Hi All!

I did go to the St. Francis (SF) game. I had a great write up but the system logged me out and I lost it! So, instead of trying to re-create it I will just give a couple of quick points.

1. SF was not very good, so it is hard to really gauge any progress.

2. We did lower our TOs quite a bit and the only player with more than 1 TO was Harris.

3. Key players who looked really good: Dotson, Love, Anderson. Dotson was the high scorer and played well. Made some 3's and showed a lot of attitude. Love was great. He's a BALLER! Had tremendous energy, made a couple of 3's in the first half, had a spectacular feed to Ola-Joseph for a dunk. He also looked like he had good defensive awareness. He played so well in the 1st half that Drew started him in the 2nd half. Daniil struggled in the first half and caught a lot of Drew's ire. Daniil played better in the second half but he is still thinking way too much. He did hit a 3 in the second half. I think Daniil is in jeopardy of falling behind Love in the rotation. Anderson got in late in the game. I know people look at him as a potential project or red shirt, but he played well. He has good awareness and good basketball IQ. He was very active and had 2 nice moments. He cut along the baseline on one play, got a nice feed and dunked. He also beat his man baseline one time and finished with a dunk. As Sloth84 likes to tell me, he reminds him of Lucas. I think Anderson might have more hops than Lucas and we will see if develops into a 3 pt shooter, but he does have similar traits. Dotson (soph), Love (fr), and Anderson (fr) are good young players who certainly have the ability to be core players here.

4. We shot FTs much better in this game and shot it well from the floor in the first half. Shooting fell off a bit in the second half as we were up big and seemed to lose a little focus offensively in taking some rushed shots.

5. Defensively, SF was so over matched it is hard to gauge if we were really good or if it was product of who we were playing.

6. We pressed quite a bit after made baskets. I like the idea of putting pressure on teams. The only problem was we committed a lot fouls in the backcourt and SF did get to the bonus early in the first half. Now you can press for two different reasons. One is late in games when you are trailing and need TOs, and one is more passive pressure when you are just trying to slow a team down, maybe wear them out a little and hope for a TO or two. I am not sure which one of these Drew was using during the game or if was just experimenting. The fouls though are something we have to curtail a bit.

7. I liked what I saw overall and think this team could be very good. Miles looks like he might be ready for a monster year. Amos still had a splint on his pinky and did not play. We are gonna be deep and Drew will have a lot of bodies he can use.

I am very excited and can't wait for Monday night when we play a real game against Cleveland State.