Exhibition Game vs Georgia State. GSU should be a competitive mid major. Not a bad test. Interested to see how it goes. Will (most likely) be in attendance.

I would love to hear a report from anyone who attended the game!

Heard the score was 94-61. Dilione may have been leading scorer with 14.

Good article to read.

https://247sports.com/college/georgia/longformarticle/4-takeaways-from-georgia-bulldogs-basketballs-victory-over-georgia-state-290984783/#2886435

Based on all the reports, there seems to be good hope for this team. I remember last year watching against State and I was very unimpressed with the play.

We shall see. The big man play will be an issue. I know there seems to be some higher levels of "confidence" for them but I'm not sold. James Scott is our only proven big man and he's a purely defensive/rebounding presence. His offensive game is lacking for sure. We are taking a flyer on these younger guys being better than advertised. Which is risky when you're building a team around a core of older guys who for the most part probably will not be back next year. I just hope CMW has planned accordingly for such.

I hear you and hopefully Jonas Hayes can help some of these big guys develop a slightly better offense game on the low post. (Fingers crossed)

BallDawg said:

---

We shall see. The big man play will be an issue. I know there seems to be some higher levels of "confidence" for them but I'm not sold. James Scott is our only proven big man and he's a purely defensive/rebounding presence. His offensive game is lacking for sure. We are taking a flyer on these younger guys being better than advertised. Which is risky when you're building a team around a core of older guys who for the most part probably will not be back next year. I just hope CMW has planned accordingly for such.

---

I was in the building for the exhibition against Charlotte. We have a full stable of shooters (good!), but I share your concerns re: the big men. I fear that a few of these SEC front courts are going to chew us up and spit us out...

Florida is going to have a field day with us. Same could be said about a majority of the upper echelon of the SEC. We will have to figure something out I am just not sure what.

There is a way to play with mobile, smaller ball-handling "bigs". At an early practice and the Ga. State game last year I noted that despite some uncertainty we could field solid lineups that either 1) only had one big (who was limited offensively) or 2) no true big (post) at all. Coach White was asked about that and commented on it at the after-practice Q and A with fans. He seemed comfortable playing with forwards and even posts who could handle the ball in order to play a particular style of up-tempo offense and high pressure defense.

And as the season developed indeed, we were able to usually compete with nearly everybody (Fla ) who had better and more bigs. (Though we even had a really good half against them).

The downside is vulnerability in the rebounding department and we saw that bite us sometimes, sometimes not.

So coming off the most regular season wins in school history in this SEC (!) that tells me our staff knows how to utilize this kind of lineup. And if any of the "bigs" develop exponentially, even better. But I think this staff knows how to play a largely position-less kind of basketball while utilizing a few key players in very position specific roles (some smaller than avg. guards) and (a defensive specialist post). I like 20+ wins when all is said and done before the SEC tourney. If we start the non-con early season very competitive we will have a good idea of where we are headed. And we have to stay healthy.

Good health and Depth come January and February are going to be key.

Remember last year, in the early season we played double figure numbers of players. We continued that for much of the season, until the second half of the SEC schedule when Coach White began to narrow the minutes. It was around that time that K. Stagg's numbers really came alive (Florida game). [His improvement from that early practice and the early Ga. State game going forward to the tournaments was huge--though he looked like he was a game changer even back at the first practice.] So if someone like that emerges again, (which is likely) we should be formidable.Go Dawgs!