Also, the talent gap between the big boys and mid-majors has narrowed a lot with guys going to the NBA so early.

BUT, at the end of the day, it was just one game. We’ll see how things go in the next few weeks. It just appeared all too much like the past after one game. But Beamer always says you improve the most between Game #1 and #2, so we’ll see if that applies to basketball too.

I am noticing a few upsets early in the college Basketball season. Mississippi State to Iona, UCLA loss to Cal State, Kentucky pushed by Miami of Ohio, and Carolina struggles against Valpo. Which proves early in the season is not indicative of long term outcomes. I employ the fans to be patient we are a work in progress.

Traveler – I think the reason you don’t see more pressure is Delaney. You can’t press if he’s playing 37 minutes a night. And right now he clearly doesn’t have trust in Erick Green running the point or he’d have played him more last night. I agree we have good athletes but Seth’s system is a half court system – on offense and defense. It is tough to coach in a way you aren’t comfortable with, similar to how Purnell struggles to run a half court system.
As for scheduling, the ACC/big(11)10 set who plays who, so there’s nothing we could do about drawing iowa. And to be fair, we’ve only won once in the challenge (and that was against iowa). But I agree with you on needing to play tougher competition. The issue of late has been we couldn’t beat the good teams OOC and lost to a couple of crappy teams. All I can figure is we are just trying to rack up wins this year, or teams just won’t play us in a home and home.

As I watch all the excitement around college basketball on the tube on upcoming games it frustrates me a little. Why don’t we have the buzz around our bball program a lot of other universities have? We play in arguably the premier conference in the country. How did we draw Iowa in the ACC Big Ten Challenge. My point is Seth needs to step outside his comfort zone. I know last year we play some “sexy” games and lost. They were close games. In order to grow as a program you have to lose those kind of games, because you can than clinically assess how to win them. If you want the benefit of the doubt on selection sunday you have to build a reputation of being a fighter. Gonzaga his a Mid-Major program but you wouldn’t know it base on their exposure. If you want to be in the conversation with recruits like Harrison Barnes you have to play someone. The other thing looking at our roster and the way we play you would never be able to tell how athletic a team we are. We always play our opponents style. Last night was ridiculous, we should have pressed them to death. We don’t run at all. Kids like to score the ball. That half court style will not put your program over the top. And don’t tell me we don’t have the personnel to run, last nights starting five play well above the rim and including JT who we know what he can do in the open court we can do better. Im done just an observation.

The broken foot setback is awful though… he better realize that it’s only a small setback and that it’ll be up to him to determine how exactly he wants to bounce back from it. Anybody heard how his rehab has been going??

Guru – Yes, Allen could give us fits – our post defense (one of the things we really need to improve on this year) was very poor in the second half. A better big man could eat us up in the paint. Guys were getting the ball too close to the basket and we weren’t boxing out in the second half. We just can’t seem to defend the post for 40 minutes.

Traveler – I agree on Hudson/Delaney. We saw this some last year – Hudson would be involved early and then completely disappear. One of the problems last year is he couldn’t dribble, so he couldn’t help in terms of bringing the ball up and such or create off the dribble. He is reliant on others, and if Delaney isn’t sharing the rock as you said, there’s no much he can do. It appeared to me Delaney was forcing more shots yesterday. In a way, he has to with Vassallo gone but I agree he might have over done this. We really need Green to step up and be able to get more minutes.

One other note – JT Thompson still does not have a consistent jump-shot, at least not tonight. I wonder if that is why Bell is getting the nod as the starter. Bell seems to be a better defender and have a better outside shot. Thompson was a better rebounder, but Bell stepped up with 7 tonight. Thompson needs to be able to hit open 12-18 footers if he wants to play.