points where it was easily thrown off kilter and it became more stagnant. I didn’t want to see that against a team like tonight but it wasn’t all that often.
- I’m going to be concerned about shooting. The streak may die. Jonah can really stroke it (so far, against poor competition, but even so, it’s a nice stroke). After that you’ve got Hardy, Blair, Long, and Hamilton it appears. Hardy can hit them though he’s sporadic. And then I think there’s some dropoff. I guess Tillman can shoot it a bit too. But aside from Jonah, I think it’s fair to expect them to be weak collectively from the outside.
- Gotta work on that soft interior. Too much penetration for easy, easy points. Easily the most disappointing part of tonight for me.
- The rotation - there are pros and cons here. As I suspected, it appears it’s going to be 7/8 plus maybe one (Dembele) who gets very short minutes. The good of it is that we cut right to the heart of what we are. The earlier roles and minutes are established, the better. With an early set rrotation, I feel they will come together more quickly as a unit because there isn’t experimentation and quirky lineups are limited, so it becomes easier to learn. The downside is you are an injury away from a long season and any subpar conditioning can leave you like a VW on the Baker grade in mid July 75% through the season.
- I don’t expect a win vs KSU, but it will be interesting. I do like how we look to be the primary aggressor on both ends of the floor from the start. I want to see if that remains against a better team. It’s easy to bully lesser teams.
