A Little of My Saturday Morning Quarterbacking

Posted on: November 18, 2017 at 13:46:47 CT

Well at least I started it this morning. Lol

I have said I think a lot of what’s happening with lineups is CM trying to learn what he has. I think certain things showing up in practice just aren’t translating to the court during games. Add to that the MPJ injury situation. Remember everybody is new to each other when it comes to coaches to coaches, players to the coaches and even existing players to the new players. I know others will have different opinions. Based on what I’ve seen so far it’s my version of what and why I think the starting lineup for now could be.

Geist, Robertson, Barnett, Jontay, Nikko

It should be evident the reasons for Robertson and Barnett so I want discuss them.

Geist – though I was not a big fan of his, he’s shown me something and seems to be the steadier player for the point right now. I still believe he’s a better back up eventually. I would rather see Harris play and be allowed go through his growing pains during this part of the schedule. Especially when I see some of the other young point guards around the country being allowed to work through the same issues by coaches and teaching them along the way. I understand CM has the issue to deal with of the veteran players losing for the past three years and trying to get them into a winning mindset and attitude. Plus he has said if a older player and younger player are closs his tendacy is to go with the older player. I think point guard is one of the positions you can afford to have someone that is not a big scorer. This also allows Robertson more time at his natural position.

Nikko – I didn’t know what to think about him coming into the season based on the fact that he had dealt with injuries coming in last year. I have been very impressed with him thus far and it was really kicked up a notch against Utah. It’s one thing tom perform against an under sized Iowa State or Wagner but Utah’s bigs were legit and he faired real admirably against them. When you think about it though, he has to go against Tilmon, Jontay and to a lesser extent Porter Jr in practice. Ultimately I think he is the backup but here’s the issue and why I say start him. Tilmon’s foul problems probably render him best suited to be a backup until he can get that under control and amp down some. He needs to learn how to mamage his aggression and energy at the start of games. Remember how he said he was so amped up at the beginning of the Iowa State game he asked to be taken out. That was his best game to date. You don’t want him to lose either of those because those are great qualities to have in a big man. But he needs to lean not to challenge guards for steals and be more aware of others on the court. In high school where you’re an anomaly at his size you can do that but not on this level. This is the other position I think you can get away with not having a volume scorer just someone that can keep the opposition honest, clog the lane, rebound, have good hands and be able to kick it out. For now I think Nikko could handle that.

Jontay – One of the things I see from Jontay is something I thought could be a problem from the day he reclassified. That is his conditioning due to the fact he started two months behind everyone else. Digressing for a moment, that is why I think this team can also be good next year. Outside his brother ( and maybe one can argue Tilmon ), Jontay’s skill set makes him the most capable on the team of being an impact player. He may never be the volume scorer his brother is but it could be argued with the way he can fill up a stat sheet has the ability to make others around him better. I don’t have a problem with him taking 3s. In a starting role with encouragement to go all out playing his game, his percentages could get better. At least, maybe as good as Puryear. The problem to me with Puryear is the ball sticks a little to long when he's fed in the post and he try’s to forces things instead of kicking it out and resetting to receive it again. Then when he trys to finally kick out he's prone to maybe turn it over. Jontay has the potential to be better at that. Another problem, in my opinion is Jontay has become so use to being the side man to his more talented brother he's kind of use to deferring. He needs to be encouraged to step out of his shadow and be one of the main guys as this team is now. This will make it better whenever MPJ does return.

In the end they need to treat this as if MPJ is not on the team at all.

Edited by longtimereader at 13:57:52 on 11/18/17