[76lsjumb]

I've attended all of the home games...and it hasn't been easy to watch [even the wins].  For the most part our shots and shot selection haven't been great, but neither have they been under extraordinary duress.  They just don't seem to go in.  No one has an outside shooting stroke that inspires the kind of confidence that, as soon as the shot is taken, you're thinking it has a good chance to go in.  At the same time, our drives to the basket or set plays designed to get a lay-up or dunk rarely provide the kind of uncontested shot that the great guards [or great offenses] seem to accomplish with some frequency.  Gage's quick-release and fairly accurate 3-pointer from prior years seems to have gone AWOL so far.  Bright has been out for a few games.  He came back in last weekend and airballed his first 3-point shot before [as I recall] making the next one. Unfortunately, the fact that we are taking so many 3's [relative to our success with them] is due to the fact that teams are [smartly, I guess] letting us shoot them and/or we are getting stuck on the perimeter very late in the shot clock and are left with few options.

Powell has been the most...interesting  ??? ... player to watch.  So far, there have really been two Powells, which I have dubbed the 3-point Powell and the 30-point Powell.  Unfortunately, it's never quite clear which one is going to show up.  Finally, this past weekend BOTH of them did -- in the same game.  In the first half, he picked up 2 fouls [and no points] in two minutes and then sat for the rest of the first half.  He picked up his 3rd foul within the first minute of the second half [while still scoreless], then, after about another minute of doing nothing, went on a rampage and scored 20 points in about 12 minutes or so...without committing another foul.

In fact, many of the rotation anomalies [at least among the "bigs"] so far have resulted directly from Powell's [and others] fouling patterns.  Again, last weekend, after Powell sat in the first half with his two, he was replaced by Vanderhoeven [I think], who picked up two more fairly quickly without scoring.  Then, at some point Nastic came in and got 1 or 2 more fouls [also without scoring].  In any event, after Powell picked up his third to start the second half, I believe that position [either "4" or "5"] had accounted for six or seven fouls and no points.

Finally, it doesn't seem to me that we're managing to convert as many "and one" situations as we ought to be.  We'll get fouled and get the free throws, but we don't seem to be muscling the ball into the basket so that we get the field goal as well.

Maybe the shots will start falling eventually, but that hope [wishful thinking?] is based more on the law of averages than on actually seeing evidence of positive developments in the games so far. 

Not too encouraging... [ad, as garvin will tell you, I'm the optimistic one.]

[76lsjumb]

I've attended all of the home games...and it hasn't been easy to watch [even the wins].  For the most part our shots and shot selection haven't been great, but neither have they been under extraordinary duress.  They just don't seem to go in.  No one has an outside shooting stroke that inspires the kind of confidence that, as soon as the shot is taken, you're thinking it has a good chance to go in.  At the same time, our drives to the basket or set plays designed to get a lay-up or dunk rarely provide the kind of uncontested shot that the great guards [or great offenses] seem to accomplish with some frequency.  Gage's quick-release and fairly accurate 3-pointer from prior years seems to have gone AWOL so far.  Bright has been out for a few games.  He came back in last weekend and airballed his first 3-point shot before [as I recall] making the next one. Unfortunately, the fact that we are taking so many 3's [relative to our success with them] is due to the fact that teams are [smartly, I guess] letting us shoot them and/or we are getting stuck on the perimeter very late in the shot clock and are left with few options.

Powell has been the most...interesting  ??? ... player to watch.  So far, there have really been two Powells, which I have dubbed the 3-point Powell and the 30-point Powell.  Unfortunately, it's never quite clear which one is going to show up.  Finally, this past weekend BOTH of them did -- in the same game.  In the first half, he picked up 2 fouls [and no points] in two minutes and then sat for the rest of the first half.  He picked up his 3rd foul within the first minute of the second half [while still scoreless], then, after about another minute of doing nothing, went on a rampage and scored 20 points in about 12 minutes or so...without committing another foul.

In fact, many of the rotation anomalies [at least among the "bigs"] so far have resulted directly from Powell's [and others] fouling patterns.  Again, last weekend, after Powell sat in the first half with his two, he was replaced by Vanderhoeven [I think], who picked up two more fairly quickly without scoring.  Then, at some point Nastic came in and got 1 or 2 more fouls [also without scoring].  In any event, after Powell picked up his third to start the second half, I believe that position [either "4" or "5"] had accounted for six or seven fouls and no points.

Finally, it doesn't seem to me that we're managing to convert as many "and one" situations as we ought to be.  We'll get fouled and get the free throws, but we don't seem to be muscling the ball into the basket so that we get the field goal as well.

Maybe the shots will start falling eventually, but that hope [wishful thinking?] is based more on the law of averages than on actually seeing evidence of positive developments in the games so far. 

Not too encouraging... [ad, as garvin will tell you, I'm the optimistic one.]