Duke is too scared to leave Cameron indoor…thus they lost in the tournament and a tough tested team like the gators won!
While I have complained about is having to play our toughest opponents on the road, it could be a blessing in disguise. UF knows that they need to improve to win it all, and at least they learned that lesson early that repeating is not going to be easy. Might have been harder to understand if they had an easier schedule.
But the problem is that Brown and Ingram are sort of redundant at this stage. They are both wings who can’t really handle the ball. You can’t play either much at the 2. If you play them both, that’s less time for Haugh at the 3. Golden prefers playing eight. Analytics wise, offense is better at seven, defense better at nine. He sort of splits the difference. I like where we are rotation-wise. We just don’t have many options when a guard is playing too badly to stay on the floor.
I agree that they both fill the same role RN. CJ is 3-9 from deep where Brown is 4-18. Small sample size but while both are athletic, CJ is also taller and looks a bit twitchier... That said I don't think one over the other for 6-8mins would change the course of our season much. That also said, I don't care much about saving a year of eligibility nowadays.
I try to give feedback to the forum based upon decades of basketball experience, and I hope that some of you find it useful. I believe that I've been correct more often than not. I find that too often, destructive false narratives spread throughout the forums and eventually into the fanbase. For example silly notions such as: - Walter Clayton Jr isn't a true point guard and we need to get another one to win - Zyon was better at PG for us than Walter - Our star players will be tired the next game from playing 30 minutes in a previous game - Haugh will struggle to guard other team's small forwards (3 position)
Yep. I like Golden's rotations, personally. 8 is all you really need unless there's foul trouble or injuries. As a player, I liked no more than 7 players getting significant minutes, but 8 was the max. Any more than that makes it hard to get into and keep a good rhythm.
You have played and I have played. Now if it was an Illinois High School Championship game where you have to play two games the same day their might be a point. But mostly mental fatigue and not physical fatigue. I can recall playing 3 hours of pick-up and never had tired legs. In fact my shot got better. And played the next day.
That’s why it’s extra special when we beat them in the tournament or we win the natty and they don’t!
I think you misunderstood my post. I was telling people here that this wasn’t true when it was becoming a false narrative. I explained the same thing you just said. Players aren’t going to get tired like that. Especially if they have days in between games. Several posters here are still promoting this narrative that somehow Tommy will get worn down by playing 30 minutes a game.
I totally agree with you. I used to bike race and what we had to do on a weekend omnium (three races and often a long road race and a time trial on Saturday and a long road race on Sunday) was brutal. Rode an easy recovery ride on Monday and back to hard training on Tuesday getting ready for the next weekend.
Princeton alum from Tampa, Florida. Just my 2 cents on Lee's defensive capabilities, and my theory on why the guards have largely seemed to struggle so much this season. The lack of a capable defensive guard coming off the bench boils down to the fact that Lee and Fland are being asked to defend 40 minutes of elite guard play between the two of them. The Gators backcourt went from four capable defensive guards last year (Clayton, Richard, Martin, Aberdeen) to now just two (Fland, Lee). Based on this fact, Fland and Lee are being asked to take on double the defensive role of what any of the guards last year were doing, while having a target on their back as defending national champs. The abundance of elite talent in the Gators' front court also means that teams will plan on doubling down on attacking from the perimeter. If either of Fland or Lee have been looking out of juice on the offensive end this season, I hope you see why now. CTG has tasked the two transfers with filling the shoes of four guards defensively between just the two of them, and then some. But it's clear to me that Lee is playing much beyond any expectations on the defensive end. Let's look at the stats. Against Georgia, Lee was assigned Jeremiah Wilkinson who recently had 31 pts against Auburn, yet held him to 1/9 from the field. Also notched 3 critical steals which led to easy fast break points. Against Tennessee, he was matched against Amari Evans and Bishop Boswell, limiting them to 1 field goal each. This should be tremendously exciting for all Gators fans. CTG bought into Lee as a dynamic playmaking guard, however, Lee ends up developing a tremendous amount of defense as well (though let's see if this trend continues). Haugh is shooting really well, and Chinyelu has made a huge jump offensively as well. Just about all of the projected shortcomings heading into the season are now suddenly looking like genuine strong points instead. On another note, I wish the Ivies would allow NIL. Imagine if Jeff Bezos was able to boost the Princeton team. They could've ended up with Cam Boozer, Koa Peat, Darryn Peterson, AJ Bybantsa, and Lee on the same team. As a fan in the SEC, I'd be thankful that Ivy donor money goes into cancer research and building particle accelerators instead...
One my closest friends / Cav buddies from our Army days is a Princeton grad. ('77 I think). He was quite a lacrosse star in prep at Andover, and earned his letter at Princeton in same. He often laments the differences between an Ivy and Enormous State Universities (like UF) but he was excited to share the news about XLee and seems to be following the team now because of it.
Princeton lacrosse is one of the best programs in America. They have their own version of NIL boosters though. Athletes in some Ivy sports programs – Princeton lacrosse is certainly one of them – graduate with a degree in Mickey Mouse film studies into strongly established investment banking and private equity pipelines. Within a few years, they are generally earning much more than top end NIL athletes and physicians. The closest equivalent is gifting McDonald's bags filled with cash, except it's totally legal because employers can cite "strong work ethic" when hiring former athletes. I have my suspicions that some student athletes can and will purposefully throw sports matches as leverage in the hiring process.
I have no idea if that lacrosse-booster stuff applied to my buddy. He graduated with some engineering degree, went to work for some nascent thing called Computer-Assisted Design company then decided he wanted to serve his country. Did his time as an armored cav officer then resigned to go back and resurrect his CAD outfit. Has done well for himself financially.
Maybe in lieu of. We have yet to see his dynamic playmaking abilities, and he has been getting worked over on defense more times than not. However, he seems to be progressing along with our other guard and I hope it continues. I think by coach putting more of a focus on defense it takes the pressure off of the offense.
Xaivian is a better player than a lot of folks here realize. They see the shooting and not much else. But he sees the floor, distributes well, rebounds well for a guard, and is a capable defender. Both Boogie and Lee are delivering the ball to our bigs, who are finishing at a higher rate than before. Condo is even using his left hand on layups and hooks now.
We held Pack to 5 points on poor shooting (1 for 6 on 2 point shots, 1-2 from the arc) last night. And Pack is a guy that is a 2000+ point career scorer in college.
