Good start. I really really like our starting 5. Forced a bunch of turnovers and scored well despite being pretty poopy from 3 (28%) namely because of Hunter & Mitchell. I think the calls went our way, and they had a bunch of in and out 3 pointers. Flip those 2 things and it would've been uncomfortably close.
Mitchell is suffocating on defense, insanely aggressive which at least last night yielded many fouls. Fouled out in 17 minutes. I like this role for him, go in and shake things up and don't be afraid of fouls as you're only expected for about 20 mins per game. I thought he was too quick to shoot but also had some nice assists.
AJB & EJ4 were fantastic...love their scoring ability. Happy to see them both as bonified starter / 30+ min guys now. They could be the key to this being a special team if they continue to develop and become all-MAC like performers.
I've been preaching Clayton in the paint for a year now...he does a lot better there than many of you give him credit for. He has good ups, good positioning and and timing. Boals split Clayton & Wiz almost exactly last night, just like he did with Wiz & Dwight last year. Only 23 mins for Clayton but he was in a little foul trouble early...I am hoping the split is more like 30/10.
Sorry I am not praising Wiz (shocker). His rebounds were simple. He had at least 2 he totally whiffed on, one he got manhandled by a much smaller dude in a much worse position who got a put-back bucket. He had 2 fouls but should have had 4. His one basket was awkward if not terrifying. I could be wrong but I feel like our +/- was much better with Clayton than Wiz. He didn't have a bad game but still looked like the same player to me, but with a headband.
Cornish didn't really get a chance to do much, will wait to see more from him down the road.
Take out AJB's 1 for 5 and we were 26 for 27 from the line. Damn.
We were outrebounded 40 to 32. And that is with Miles, Elmore and others having a few really nice hard fought rebounds. This will be a challenging area for us this season.
Why did the Ohio bench have like 48 people on it? Was there like 10 trainers, and will it be like that all year? I thought it looked silly how we wrapped around the baseline with chairs.