Things I saw vs North Florida

[JwgreDeux 1,279]

A few observations from the game last night: 

 

I attended last night as I was eager to get a look at this bunch of Tigers and they did not disappoint. First think I noticed is LeRon Smith is smaller than I expected. He is not quite as thick as Horace Spencer and about the same height. He is less athletic than Horace and doesn't have great hands. That being said he is long and pretty athletic. Horace Spencer looked good, slightly thicker than last season and just as energetic and athletic as ever. He is our best interior defender, blocking shots, using good position, and making entry passes difficult. That being said he got into foul trouble again, and fouled out again. He has to get better at not fouling quickly as we can't win without him for long stretches. As far as size goes, Purifoy and McLemore were bigger in person than I expected. Both have strong solid builds and did well defending North Florida's post guys who were mostly in the 6-7 to 6-9 range. However they both found themselves out of position in numerous rebounding opportunities, including basic stuff like boxing out the right man on foul shots. We were out rebounded as a result of these issues. The good news is the positioning issues can be improved/corrected which will help tremendously, the bad news is they can't get bigger. Rebounding will be a season long struggle, there's no way around it, just have to do the best we can. 

Harper is as advertised. Fun to watch, lightning quick, composed and confident. I like this kid a ton. The backup played well as too, but Harper is the guy at the point for now. Heron played well. He did force a few shots when he attempted to attach the rim, but I don't mind that at all. We need an aggressive scorer who doesn't just settle for jump shots. 

Biggest surprise was Dunnans not playing the role or as much as I expected. He didn't start, and was basically a role player when he got in the game. He will still be relied on at times, but I expected him to be more involved in the offense (perhaps limited by an undisclosed injury?). 

Biggest take away: Brown can flat out shoot it. He had a good freshman campaign last year, but I expect big things from him during his stay at Auburn. His stroke is a thing of beauty, and he added a few off the dribble mid range pull ups last night to lead us in scoring. He lets the game come to him, understands floor spacing when he doesn't have the ball, and is very confident in his game. I don't want to over exaggerate, but he could be JJ Reddick type good. He deserved getting the start, and scored our first 6 points right out of the gate. He was comfortable putting the ball on the floor and seems to have developed his game significantly in the off-season.

 

This team will be fun to watch. North Florida is not a cupcake, and we were up almost 30 at the half and the game was never in doubt. That being said, we could clean up our performance significantly in the turnovers and rebounding departments. Looking forward to watching these guys grow. 

[NoALtiger 3,849]

Excellent observations, thanks!

[mustache eagle 2,388]

Pretty much what I saw and stays in line with last weeks exhibituon game.  I stated last week that dunnans was in danger if not starting due to brown or Lang, specifically because of their shooting.  Brown makes a little more sense because of his shooting.  

It also seemed to help dunnans who came off the bench and did a little bit of everything well and was a spark.  I got the impression last week that dunnans was pressing and it caused him problems.  Maybe coming off the bench takes a little pressure off him and he can enter the game a little more relaxed.

we lost our composure in the second half.  If we do that up 10 against better competition we could be in trouble.

FT shooting was an issue again last night.

did anyone think we looked fatigued?  I did.  If so, the next 2 games may be disappointments.

[JwgreDeux 1,279]

I atributted the lull in the second half more to youth and chemistry than fatigue, but who knows. 

 

We did play 10 guys so fatigue shouldn't have been an issue except for Purifoy who played a lot of minutes. 

[WarTiger 3,896]

Very impressed with Harper, Heron and Brown.   Brown picked up where he left off last year.  Terrific shooter and deserves to start.  Heron showed why he's a 5 star.   It's looking more and more likely that Wiley will be joining the team in January.  That could be HUGE when conference play gets going.   I was very pleased with what I saw last night.  I was a little disappointed we kind of let them back in the game after building a 30 point lead.   We'll get better at that over the course of the season, I'm sure. 

Next game is Monday night.  Already looking forward to it.

[AU64 10,122]

Spencer fouled out....was hoping he had gotten over his fouling tendencies

[gravejd 3,266]

Getting Wiley in would be huge just from a depth and height standpoint. Spencer and smith will make it tough on people driving to the basket but we'll struggle with teams that can pound it in there. On the plus side we have a strong guard rotation. We'll give teams fits both on offense and defense. We can rotate speed and length at people on the perimeter. Pretty much the entire team can guard out to the three point line. I've seen a few folks down in Dunans play but I thought he was really active. Had blocks steals points assists and rebounds. He'll be a great glue player for us and will probably have some good scoring games from time to time. Great win and start to the season. North Florida was not joke

[Tiger 8,817]

How tall is Wiley?

 

We looked like a team that had a bunch of new faces playing together for the first time. We also are going to get dominated on the boards this year so we need to adjust our expectations. Hard to win when you lose the rebounding battle. We have some very gifted wing players. We have a spark plug true freshman PG. We are going to beat a team or 2 we shouldn't because we have some shooters and if they get hot at the same time we will be extremely hard for anyone to beat. But if we all go cold for extended spurts we could lose to anyone on our schedule. We are going to have to shoot very well and consistently to overcome our lack of rebounding and rim protectors. 

Not down on this team at all -- just pointing out weaknesses, I am actually very excited to watch them play again tonight. We are going to play a fun and entertaining style of basketball, and with so many freshman getting playing time it's going to be fun to watch. We are starting to physically look like a Bruce Pearl team, once we get a guy 6'10 or so for some rim protection we will have a more balanced team. Seems like there isn't all that much size difference between our 3-men and Horace Spencer. Horace is going to have to be our anchor on defense and will need to stay out of foul trouble though. The refs were trying to foul everybody out in our last game, and there's no excuse for a damn 20 point game to take almost 3 hours to finish.

[JwgreDeux 1,279]

Last thing I'll say about this game as we move on to Georgia Southern tonight, but overall I liked what I saw. On the size issue, I'm not worried about team pound the ball inside and score on us. We will guard the perimeter well enough to not let teams out score us, as we will score a lot of points most games. The area of concern I have is rebounding, giving up second chance points and not getting any ourselves can be a killer. Hopefully we see some improvement tonight. 

[AuburnNTexas 7,124]

I did not have the luxury of watching the game but I did listen to it, read the comments of others who saw it and reviewed the statistics.

I have some positive and some negative take away from the game.

A positive that nobody brought up was our center play not as individuals.  Between our two headed Centers we got 13 Points, 12 Rebounds, 3 Steals, 3 blocks, and 2 assists.

A positive many brought up was our shooting and the number of people who can shoot well.

A positive our point guard play and general play of all of our various wing players.

Team D was both a positive and negative our pressing style caused multiple turn overs and easy baskets but there also seemed to be communication issues allowing other team to score

Negative was our rebounding and ability of other team to get the ball inside for scoring opportunities.

Negative was FT percentage.

Negative Foul trouble especially Spencer.

Team D should get better as they play together and learn each others strengths and weaknesses and improve communication.

Rebounding has to be better effort on blocking out as we are smaller than most teams up front.

Not sure what if anything we can do about bigger people in the paint getting the ball in the paint and scoring unless it is tighter defending of the passer which would be tough with the no touch rules being enforced.

Hopefully players adjust to the way the ref's are calling the game tighter this year.

FT Percentage? Your guess is as good as mine as to how to fix this.

I don't know how good we are but listening to the announcers the hustle is there and I expect a fun season. When we get hot we can beat a lot of teams but without a go to inside presence when we get cold we could also lose to teams that have less talent then us. I am happy with the direction we are going.

 

 

 

[NoALtiger 3,849]

6 hours ago, Tiger said:

How tall is Wiley?

 

We looked like a team that had a bunch of new faces playing together for the first time. We also are going to get dominated on the boards this year so we need to adjust our expectations. Hard to win when you lose the rebounding battle. We have some very gifted wing players. We have a spark plug true freshman PG. We are going to beat a team or 2 we shouldn't because we have some shooters and if they get hot at the same time we will be extremely hard for anyone to beat. But if we all go cold for extended spurts we could lose to anyone on our schedule. We are going to have to shoot very well and consistently to overcome our lack of rebounding and rim protectors. 

Not down on this team at all -- just pointing out weaknesses, I am actually very excited to watch them play again tonight. We are going to play a fun and entertaining style of basketball, and with so many freshman getting playing time it's going to be fun to watch. We are starting to physically look like a Bruce Pearl team, once we get a guy 6'10 or so for some rim protection we will have a more balanced team. Seems like there isn't all that much size difference between our 3-men and Horace Spencer. Horace is going to have to be our anchor on defense and will need to stay out of foul trouble though. The refs were trying to foul everybody out in our last game, and there's no excuse for a damn 20 point game to take almost 3 hours to finish.

Listed as 6'11 255 lbs. 

[Tiger 8,817]

6 minutes ago, NoALtiger said:

Listed as 6'11 255 lbs. 

That would be a fantastic get if he enrolls early. If he doesn't I won't be too mad about it as he'll get a full off-season in the program before his first game.