Florida A&M Game Thread

[drbluejay]

Maybe this is the year Mac decides to go 10 deep!

When conference season starts, The 3 perimeter starters will all play over 30 minutes a game and Kalk could be the 4th one at over 30 minutes. I think we'll see 8 players getting 10 minutes or more playing time and some games only 7 players. It's hard to win games with your 9th and 10th man on the court.

[AttyAlum]

Alot of good things tonight but i like what im seeing from Dotzler. If he can keep guys honest from 3 his dribble drive penetration and aggressiveness is something this team needs more of.

Completely agree. Dotzler is bigger and quicker than I expected. He plays with a lot of confidence for a true freshman. The defensive play he made where he ran the length of the floor and knock away a for sure fast break bucket for FAMU was a thing of beauty.

[blueblood]

The 4 spot is Definity the weak link. That being said the other 4 players are so good most days it won't matter.

[westojay]

It will be interesting to see what dimension Green can provide once healthy. I think he will be able to provide defense and some more athleticism at the 4.

[Chicagojayfan]

The 4 spot is Definity the weak link. That being said the other 4 players are so good most days it won't matter.

calling them the weak link is a bit strong, IMO. Their job will be to play a complementary role this year and if they do anything like what they did last night, we'll all be very happy with them (19 pts, 14 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 turnovers is a very nice night's work from the 4 position by anyone's standards). And the competition goes up, but they'll be the 4th or 5th option most times down the floor so we aren't asking them to be Marcus Foster and go one on one to get a basket

And Traudt struggled a bit with Lamar, but overall we held him below 50% shooting, and he's really more of a SG/SF Wing type player where Traudt was trying to defend a quick guy who's 5 inches shorter and around lbs lighter

And those 2 plus Green will give Mac some nice flexibility as well as Traudt can play the 5 in smaller lineups, Miller can play the 3 and Green looks to me to be a swiss army knife kind of guy on defense'

My bold prediction is we'll be pretty happy with what we have at the 4 this year

[vivid_dude]

The 4 spot is Definity the weak link. That being said the other 4 players are so good most days it won't matter.

Relatively speaking, this is probably true. But that's only because Creighton arguably has the best combination of 1, 2, 3 and 5 players in the country. That was so amazing to type. I'm going to do it again. Creighton arguably has the best 1, 2, 3 and 5 players on one team in the entirety of college basketball. 90% of 4's in America would be a weak link on this team. Ash was the only question mark. Acknowledging it's a bit irresponsible to say this after one game against a bad team, I'm already sold that he won't be a question mark.

But as chicagojayfan said, if what we saw last night is what we get for the rest of the season from the 4, sign me up.

Expectations out of our group (Miller, Traudt and Green) - hit 35% of three's, don't get lost on defense, be where you're supposed to be on offense, no hero ball, box out, continue to improve because we will really lean into you next year!

Damn, that was fun to watch last night.

[Django]

I liked Traudt. Big body, hardass face, shuffles his feet… kinda like a power conference Hegner

Don’t mind miller start as he quicker

[LJay]

19 points and 14 boards per game from the 4 for the season and you may start carving the school name into various trophies. I doubt that continues but if it does, oy!!!

[SeattleJay]

No one has mentioned Lawson’s game last night. I thought he had his best game defensively of the 5 games he has played as a Bluejay.

His shooting in the prior 4 games looked pretty good but his defense looked like it had room for improvement IMHO.

If he responds positively to being one of the last guys in the game and uses it as motivation to learn and grow, he could help this team down the road. It would be great to have a really deep bench.

[LJay]

No one has mentioned Lawson’s game last night. I thought he had his best game defensively of the 5 games he has played as a Bluejay.

His shooting in the prior 4 games looked pretty good but his defense looked like it had room for improvement IMHO.

If he responds positively to being one of the last guys in the game and uses it as motivation to learn and grow, he could help this team down the road. It would be great to have a really deep bench.

He seems to be a chaser instead of being ahead of the curve on what the opponent is running. You can’t get minutes with Mac without being able to defend. I remain skeptical at this point.