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Message: [QUOTE="August_West, post: 5128736, member: 1047"] Hass, no matter what, will still have a huge role on this team. From the bench or starting. And we will need every bit of it. He's up for the task. But he cannot be the only "on the ball" guard on this team. There is a point where increased usage with him leads to decreased efficiencies. And yep, Mahaney is not him. I'm not out to bash this kid. I like him. I still think he has a good contribution to this team in him, but the envisioned role the staff had for him will not pan out. I keep hearing, seeing, and thinking about the comparisons to Tristen's start here. Everyone would love to believe that it is just an adjustment period from player and staff like we had to go through with Tristen before everything clicked on both sides. I wanted to believe that myself at one point. But it is not the same situation. We will see improvement from him, I don't doubt that in the slightest, but other things just are what they are. He will never not be the 1st point of attack on every teams game plan against us. He's just not a great defender. Not individually and not from team D principles either. The latter may improve a little. More importantly I just don't see him thriving as an on the ball guard. It's just not there. The vision, passing, timing, all are just a step slow. He would be much better off ball. The problem there is even if he is better off ball, is he better than Ball? Ross? Stewart? McNeeley? We have a glut of off ball guards/wings . Some real tough playing time decisions are about to be made, there is no choice, we can't keep up this, the rotation needs to be set or it will be disjointed mess still, and we are going to have some unhappy campers. Nowell needs 20mpg. Probably more, but that is a decent starting point. Even yesterday, in 13 minutes he had 5 assists and zero turnovers. The kid is a dog defensively and despite his height he won't be punked. Our guards were punked 2 days in a row. Especially the Memphis game. We have 2 games now before we get thrown to the wolves with Baylor Texas, Gonzaga and Xavier. 2 games to set something up and get these guys feeling like they have a plan. I hope we see one. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach