Basketball 20-21

adam miller.

starting freshman guard for top seeded illini last year. US gold medalist with u19 team. expected to start and be a leader of this team.

brandon murray will see the most time as his replacement. murray is a muscled 6'4 freshman who can score.

high school early enrolee justice williams may also be needed.

my educated guess on why miller came here is he wanted cam thomas-level offensive freedom. he will have to wait a year. murray will be off to the races i think.

i will let you know how the rotation looks after the exhibitoin i will attend saturday vs nicholls in thib.

 

Yes, sad about Miller

 

https://www.si.com/college/lsu/basketball/where-lsu-basketball-turns-adam-miller-injury

where does LSU go from here article


"Wilkinson, Pinson and Murray". must be a typo they meant gaines

i would be stunned if wilinkson is ready to handle the rock at all, even at 3. maybe a 3 and D and dunk type, minus the 3. but if he can bury treys from the corner he would be hugely useful. i doubt he can, but will wade says he can. will wade says a lot of optimistic things.

 

its a damn good thing they picked up justice williams very late, because they would be going into the season with 3 guards on the roster. so one guy (gaines) backing up two spots, thats not enough depth for my liking.

any injuries to those guys and parker edwards is out there. nobody wants that.

lets project a starting lineup post miller:

1 pinson, gaines
2. murray, williams
3. days, fudge, wilkinson
4. eason, o'neal,
4. reid, colbert, ezewiro

3 and 4 are the hardest to predict. days of course owns the starts at 3. but how good is fudge? he is said to be able to handle the ball. he is tall for sure. and has wilkinson learned to shoot? we know he is a loyal soldier that didnt shoot last year. you would be hard pressed to find any player that shot it less. presumably he was told to let the NBA bound guys get the points.

has eason locked fown the 4? will oneal ever fulfill his potential? he is huge and athletic, but incredibly fragile.

i would like to see gaines breakout. he is super athletic and energetic, defensive dynano. and he has sneaky smart court vision. i think he may even have a shot. but he plays like an out of control malfunctioning robot. i bet if he could calm down and relax he could be good. i hope he puts pressure on pinson, whose main skill is being a guy with years and years of SEC experience.

this year is an interesting contrast to last year, which was one dimension, skilled scoring and nothing else. no hard dunks. no effort on d outside of leblanc wilkinson and gaines, and no real speed and athletic monsters in the starting lineup. just guys who could score. smart, thomas, watford. they do one thing, score. ok, smart runs the offense ok, but mostly those 3 score, and stand around on defense.

i means, sure, darius days can dunk it. but he doesnt dunk it hard like fucking dunk destroyers emmit williams and naz reid used to. need more harder dunks. should get some rim mashers this season from eason and murray and fudge and others.

these new guys are two way players. buncha draymond greens out there. scoring points and playing effort d, i hope.

now there are 5 or 6 guys who should be playing defense hard, and also dunking, hard. and hard dunks motivate teams to wins, friends.

 

vs nicholls gaines was a monster. he has excellent vision. in a tiny arena i am basically sitting on the court so i can see his eyes. he is scanning, and remembering and flinging passes to guys he saw a few seconds ago, he is really improved. he was the primary balhander and ran the offense. he held the ball too much, but not in selfish way, he was directing, it was great. he has a one-handed baseball style fling pass i really like. he hit parker edwards with one so fast it skipped between edwards legs and went out of bounds. you gotta keep your eyes open around gaines he might hit you with laser at any time.

i dunno that i can think of any player with more speed than gaines. he is a blazing missile. his ceiling is very very high. on the fast break he cannot be caught.

o'neal, pinson, days, williams, and reid were all not dressed. thats disappointing but it was fun to see big minutes for gaines, eason and fudge. i correctly predicted the starting lineup when i saw who was out, it was:

gaines
murray
wilkinson
eason
colbert

murray looked a bit confused on both sides. thats expected, this is the first game of his career. he plays with effort but didnt seem to be clear on his defensive assignments. also he seems a bit slow, but that might be because gaines is out there like greased lightning making everyone else look plodding by comparison. he also wasnt exceptional on the ball. the loss of adam miller may really hurt.

eason looked dominant. he can do what watford did, take it to the hoop from the elbow. he is quicker than watford, but he doesnt have near the touch. he scored a bunch of points. eason also took some threes that were disastrous bricks. he should leave those shots for days.

fudge looks like he could be a rebounding madman. that dude can leap, and his arms are endless. he can take rebounds away from people from behind with his reach. he also is a ferocious dunker. needs offensive polish. but he rebouding/shot blocking potential is huge.

colbert was a minor factor, wilkinson does in fact look improved. both wiklinson and eason are built like trucks. with those two musclemen and with the infinitely long arms of fudge, they might finally solve the defensive rebounding problems that have plagued will wade teams.

again, its unfortunate i didnt see pinson and reid. pinson has to be worried about gaines behind him taking his job. none of the guys in street clothes had a cast or anything and were moving fine, and as far as i know their injuries are not public info. small sprains and such i guess.

before the game nicholls dropped a conference title banner. they arent terrible. they held with LSU most for the game, led at halftime, and then LSU turned it on late and buried them.

so to review, the headline is how well gaines and eason played. also fudge is huge but has a tiny head. looks weird. huge body, tiny lil head perched up there.

my worry going forward is 3 point shooting.

 

I started a 21-22 thread.

21-22 thread:
http://www.tigerfan.com/threads/lsu-basketball-2021-2022.206736/

 

nicholls game snippets

 

Wow a blahsketball thread up to 145 pages.

 

Did it originally start out as a 'fire O' thread and get hijacked? Kidding.

Thanks lsu-i-like!! Appreciate your basketball passion!!