did anyone see the game?
what were your observations?

I was there. It was...not great.

Mike White was extremely critical of the effort in the postgame - particularly of the vets. He said he had to coach that in-game, and that was disappointing.

Catchings was probably the lone bright spot. He has to be our best player this year if we're going to do anything, and he was.

Kuany, Osasuyi, and Williams showed some flash and effort, but they are young.

The shooting was atrocious all night. Even Dunlap, the career 40% shooter from deep, was off.

Honestly, they just have to flush this one. NC Central was 357 KemPom coming into the night. We were favored by 40. The reality is every single player has to be better than they were Monday night. Hopefully we see a different team on Friday.

I was not impressed at all. This did not look like a good basketball team. I felt like the defensive effort was lacking at best. We had guys being lazy and leaving their feet and jumping on really poor perimeter shot contests. I did not like the point of attack we took on ball screens, I felt like we were not physical and bumping them off NCCU downhill drives. Any time we tried to hedge a screen early on, there wasn't enough communication for someone to tag the roller until the hedge got back or pick up the roller all together if we trapped the ball handler. I think we just played really soft and when NCCU wanted to go 1 on 1 and get downhill, we did not play good enough on ball defense. Also maybe this was intentionally schemed but I felt like the help defense and rotations looked slow and sloppy. Now I have been over critical so it isn't the end of the world, just if you have been around this forum long enough you'll see that tends to be my outlook especially on the defensive end.

Stagg was banged up and tried to play but rightfully so did not, it is not worth rushing back, so when he gets back, a lot of those issues will resolve themselves by him being out there. Without him out there especially without Scott on the floor NCCU just got wayyy too many paint touches which led to high quality looks.

I liked how Donavon Williams looked, and think he will play an important role for this team. I think there could be something there with Miading Kuany and Andrew Osasuyi, but time will tell if it materializes.

Regarding shooting struggles, we have seen with these CMW teams have struggled to have shooters, but I am not going to jump the gun on if this team can shoot or not based off one game. We shot poorly from 3 but it is the first game. We in theory should have better shooting this year, Blue bounce back year, Kanon can shoot the ball, Dunlap and Dillone are shooters, Smurf hit big shots last year. But this does not mean I am super optimistic, I think that the shots we hit were tougher shots and I wish we could scheme open more open looks. However what was concerning was our free throw shooting. You absolutely cannot shoot 67% from the FT line in SEC play and think you will consistently win games. This should be addressed by now and needs to be one of our strengths if we want to play downhill, attack the rim, and play in transition.

These stats are had to take value in against a lower tier quality opponents, but turnovers were okay for the most part. You want to hover right under 10 TO a game in a perfect world and around 15 assists per game as well. So a 13 assist to 11 TO ratio is not good but it isn't awful. I do not like how we were so close on the boards, 36-37, and is reflective of how our bigs are. Besides Scott, they are young and scrawny, this will have to improve against better competition or we are screwed.

It is clear, and reflective in the shot chart, that this team is playing for 3 things. Fast break points, buckets around the rim, and 3 point shots. This is not that uncommon especially in the modern era of basketball where many teams are adapting this way. I think for this to work it is extremely important to force turnovers, run in transition, and be able to finish at the rim. I think Blue did a good job of that and Kanon showed finesse around the rim. You can speed up teams like NCCU, but come SEC play we will need much better half court offense and I wish we could spend more time setting that up and relying on that.

Lots to improve and this team is far from being a good final product.

Agree on the free throw shooting. it was atrocious most of the game sitting at or under 50% for over half the game if I remember correctly.