Very, very quickly - Cal has become loaded with talent.
It's not simply Brown and Rabb, it's the fact that they are coming on top of Wallace, Bird and Mathews not to mention solid pieces like Domingo, Rooks, Okoroh, Jolly, Dillard and Singer.
The emphasis shifts from accumulating talent to building a team that can win. That starts with handling higher expectations. Managing egos and getting everyone to buy into the team first concept. Cuonzo is absolutely the right person to be leading our team. His staff needs to continue to improve and that means attention to details - running a smoother half court offense than we saw last year, no more administrative technicals, more consistency game to game, etc.
We have depth - that will allow us to press, run and go hard for 40 minutes. The opportunity is created to play a lot of kids and hopefully figure out how to keep them happy, in a rhythm and create good chemistry. That's not easy to do.
Practices are going to be crucial as the kids are going to be facing top talent day in and day out. Toughness, competitiveness and polished skills are going to be developed in those practices that will carry over to the games and make us a better team.
Questions: How do our two 7 foot aircraft carriers fit into the style of play this teams make up will demand? Where is the beef against the wider and stronger teams we will face? Can we play ten kids and still establish rhythm, chemistry and offensive flow?
On the surface, it looks like we will be a much improved defensive team. All four newcomers and rare in that they are HS players who were known as much for their defense as their offense. Versatile and tough are the two words one would use to describe the incoming class. We'll also be a team that is going to want to extend pressure on the perimeter. Mathews and Bird are going to have to fight to get more minutes as they are likely our worst perimeter defenders. Wallace, Singer, Domingo and the three newcomers are all versatile and can cover a ton of different positions. With the 7 footers blocking everything in the paint, our only real defensive weaknesses are the lack of an ultra quick lateral player to stop the jitterbug points and time to give the frosh the experience to play good help side defense.
Minutes: This is going to be tough.
Rabb: 28 minutes
Wallace: 30 minutes
Bird/Mathews: 24 minutes each
Brown: 25 minutes
Domingo/Jolly: 12 minutes each
Singer: 20 minutes
Rooks/Okoroh: 25 minutes combined
Ten man rotation
It's not simply Brown and Rabb, it's the fact that they are coming on top of Wallace, Bird and Mathews not to mention solid pieces like Domingo, Rooks, Okoroh, Jolly, Dillard and Singer.
The emphasis shifts from accumulating talent to building a team that can win. That starts with handling higher expectations. Managing egos and getting everyone to buy into the team first concept. Cuonzo is absolutely the right person to be leading our team. His staff needs to continue to improve and that means attention to details - running a smoother half court offense than we saw last year, no more administrative technicals, more consistency game to game, etc.
We have depth - that will allow us to press, run and go hard for 40 minutes. The opportunity is created to play a lot of kids and hopefully figure out how to keep them happy, in a rhythm and create good chemistry. That's not easy to do.
Practices are going to be crucial as the kids are going to be facing top talent day in and day out. Toughness, competitiveness and polished skills are going to be developed in those practices that will carry over to the games and make us a better team.
Questions: How do our two 7 foot aircraft carriers fit into the style of play this teams make up will demand? Where is the beef against the wider and stronger teams we will face? Can we play ten kids and still establish rhythm, chemistry and offensive flow?
On the surface, it looks like we will be a much improved defensive team. All four newcomers and rare in that they are HS players who were known as much for their defense as their offense. Versatile and tough are the two words one would use to describe the incoming class. We'll also be a team that is going to want to extend pressure on the perimeter. Mathews and Bird are going to have to fight to get more minutes as they are likely our worst perimeter defenders. Wallace, Singer, Domingo and the three newcomers are all versatile and can cover a ton of different positions. With the 7 footers blocking everything in the paint, our only real defensive weaknesses are the lack of an ultra quick lateral player to stop the jitterbug points and time to give the frosh the experience to play good help side defense.
Minutes: This is going to be tough.
Rabb: 28 minutes
Wallace: 30 minutes
Bird/Mathews: 24 minutes each
Brown: 25 minutes
Domingo/Jolly: 12 minutes each
Singer: 20 minutes
Rooks/Okoroh: 25 minutes combined
Ten man rotation
