Cowboy Hoops

[EscondidoPoke]

After watching this young team for 3 + 1 this season........my take is:

The only way they will be competive once the conference season starts is:

The starters should be:

1. Adams (no doubt)
2. Herndon (most skilled of the bigs and can shoot from outside)
3. Washington (most improved of all - redshirt season helped him big time)
4. James (still a little raw but in a couple years dude will be an animal)
5. McManaman (if he can shoot the ball consistently otherwise I would put Marshall in his spot if he doesn't and bring him off the bench.

Off The Bench:

6. Marshall (guy can play defense as well as stroke the ball - could start should either McManaman or Washington hit a rough patch)
7. Aka Gorski (could compliment shooting from outside but his defense is not very good)
8. Hayden Dalton (even though he could have probably used a redshirt year we need him on the frontline plus he has basketball smarts)
9. Barnes (way too slow for DI basketball but again Pokes are thin on the frontline - get into conference play he will get chewed up big time)
10. Liebermann (sorry to say but has not shown any improvement over last year especially defensively)
11. Naughton (another guy who could use a redshirt year but re: frontline so need a big body).

If we go .500 this year I think it will be a pretty good season. As in football, when you are the 4th youngest team in DI hoops you have to expect some serious bumps in the road. However, if they play with the 5 starts I stated I think athletically they may be able to run and gun and pull a few surprises along the way. As well, presently we are a pretty piss-poor rebounding team which is why I think going athletically versus size, we may be able to pull down more missed shots than we do right now. Also, defensively we cannot stop the 3 to save our ass so I would hope Larry goes with a zone defense the rest of the way and switch from a 1-3-1 to a 2-3 to help defend the 3 pointers we have been getting killed on.

As when Nance and that class started out this team could be pretty darn dangerous in a couple years! A little patience for the next couple seasons to let these kids mature and add some bulk, these group will be a pretty fun team to watch down the road.

I do believe mostly that for the next 4-5 years this will be a fun team to watch grow into a Shyatt team that will contend with anybody!

GO POKES

[BeaverPoke]

We got a whole forum for this on the basketball page