Crawfoso1973 said:
Personnel-wise I think Josh O is farther away from contributing than I originally thought after the three warmup games. He looked like a deer in headlights and might only be able to play situationally against this caliber of competition, at least early on. I think we might need to see Lohner playing a lof of small ball 5 when Flo is out of the game.
I kinda think that's why they are probably going to play him more minutes in some of these non-conference games that don't mean a lot in order to get him some experience (and obviously because Flo was in foul trouble), but I won't be surprised to see Lohner and small ball in the conference particularly early on since none of the top teams, sans TCU, really have as much size as they normally do.
It's pretty evident Josh O got his first schooling at how much faster bigs at this high of a level move on both O and D. And, to a degree, Keyonte got a bit of wakeup call with his casual ball handling (5 TOs) that worked in AAU ball but isn't gonna cut it against this level or when he moves to the next. He's always gonna be able to create and score because he's so friggin' talented. Now he can work on valuing possessions and D, where he was lost at times tonight. The great news is he's the type of young man who WILL focus on those things and work on them.
But as I said in my posts before the game, win or lose that's what these games are for -- to let you know where you stand and what you need to work on. I won't be surprised to see something similar Sunday. Hopefully not, but if we do it can be just another block in building a path to get better for the rest of the season.
