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Message: [QUOTE="Gurleyman, post: 5209234, member: 175"] McNeeley missed 6 weeks. Karaban missed a couple games. The door was wide open. There was tons of rope. There was a close game when AK was ready to check in and Ross has a steal and breakaway, and Hurley pulled AK back to let Ross keep playing. A couple minutes later, AK checked in for someone else. But moments like that have been too rare. Since Thanksgiving (when we put the cupcakes away), Ross has a total of 4 offensive rebounds and 4 steals in 250 minutes … those are the types of things that could keep him on the floor without scoring. Getting extra possessions. Having a nose for the ball. Hustle plays. Not even skill plays, just being active. Terrence Samuel had a key part in our 2014 run even though he couldn’t shoot and was basically in over his head at our level. But he did something with his minutes when he was out there at both ends - he was a good defender with a nose for the ball, and he attacked the rim with ferocity on offense and had a knack for finishing in traffic, so he wasn’t useless at that end, and he played a lot more than his skill set should have warranted. All Ross and Stewart have to do for good minutes is play decent D and do maybe one thing well on offense so we don’t play 5-on-4. Stewart’s problem is attention to detail on the D side of things, and his offense wavers too much to counteract that. Ross just hasn’t shown anything on offense against good teams. More recent bench guys like Joey C, Alleyne, Diarra, Stewie, Diarra and Johnson last year found their niche at one end and did enough to contribute on the other that they played. Alleyne played through his shooting woes because he did his job defensively, JoeyC played through getting hunted on D because he could go on a heater on offense (being paired with Clingan off the bench helped mask his defensive woes, granted). Their story isn’t finished by a long shot. Stewart is in line for the AK role if we don’t get a portal guy (and sometimes the portal guy doesn’t work out and you seize those minutes - ask Hassan). I don’t know about the freshmen, but Ross might be the only guy on the whole team next year who can guard anyone on the perimeter, so he could be someone who has to play. But this year, they need to take advantage of opportunities and they need to show they belong out there. Their recruiting rankings and what some guy wrote about them on the AAU circuit doesn’t matter any more. [/QUOTE]

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