I think before the McNeeley injury we were starting to see this team come together. McNeeley as primary ball handler on many possessions. He has started to feel more comfortable with being the guy.
We should all realize now that this kid is special. Fingers crossed and he is back sooner than later. Said it three weeks ago. All respect to AK but Liam is our best player and it may not be close.
I also wish we would stop asking why Ross is coming in before Stewart. It is obvious and honestly fairly obvious for some time. Offense is not an issue for our starting five it is defense.
Also we see Hurley really rode Samson in the second half. I think against bigger teams if they both (Reed/Johnson) stay clean with their fouls we will see them both on the floor more than we may expect. I think one area Johnson has improved is passing and he may be perfect to use at the foul line area feeding then Reed in the post then rim running for an offense rebound or return pass if they double team.
I just think Reed is too talented offensively to only play 14 minutes. He was able to get 7 rebounds in those limited minutes.
Certainly McNeeley’s ankle is a big concern, but I made a comment in the chat that see in him go down took the fun out of this game. The reason I made the comment was it seemed to me that we were really starting to see the team take shape.
So fingers crossed because then team we saw today before Liam went down is easily an elite eight team. Even with the lack of guards. McNeeley will be almost evenly sharing the ball handling with Diarra as the season progresses. And not because of Diarra’s play. 9 assists and 1 turn over is elite. Without the fouls he would have 12-14 assists today.