Completely agree that Aher is more of an Aundre player than an Ingram. He looked great at the start of the game. Gotta tweak the offense to let him work inside. Outside expectations of him aren’t his fault, so I think it’s pretty crappy how some people dump on him for that (on twitter). In reality he’s making a big jump in terms of playtime and expectations.

We’re six games in. With an extremely young team, a lot of pressure. and we’re getting every teams best shot. Previously people complained about weak non-cons not preparing us for the conference. Now we start to schedule tougher and lose to two solid teams. We weren’t gonna get an at large. Much like this team fans can’t be too tight, gotta relaaaaaaaaax.

Agreed. As we discussed weeks ago, we’re overall a young team this year. The problem is the public perception is we should be Gonzaga off the bat. By the end of the year we could, should, be really good. But will people have patience for the current kids to reach that point. Almost unfair, but it is what it is. BUT, I will say I think these kids can win on Tuesday, IF, they can hit their threes. If they do, it’ll come together in terms of public perception, and all will be ok. If not, it’ll have to wait until March. We’ll see.

Aher first off the bench seems like a good idea to me. Kaifes, Negron, and Bujdoso have all made good cases for starting-- depending on competition.

We also need someone to come in and be a lock-down defensive player when Williamson comes out of the game. Bujdoso?

I can’t imagine Uguak not starting, especially against Nevada of all teams. We are going to need that size and athleticism on the court on defense. Even with his offensive struggles, and I do think that Kaifes brings a lot of nice things on offense, Nevada’s shortest starter is 6’7 I believe, Uguak needs to try and match that size

Clayton played OK, definitely feels like he’s taking on a lot of the burden which is tough on him. Lucas was great and is the future of this program. Nobody else stepped up. I know they’re denying him but Krutwig needs the ball more and should demand it. Getting it to him anywhere near the paint opens up everybody, cutting lanes, shooters (if we hit our shots).

One positive I would say, more than any other year in recent memory we’ve been pretty good at rebounding. That’s about it

Then start Frank or Negron instead of Aher. Uguak played 29 minutes, made 1 shot, got 2 rebounds and committed 4 turnovers. I know he’s gonna have to play a lot, but it would be nice to see us get off to a better start. So far he’s our weakest starter. To see if we can get rolling quicker early, switching him out seems like a logical thing to try.

Agreed, other than one game I havent seen much at all out of uguak. I’m not looking to be nice or optimistic about it, I’m going to be logical and real. His size and athletism hasn’t made up for his awful basketball IQ and horrid shots. Not to mention he got posterized against Furman for the game winning shot, the kid hasn’t impressed me much. He’s “so athletic” there’s been at least 2-3 times where he failed on a dunk, the dudes like 6’7”. So throwing in someone else in his place doesn’t seem unrealistic, because what we’re doing isn’t working. My favorite lineup has actually been bujdoso, Custer, Lucas, Krutwig, and Townes. Definitely seems to be lacking rebound wise in that lineup but we were very efficient offensively. I think Giving negron some more minutes would be worth a shot, but uguak isn’t providing much in my opinion. Not giving up on him at all but, he doesn’t seem like a set starter for me anymore.

I wanted to make this post after watching tonights game, and wanted to not get into a technical critique of each play and player.....
PM talks about the process and we should be doing the same. We are measuring every game this year,
based on our expectations of last season. I know I have been doing that. It's NOT realistic. It puts too much pressure on this team and it shows in their play. Assimilation of young players is a challenge that will be fruitful in time. The team that played so well last season was three years in the making. This years team has the advantage of not starting from scratch, but the burden of making the pieces fit together with consistency.
On the positive side, we've seen glimpses of what our freshmen can do, and I see more good than bad.
PM and the players will figure out the combinations that work, but each game will be a real time learning experience.
BC, Nevada, Maryland, St. Joes are teams that in the past we would not even be thinking about playing, let alone defeating,
so why would we assume that we instantly will be on that level day in and day out. If this years team just played statistically average games, we would be undefeated at this point. But the didn't, and we aren't.
I will look at our remaining non conference games as live learning sessions that will hopefully get our guys in sync for the conference season.
Go Ramblers.....
PS, Regarding all of the Uguak bashing, no one can argue that he's not played as expected. PM certainly sees something there, as he is historically a quick hook for underperformers. It's his call, and I hope to see this player get over the hump and not get tossed in the pile.

On initial read, I can’t say I disagree with any of this. Well done.

On a related but off topic note, like Blers42, I wonder how athletes get the rep of being athletic. Yes, standing on the court, Aguak looks like he would be athletic. I supposed being quick, fast, jumping high, etc are all signs of athleticism, but I've been to every game but 1 and Aguak seems incredibly unathletic. He has missed dunks, looks awkward shooting, has falling several times that make him seem unbalanced and generally doesn't seem basketball savvy or coordinated. When he has the ball you can spot him a mile away as awkward which is the opposite of athletic. Maybe he is a raw athlete but not a BB athlete at this point.

I am def not in favor of Kaifes starting (for now he's a role player imo) but I sure wish we could try and get Negron there. Granted he has a lot of holes but he looked better on D tonight and seems much farther along than Aguak. I will say that I completely agree with JCT; the only times Aguak looked good tonight was inside. Porter seemed to go away from that but I liked when he had him near the basket. One other takeaway: We are not good with speed. I agree that our d was very weak tonight. I thing that was due to a lot of speed and movement. All said, if we don't start shooting better, it won't matter. Porter WILL get the defense in better shape. He can't get the ball in the basket.

I have to say I agree as well. When it comes down to it I’m not a coach and I trust Porter. I think some of the players still seem to be in the mindset that we’re a final four team and they’re trying to play like our old team. They’re not that team they can still go through Porter’s process but it’s stupid to try and play like them and it’s stupid for us to expect that out of them. The rest of our non con games should definitely be viewed as learning experiences. We’re not fighting for a tourney bid anymore, or an AP rank. That’s gone and not a big deal, let’s focus on developing these young guys and winning our conference.