Definitely a young team and a lot of inconsistencies. Not only is it a young team, but it's basically a totally different team from last year. You figure 3 of the 4 returning players were freshman last year.
Some of the positives I've seen are we have a pretty deep bench with a lot of guys that can play. I think we're more athletic and faster than teams in the past. Simmons really impresses me at times for being a freshman. We've been in all 8 games at halftime and led many of them. We're +47 rebounds, +11 blocks & +11 steals. Our foul shooting is better than it's been in a long time.
The negatives. We really don't have that go to guy like in the past with KP & Cam and even Hartfield. I feel like at the moment it's Hampton, who is our leading scorer and hasn't started a game this year. Reminds me a little of Matt Donlan when he got hot. No go to guy seems like that's really hurt us in games when we've went on scoring droughts. While maybe Hartfield didn't fit in with the style or whatever, I feel he was a huge loss. The turnovers have been a real concern. We're averaging 16 a game.
I was really excited about Pederson after the first 3 games but he really hasn't been a factor since. Naz has been strong on the boards but I was hoping for more on the scoring end. Morgan has yet to really impress me yet. I thought Akuchie showed flashed last year and was hoping for more of that this year but he has seemed to really struggle. We really need an inside presence and not have to rely on outside shooting.
The rest of the non-conference is going to be tough with WVU, Ohio State and both Central & Western Michigan appear to be good. The best chance of winning looks like Binghamton. If we could pick up a couple wins over that final stretch it would be improvement over last year when we failed to win a D1 game in non-conference.