Overall though the most important thing is if we actually look to be making offensive changes and pushing the tempo
Can we win this one though?
Way too much new on this roster to narrow it down to 3 things. History tells us a intrasquad scrimmage can be very misleading anyway.
These are two of mine.
I’d swap in for the third: What sets and actions are we running on offense?
I’m not sure we’ll know anything about transition or offensive confidence from the nature of the scrimmage itself. Guys tend to take shots more liberally and get out and run more in these setting.
Really I just want to get a feel for all the new players, especially on the women’s side where I know almost nothing about the new faces. But I’ll make up two more:
How’s X looking on the sideline?
Is Dante there?
yes. grain of salt when someone unexpected drops 15 points.
As a reminder, Leon Bond was anointed king and savior last year. Also, embarrassingly, I thought Jay Huff was going to be all-ACC and Deandre Hunter was a dud after the B/W back in 2016.
I’m definitely curious about the new sets/looks on offense, but we know the path to playing time on a Tony Bennett team is defense. So I’m guessing we might be able to see who is in line for early-season playing time based on which of the new guys are playing well in the packline. And which of the guys has a way to go to get off the bench.
Taine in a lineup would never piss me off. He’s my personal favorite for sticking it out and working his ass off. Rohde? Yeah different story. Now maybe if the St. Thomas version of Rohde (albeit a better version that shoots 37%+ from 3) showed up, then I’d be more than fine with it.
I agree, esp the way he played down the stretch. I’d be mildly surprised if he doesn’t start opening night.
Is Kyle gonna play and drop 30?
Overall - does our offense look more modern? More apt to break 55 points, more European stylie
Tony Bennett when we score 56 points in the first game
Isaiah’s interview had a funny story about this, where he went into his first B/W game thinking it was a Midnight Madness style fun all-star game and wasn’t supposed to be too intense, so the next practice he got lit up in film review for his performance. He said he tries to prep all the newcomers for this now.
I do agree the B/W can be a bit misleading (speaking as someone who’s been misled). The things I will have my eyes open for (in reading posts) are expansion of skill sets. Like, how comfortable does Dai Dai look shooting? Or Warley? Does A-Rob look fluid? Is Taine more aggressive? Does Bliss look like he belongs athletically? What does TJP try to do beside spot up shooting? Does Blake try to extend his range?
Also, I am a hopeless optimist and I will be checking the board frequently for a legal or illegal streaming option at the beginning.
I’m curious about Power. Does he fit well and how is his shooting? So I want to know what you learn from the 3 point contest ?
These are some great ‘things to look for’, some I hadn’t even considered.
Free LRA blog idea is to curate these then do a report out from on-the-ground tomorrow 