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Message: [QUOTE="Ricker, post: 2408285, member: 1245"] I love the potential of all our new players, and I am confident in their future ability to win. It appears to be a coachable team oriented group with a basketball IQ, that wants to get better individually and as a unit. As they mature and the next class joins them, I think we will be able to compete with the 5* 'talent' teams. The problems I fear with Colgate and other early games are; 1) we are starting the game with 10 unnecessary 'turnovers' in addition to turnovers that just naturally happen in a typical game. Specifically, Larrier shows a propensity to fire up 2-4 completely ill-advised deep shots 5 seconds into a half court possession, that leads to a runout by the opponent, (I call those turnovers). Polley's welcome aggressiveness to the hoop seems to lead to a couple out of control turnovers when he doesn't dish it. Cobb wants to play guard 1-2x and does too much, and, everybody wants to throw an alley oop to Kwinten Williams and nobody seems to do it well yet. The Kwinten Williams 'tease' is worth 2 turnovers a game at this point. Over time these dumb plays will be coached to a minimum, but right now, when we shoot poorly this adds to the uphill battle. 2) we have depth to foul, but we are going to put teams to the line too much if we keep reaching. Whaley, Diarra, and Williams seem easily guilty of this. It's going to take time for so many players to gain enough experience to each minimize the silly fouls. 4 silly fouls a half will easily get an opponent shooting 2 shots at the 8min mark for the rest of a half. 3) Once we are preparing for actual teams, and have film of our actual play, Ollie will be able to coach game situations. Cumulatively that adds to team experience, but right now it's hard to see how this large mix of new players could be ready to act cohesively to every out of bounds situation offensively and defensively in every situation in terms of game score and time on the clock. The list of game situations is endless and the time to prepare has been short for so many new players. What if the other team has a big scoring post, what if they have 2 wing shooters that are hot, a penetrating guard, playing 4 guards, etc etc. 4) Shooting well enough is my 4th worry, and the only one that we may not naturally improve on, except at the margin eliminating a few of the dumb shots. Shooting a max of 35% from 3 may just be what it is and we have to win in other ways. Crossing my fingers Jalen can be the difference maker and we don't have bad resume losses early while we get better. My preference is getting better with a few early wins that are harder than they should be. I don't want to learn from losses. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

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