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Message: [QUOTE="husky429, post: 4771715, member: 6696"] [B]Ball security: [/B]Overall? Good. I would say ball security from our primary ballhandlers was solid. Cam, Castle, and Newton all looked good as we'd expect. Karaban did Karaban things. Ross had a couple of live ball TOs. I like getting him the reps now though. I doubt we see him handling it much on game day. Stewart played more of a Karaban role until late when things broke down, so not much to report on ballhandling. [B]Johnson and Singare Defense:[/B] I think it's fair to say we have concerns about their backup defense. Neither will be doing much outside of lobs and dunks, but IMO all we really need is serviceable defense... and I am not sure it's there. A lot of fouling, not much in the way of blocks. To be fair, our whole team was pretty sloppy on defense (expected this time of year), so I have a feeling they'll both show a lot of growth in our early games. [B]Ross/Stewart Defense: [/B]Ross goes at 100% on defense all the time. His conditioning is really good. Stewart didn't stick out on defense one way or the other to me. Hopkins or Carter is going to be a tough guard for either. Just much stronger and more physical... you're talking about literal men vs. a couple of 17-year-olds. Makes me wonder if we might push Castle to the 4 at times for his size on defense (while still being lead ballhandler on offense). [B]Frontcourt rebounding: [/B]Karaban was off his game, but that's expected... he's probably in pain right now. I think we know what we'll get from him and Clingan. Singare and Johnson both look fine, but will probably struggle versus those big, strong dudes that box hard like Soriano. Luckily we have Clingan to eat them. I was actually more impressed with our guards rebounding. Castle when locked in was battling with the bigs and winning at times, Newton did Newton things, and Cam is scrappy as hell. I expect more of a "rebounding by committee" situation when Clingan is sitting, but we'll get the job done. [B]Shooting: [/B]Spencer, Karaban will be elite. Newton will do his thing around 35% or whatever it was last year... I would imagine teams will be ALL OVER him as primary ballhandler, so his attempts will be tough. Solo looked okay off the catch and bad in his 2 attempts off the dribble. He's inconsistent now, but will improve with time. He needs to tighten up his footwork--sometimes he gets square and sometimes he staggers more. Castle and Ross didn't look great tonight, but I'm not particularly concerned with Ross. Ross is going to be good with time. Castle needs to shoot 30+%, and I'm worried he won't. Some of his attempts were BAD. He was way, way off tonight--even at the FT line. That won't last, but our team will be better if he can get into the 30s. [B]Did Johnson try a 3?[/B] No. He really only played the 5. I don't know if that's because of Clingan's injury or because we expect to only use him as a backup 5. [B]Did we play much zone? [/B]We practiced 2-3 in the half-court and a 1-2-2 full-court press. Maybe some 1-3-1 in the half-court? I'm forgetting. But it looked to me like the 2-3 wasn't something we expect to run much again, more just for practice against when teams zone us. Our 1-2-2 was something we'll run--the coaches were all over the guys on the front line. Solo looked great trapping. [/QUOTE]

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