Condon is in Australia right now. Wouldn't be surprised of some others are visiting family right now, too. Probably back for Summer B.
Let's hope the Ghost of Alijah lives through our returners. Nice to have the best conditioned guy, or whatever they dubbed him, returning (Haugh) and setting the pace.
Alijah Martin may have been the best perimeter defender to ever wear the orange and blue. At worst, he's in the "best of" discussion right there with Wilbekin, Brewer, Slap Maxwell, and a handful of others. So I don't expect anyone on the roster to match that. However, collectively, our perimeter defense might be the equal of this past season's. What I would like to see is at least one projected bench guy (Klavzar, Brown, Brown, Ingram, or Lloyd) decide that his best way of getting more minutes in a crowded field is to dedicate himself to playing relentless, hard-nosed, balls-to-the-wall defense. Team defense takes longer to learn, but individual effort will make up for a lot of that.
I just mean the ghost of Martins attitude. That, get the F out my way or I'm gonna rip your head off, attitude. I think it's hard to quantify how much that injected into this last team. I'm hoping some of the returns have what it takes to carry that torch to some level.
From what I've read, Martin was a leader on the team from the day he arrived. He was coaching the guys to give it all they had and really compete hard in practices and in pickup games, but to leave any ill feelings on the practice court, and the second you come off the court you come together as friends and teammates again. It's hard to step in and lead when you're a newbie to the program, but I'm hoping the new guys bring that attitude. Haugh, Condo, and Chins are competitors, so maybe they'll be the new leaders. There were instances of crucial senior leadership I saw in the postseason. Once, Haugh made a huge late bucket (against Awbie or TT), and was mouthing off at their bench. Richard grabbed him and said something, probably, "Uh-uh, that can get you a tech and cost us the game." Haugh nodded and then hurried back down the court. After Chins threw the ball down against Houston and got the tech, Martin got in his face and told him you can't do that. Chins nodded and calmed down. Teachable moments among teammates.
I just don’t see any way we are comparable to last season’s perimeter defense. Martin, Aberdeen, and (a very underrated) Richard were all good. Clayton was spotty, but on average still good—and he could lock in at a high level. Lee wasn’t very good at a lower level, Haugh is making a huge adjustment to defending wings, Klavzar is sort is a smaller, less athletic Clayton defensively, and freshmen are going to be freshmen. Fland is the best on ball defender, but he isn’t huge or physical, so I don’t see him guarding longer perimeter players. I am sort of bullish on Isaiah Brown, but minutes will be hard to come by. By “trading” Aberdeen for Fland, we definitely lowered our floor but raised our ceiling. With Aberdeen, you were gonna have one solid, experienced, versatile, multi-position perimeter defender on the floor 30 minutes a game. He wasn’t going to light it up offensively, but he was the only one bringing to the table what we had a surplus of last year. With Fland, you have a guy is far more limited in terms of who he can guard and far more risky in terms of how we plays (again, a little like Clayton in that regard). But he brings so much more explosiveness to the offense and to our transition game. He really could be a little of both Clayton and Martin in the open court, but the best transition/early ball action point guard we’ve had since Chiozza. Other thing to bear in mind is that our front court play will continue to improve on that end. Condon and Chinyelu were terrific last year, but both can get better. Handlogten will be around for a full season. And Haugh really came on defensively as the season progressed. If you have those guys protecting the rim, clearing the defensive glass, directing traffic in screens and help, and hopefully defending without fouling better (esp Handlogten and Chinyelu), that could really be an elite back line. Similar to 2023 UConn, with Sonago, Clingan, and Jackson (who mostly played 3). If that plays out, we might be able to cover a little more for our perimeter defense, but also maybe be a little more aggressive with our ball screen coverages.
I think Isaiah is going to get more minutes than people expect. He's got a great frame and flashed in limited opportunities last year.
