There's a team here

[homunculus]

Just want to address this... Yes, Aidan has fallen way short of expectations. I legit thought he'd be Cam 2.0 and be one of our best players. That's obviously not happened. However, he has two or three games where his scoring has legit turned the tides. And, his +/- on the year is positive as compared to several other board faves. Lastly, the "stall out" concept is actually untrue. While Aidan didn't do anything particularly noteworthy last night, we did come back and take the lead when he was on the court. I think defenses are aware of him when he's on the court. I still have hope that he's going to find his role as an off the bench scorer that this team desperately needs.

Yes. There is a huge difference between a good player who is struggling for various internal reasons (confidence, adjusting to a new role in a new system), and a player who is struggling because they don’t have what it takes. Many people seem to this Mahaney is in the latter bucket. I fully believe it’s the former. I think he will be the missing piece by March. But you never know, maybe it won’t be til next season.

 

[boog204]

Lumping Mahaney and Ross together is weird. One has played a key part in some wins, the other has not.

Ross and Aidan are this year's whipping boys. It doesn't matter what each might do, they are always going to be lumped together.

 

[JT-55]

It would of been better if Diarra had taken that open 3 first we wouldn't even been talking about this. Diarra has to have more faith in his outside shot that is coming around. I definitely don't want Karaban driving to win a gam for us.

Yeah I was talking more in general throughout the game let's say we have 7 seconds on the shot who can we give the ball to and say make a move. It is really just Diarra that can do that with McNeeley out. Hopefully Solo progresses in the area and I think he will eventually.

I would also agree in hindsight Diarra should have taken the open 3 off the inbounds. Especially as it ended up, he retreated to half court and then decided to drive it in. Feel like there was probably some set they were trying to run and it ended up not being there, so he decided just to go himself.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

Consistency, primarily with our younger players but really for the roster as a whole.

If we took the Villanova game, but with two halves of first half Stewart and two halves of second half Ball, even with the other inconsistencies (both bigs, Alex having for the most part an off game) we can hang with anyone in the country. Add in McNeeley, some improvement from Mahaney and a more standard version of TR, Samson Johnson & AK and we can dream of making a run at San Antonio.

There will be quite a bit of angst from now until the end of the season however.

 

[RuffRuff]

Perspective

 

[NJHusky]

Yes, agreed, he needs to play with more anticipation and confidence to see plays like this develop. I did like what he did during our run to take the lead. Pretty sure he had two assists to Solo in that run. Maybe I'm crazy or hoping for something that isn't there, but I just have the hardest time thinking he's not going to get it. This was a big-time player out west on a really good team. I understand that conference isn't as competitive as ours, but he was the lead guard on two NCAA tourney teams including one that could have beaten us in 23 if they didn't lose their best player.

Was he the lead guard or was he a 2? That offense is very deliberate….ours is based on cutting and hitting the open man. Why would we think the player could transfer system’s so easily

What about defense?

 

[Dabutlerdidit]

Yup. This is our limiting factor.

I'm going to sit back and enjoy the rest of this year with limited expectations, especially since the staff did such a great job of adding shot creators in the recruiting class. The current kids play hard and most are improving, and a sweet 16 appearance seems like a realistic hope. Maybe even elite 8.

After two title seasons, that's good enough for me.

Totally agree. And sprinkle in some Husky magic and 3 peat is not out of