[quote="Section9" post=300062][quote="Moose" post=300058][quote="Section9" post=300056]There are a lot of posters wondering why the frosh didn't play last night. I'm not one of them. All summer long the board has been touting them, predicting their minutes, and putting them ahead of returning players. It's all speculation. These are good kids and I'm hopeful they have nice four year careers' but let's temper it with the fact that they were 3*s coming out of high school. Roberts makes Tariq Owens look like a body builder, Earlington is an ex football player and an undersized 4 and Greg, who probably has the most upside, is coming into a very crowded backcourt.
Nobody on the board has seen these kids in practice so it's all hypothetical conjecture. Let it play out and we'll see.[/quote]
It's not the board touting them it's the staff touting them. The staff touting depth. But meanwhile you run 7 out there. Would have been 8 with Heron. You have 13 players on schollie two of which are sitting out per transfer rules and then 3 more are perfectly fine and eligible and can't play in an exhibition. And yes the game is meaningless. But thats when you can get their jitters out of the way and get them into the action a bit. Now their first action is going to mean something.
If the staff wants to play the transfer game thats fine. We all know 13 players will never play so go ahead and use the last 2 spots on the roster for sit outs. No issue there. But then you have to run out 10 players. Especially if you want to play up tempo and fast as they claim. At the end of the day all it says to me is poor planning and management. Getting them 3 minutes as small and stupid as it sounds would have made me content and again just got their feet wet and continued their growing process.[/quote]
Name one staff that doesn't tout their incoming freshman, that's irrelevant. The transfer game has nothing to do with it. If you want to criticize the staff for not getting higher ranked frosh that's fine.
Fact of the matter is we have to integrate four new players who are going to see a lot of time, that's priority number one. The top eight have to get experience playing together because, barring injury, they're going to see 95% of the minutes. If any of the frosh were capable of cracking that top eight rotation they'd be seeing the floor.[/quote]
Poppycock!
LJ Figueroa was the only new face of the the 7 players who stunk up the arena last night. The others have been playing together for a year or more. Ironically, Figueroa was the best prepared because he has not been infected by this staff's incompetent preparation methods.
If Chris Mullin thinks using his little crib notes that he and GSJ put together before the game is preparation someone should remind him this is not going to work for him like it did in college during his many make up exams.
You have to do all the home work and studying long before the game. You have to be able to communicate with your players. You have to spend more time with them over the summer right before the first workouts.
The apathy displayed by Shamorie Ponds last night was troubling. The look of bewilderment on the faces of the coaches was troubling. These guys are in their 4th year of this. There are no more excuses for slow, pathetic starts to a game.
If anything, a more astute coach would have sat 3 of his starters midway through the first half and put in the freshmen to have them observe the other team that was there to run real plays and not just hoist up improvised threes.
