1. Pittsburgh: On Halloween night, Pittsburgh tipped off its preseason with a 72-58 exhibition win over Division II Indiana (PA) at the Petersen Events Center, and sophomore forward Michael Young looks like he may be ready for a breakout year. Most people don’t know that Young played through pain for much of the latter part of his freshman campaign after suffering a small stress fracture in his back. In his postgame comments, Jamie Dixon seemed optimistic about the potential of a healthy Young and his other big men, assuming they improve their defense.
2. Louisville: Louisville relied on its pressure defense to top Barry, 91-71, on Saturday afternoon in the KFC Yum! Center, and afterward Rick Pitino discussed his team’s progress in this postgame video. Specifically, he credited the Division II Buccaneers with exposing a major rebounding problem on his squad, as the Cardinals gave up an astounding 29 offensive boards. Of course, part of the reason there were so many second chance opportunities for Barry was that Louisville held Barry to 33.3 percent field-goal shooting. Still, in order to get out in transition the way Pitino wants his team to run, the Cards must shore up that clear flaw on the defensive boards.
3. Notre Dame: In another Saturday exhibition, Notre Dame used a balanced attack to best Minnesota-Duluth, 88-71, at the Joyce Center. Mike Brey was encouraged by the performances of his point guard, Demetrius Jackson, and big man, Zach Auguste. With established senior leaders Jerian Grant and Pat Connaughton manning the wing, the play of Jackson and Auguste could be the difference as the Irish try to get back to the NCAA Tournament. Hopefully, Auguste will shoot better from the foul line than the 3-for-9 performance he delivered in this contest, but based on last year’s foul shooting mark (48%), this may not be a solvable problem for the junior.
4. Syracuse: Coming off a rough week dealing with the NCAA Infractions Committee, Syracuse almost had an equally alarming start this week. The Orange needed to rally from a 15-point deficit to overtake traditional Canadian college basketball power, Carleton, by a score of 76-68. Freshman Kaleb Joseph will be in the spotlight this year, taking over the point guard job from Tyler Ennis. The good news is that the rookie showed gerat promise, leading the team to the win with 19 points. A couple of concerns for the Orange, though, were their huge deficit in total rebounds (45-31) and poor shooting (0-6 FG) by Trevor Cooney.
5. Duke: On Tuesday night in Cameron Indoor Stadium, Duke rolled Livingstone in its first exhibition game of the year, 115-58. The much ballyhooed freshmen class performed well, with three of the group scoring in double-figures and the fourth, Tyus Jones, handing out 11 assists. A surprise starter this year apparently will be Matt Jones. Most pundits expected either senior Quinn Cook or junior Rasheed Sulaimon, or perhaps even both, to be starters when this season got under way, but the veteran guards came off the bench in this contest. On the other hand, the sophomore Jones helped his cause, burying 5-of-8 three-point attempts after only making 3-of-21 during his entire freshman year. The Blue Devils should face a tougher test in Saturday’s second and final exhibition game, when they take on defending NCAA Division II national champion Central Missouri.

1. Syracuse.com: This article dissects the statement released by Syracuse following the school’s hearing in front of the NCAA Committee of Infractions last Thursday and Friday. The school makes sure to say that the NCAA only came around after Syracuse self-reported some violations back in 2007; what’s unclear, though, is whether the organization found some other violations after digging around. We should know the answer to that question sometime in December, which is when the NCAA findings are supposed to be released to the school and the media. According to the statement, no current athletes are involved in this investigation, so although school sanctions are still a very real possibility, at least no player suspensions will come from this.
2. CBS College Basketball Podcast: In their latest podcast on CBS, Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander discuss the ACC media day drama from Charlotte last week. It’s interesting to listen to them discuss the difference in how Roy Williams and Jim Boeheim handled talking about their respective school’s offcourt issues. Williams appeared genuinely concerned and willing to talk about North Carolina’s problems, while Boeheim wouldn’t comment about Syracuse’s at all, causing Norlander to compare the Syracuse coach to another coach who didn’t mind if the media thought he was being a jerk — Bob Knight. With respect to North Carolina, Parrish also shares some off-record comments from some of the other ACC coaches, one of whom raised the question of a real recruiting advantage that the Tar Heels may have had during the bogus class era. Since recruits spend a lot of time with current team members during their campus visits, it’s logical to assume that some may have been tipped off to the easier path to eligibility that many of those North Carolina players were using at that time.
3. AP Top 25: Late last week the Associated Press released its preseason Top 25, which includes five ACC teams, four of which are among the top nine in the rankings. The league hopes it does a better job this season with respect to the final AP poll, however. Last year the ACC put five teams in the preseason rankings, but only four teams made the final Top 25 list at year-end. It was even worse the year before, as four ACC squads were in the 2012-13 preseason rankings, but only two actually ended the season included in the final poll.
4. CollegiateTimes.com: Buzz Williams appears to have a realistic view of the Virginia Tech program that is now under his guidance. His first order of business is to improve the talent deficiency that currently exists in Blacksburg. This year does not look promising from a wins/losses standpoint, but at least a weak non-conference slate could enable his young Hokies to gain some confidence and experience before the rugged ACC schedule begins. Williams will undoubtedly demand great effort and toughness from his players, regardless of how overmatched his squad is in conference play. That may lead to some unexpected wins and the opportunity to build some momentum until the talent level improves.
5. Tallahassee Democrat: Mostly a forgotten man, 7’0″ Kiel Turpin will return to the Florida State active roster after being granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA because of injuries suffered over his career. Turpin just turned 25 years old, giving the Seminoles a true veteran presence up front, and head coach Leonard Hamilton hopes his big man has the same kind of impact as he got from another older player in recent years. Three years ago, 26 year-old U.S. military veteran Bernard James patrolled the paint as the Seminoles enjoyed their best season under Hamilton, winning the school’s first-ever ACC Tournament.

1. TheACC.com: The ACC media picked Duke as a fairly strong favorite to win the league this year, giving the Blue Devils 41 out of a possible 65 first place votes at ACC Operation Basketball on Wednesday (for a complete rundown of the day, don’t forget to check out Lathan Wells’ 15 takeaways post). North Carolina joins newcomer Louisville and defending champ Virginia in a tight cluster in the next three spots in the poll. Last year’s three Big East transfer teams occupy the next three positions, which confirms the general opinion that the old ACC needed an injection of quality teams to boost itself back into the nation’s elite. The preseason all-ACC team was led by North Carolina guard Marcus Paige, but an interesting repeat member of the preseason all-conference squad is Notre Dame’s Jerian Grant, who missed the entire ACC season in 2013-14 due to his academic suspension.
2. Kenpom: Speaking of rankings, Ken Pomeroy has posted his initial ratings for all 351 NCAA Division I teams, and he gives a summary explanation of how he develops his statistical model in his most recent blog entry. The legendary guru of advanced basketball statistics has six ACC squads among his top-23, including Duke at #1, which is a mild shock considering the relative talent and experience returning at Kentucky and Arizona. Somewhat surprisingly, the ACC is rated as the Pomeroy’s third-best conference, sitting behind the Big Ten and Big 12. Of course, as the season progresses, Pomeroy’s preseason ratings will weigh progressively less in his formulas, giving a more accurate picture of all the teams as they relate to each other.
3. Charlottesville Daily Progress: One thing that came out of ACC Operation Basketball that caught many by surprise was when Tony Bennett revealed that Virginia’s accomplished sophomore point guard London Perrantes has not practiced since a foot injury occurred on October 3. Although the Cavaliers have had their fair share of injuries over the last few years, last season’s run to the ACC regular season title was definitely aided by the fine health of the team. Virginia was able to develop a consistent rotation in which everyone knew and executed their respective roles, game after game, culminating with the Cavaliers grabbing their first ACC Tournament championship in almost 40 years. Certainly, January and conference play is pretty far off at this point, so Bennett hopes Perrantes is able to get healthy in time to make a similar run.
4. Greensboro News-Record: In this interesting piece, Ed Hardin looks at the ACC’s newest member Louisville and compares Rick Pitino’s program to some of the great ACC teams of the past from a style standpoint. It is true that the Cardinals bring characteristics that remind long-time observers of some of the ACC’s best and most entertaining teams in its long and illustrious history. For instance, the multiple defenses that Pitino employs so effectively reminds us of how North Carolina’s Dean Smith befuddled opponents by using combinations of man-to-man and zone defenses, trapping on both. And even though Pitino is known as a visionary regarding the use of the three-point shot as a vital part of his offense, going back to leading an improbable Providence team to the 1987 Final Four, he knows the value of a legitimate inside game as well.
5. Groupstate.com: It seems as if Clemson’s representatives in Charlotte were asked about departed player K.J. McDaniels more than they were questioned about this year’s squad. Possibly only ACC Player of the Year T.J. Warren of N.C. State meant as much to his team last season as did McDaniels, now beginning his NBA career with the Philadelphia 76ers. But while the Wolfpack will certainly miss Warren’s offense, what makes the loss of McDaniels so critical to Clemson is that he was its best player all over the court. It will obviously take a committee of several to replace everything he did, but the ACC media is skeptical of that notion, picking Clemson 11th this year after a sixth place finish in 2013-14.

This team preview is part of the RTC ACC microsite’s preseason coverage. You will find a list with links to all the team previews on the ACC Microsite Preview Page, located here.

Can Brian Gregory survive another losing ACC season?

During the offseason, one of the favorite media activities is formulation of the preseason “Coaches on the Hot Seat” list. Going into this season, Georgia Tech’s Brian Gregory is the one ACC coach who seems to show up on all of those lists. On this list put out by Athlon Sports, it’s interesting to see that Gregory is joined in the fire pit with a few former ACC head coaches like Oliver Purnell and Mark Turgeon. So what kind of year will it take for Gregory to avoid joining that group of former ACC head coaches?

Georgia Tech head coach Brian Gregory may not survive another losing ACC season. (Icon Sports Media)

While no two situations are exactly the same, the best way to examine this issue is to review recent ACC coaches who were in similar circumstances going into their fourth year at the helm of their particular school. By similar circumstance we mean a coach who has a losing record in ACC games in each of his first three years on the job. Below we show four coaches who entered their fourth year at the helm under those conditions.

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1. TheACC.com: Coaches and players from all 15 ACC schools will meet the media in Charlotte for a full day of ACC Operation Basketball, and our own RTC ACC microsite correspondent Lathan Wells will be on hand to take in the entire proceedings. It’s sure to be an eventful day with so many developing stories heading into the season. We have a loaded Louisville team led by legendary coach Rick Pitino joining the league; the nation’s top recruiting class arriving at Duke; a strong defending champ returning many key pieces at Virginia; and, of course, the big-time off the court issues. It will be interesting to hear Commissioner John Swofford’s commentary about the academic scandal at his alma mater North Carolina, as well as the ongoing NCAA investigation into Syracuse’s program. Follow Lathan @rtcACC for frequent live reports throughout the day.
2. ESPN: Virginia hopes to be more than a one-hit wonder after sweeping both the ACC regular season and tournament titles last season. This ESPN.com article reveals a Tony Bennett who is focused on not letting last year’s success create too big a sense of accomplishment, and with good reason — Virginia became only the fourth school not named Duke or North Carolina to win the ACC Tournament in the last 18 years. In each of the other three instances — which includes Miami and Florida State from the previous two seasons as well as the 2004 Maryland squad — the subsequent year did not include a winning conference record. That shouldn’t happen this year, though, with the Cavaliers returning a solid nucleus.
3. Notre Dame Media: This is a really neat video that features Mike Brey and his recent foray in a US Navy Blue Angels fighter jet. Fighting Irish Digital Media along with the Blue Angels take you right into the seat with the Notre Dame coach in what he called a “trip of a lifetime, and an honor.” Perhaps all the abrupt twists and turns will prepare Brey for a better second go-round in the ACC, where up and down seasons can come easily.
4. Andy Katz: In a recent 3-Point Shot segment, ESPN‘s Andy Katz talks about a couple of ACC topics. First of all, he reviews comments from Georgia Tech coach Brian Gregory concerning some of the newcomers that he will need to come through in a big way. Many think that this could be Gregory’s last season in Atlanta if he doesn’t produce an NCAA Tournament team. Katz also brings up an interesting possible fallout issue from the North Carolina scandal that has to do with academic performance incentives in college coaches’ contracts. It’s worth a viewing.
5. TheState.com: New Boston College coach Jim Christian is preaching a fast paced offense, as many coaches do when taking over a listless program that needs an infusion of energy. It remains to be seen if his words translate to reality when the Eagles take the floor this season — and speaking of “floor,” the head coach won’t be the only thing new this year, as the playing court in Conte Forum will have a new look as well.

This team preview is part of the ACC microsite’s preseason coverage. You will find a list with links to all the team previews on the ACC Microsite Preview Page, located here.

Will the Irish get enough production from their big men?

Notre Dame’s inaugural season in the ACC was a rough one, as the Irish snapped a seven-year streak of 20-win seasons and instead finished with the first losing season of Mike Brey’s coaching tenure in South Bend (the six ACC wins were also a conference low for one of his Notre Dame teams). A big reason for the fall was the December suspension of the team’s best player, guard Jerian Grant, for academic reasons. Grant returns for his senior year, a huge addition, but the Irish must also find a way to replace the inside production of the graduated Garrick Sherman.

Is Junior Zach Auguste Ready to Step Up his Production? (Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune)

In each of the last seven seasons, Notre Dame has had a big man who averaged over 13 points per game. In all but one of those years, that post player also pulled down at least seven rebounds per game. When Brey looks at his returning roster, he only sees two bigs with any collegiate experience. With no incoming post players to count on, the 14-year Notre Dame coach has to hope one of his veterans can make a big jump in production. The most logical choice is 6’10” junior Zach Auguste, who averaged 16 minutes per contest last year. One thing in his favor is the recent history of Irish big men developing to provide big jumps in production. The table below shows that Auguste’s two post predecessors came through with solid years when they received a corresponding increase in minutes. The other semi-experienced returning big man is junior Austin Burgett, who averaged 15 MPG in 28 games, but was not very productive (3.0 PPG, 1.8 RPG) when on the floor. Perhaps 6’9″ freshman Martin Geben can have an impact. According to scouts, he has a reputation of being physical and fundamentally sound, and may be ready to contribute right away. Read the rest of this entry »

This team preview is part of the RTC ACC microsite’s preseason coverage. You will find a list with links to all the team previews on the ACC Microsite Preview Page, located here.

How fast can Danny Manning turn around this program?

With nowhere to go but up, Wake Forest hopes to have hit a home run with the hiring of former NBA star and Tulsa head coach Danny Manning after a miserable stretch under Jeff Bzdelik. Hired to fix a program that was winning on the court but losing off of it (multiple player arrests), Bzdelik flipped the script. His players generally stayed out of trouble, but his teams never sniffed postseason play. The four-year period included a weak overall record (51-76), bad ACC performance (17-51), one of the nations’ worst road records (6-38), and a single ACC Tournament win. No wonder the fan base demanded a change. Assuming Manning will improve from the depths that Bzdelik took this program, how long will it take him to lead Wake Forest back to the role of an ACC contender?

After Four Miserable Years, Wake Forest turns to Danny Manning.
(wxii12.com)

Danny Manning had one on the most storied collegiate careers in history, leading Kansas to the 1988 National Championship and earning National Player of the Year honors along the way. After a long NBA career, Manning decided to pursue a life in coaching. But unlike many former stars who make the move to coaching, Manning went the college route — starting at the ground floor as the director of student-athlete development/team manager, followed by five years as an assistant coach, all at his alma mater — rather than joining an NBA staff.  He deserves credit for not taking a short cut and using his name recognition to land a head coaching job before he was prepared for one. He spent the last two seasons as Tulsa’s head man, which not only gave him excellent experience in the role but also prepared Manning for coaching at a small private school that values academics but also wants to compete athletically with the big public schools. Another interesting thing about Tulsa is that it has historically served as something of a breeding ground for coaches, several of whom have gone on to great success at the high-major level. Look at the chart below. Can Manning become the fourth former Tulsa head coach to reach the pinnacle of the sport, and can he do it at Wake Forest?

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1. ESPN: North Carolina played an exhibition game Friday night — a 111-58 rout over Fayetteville State — but the headline continues to be all the fallout from the Wainstein Report released last week. In the postgame press conference, Roy Williams made his first public comments since the release of the damaging report. An emotional Williams acknowledged the pain he’s felt over the scandal at his beloved school, but his comment that “I feel strongly, strongly that we did things the right way” makes you wonder who the “we” is, exactly. As for the game itself, a peek at the box score reveals that Justin Jackson continues to impress, leading the team with 18 points in 22 minutes of action, including a 3-of-4 performance from three-point land.
2. Durham Herald Sun: Saturday night Duke held it’s annual “Countdown to Craziness” event, and freshman center Jahlil Okafor stole the show during the scrimmage, scoring 27 points and grabbing eight boards in 24 minutes. The drinking word of the article is definitely “dominant” and its other forms – dominates and domination – that are used to describe Mike Krzyzewski’s latest Chicago prodigy. The scarier thing is that, according to the Duke coach, Marshall Plumlee did a pretty good job defending Okafor. Perhaps that is just coachspeak for trying to keep up the confidence level of a reserve, but expect most opponents to have their hands full with a Duke post player for one of the few times in recent memory.
3. Winston-Salem Journal: Wake Forest‘s latest recruit has a familiar last name to Deacons fans. Current assistant coach and legendary Deacon player Randolph Childress’ son Brandon has pledged to join the program in two seasons. Danny Manning now has three commitments in the Class of 2015 and hopes that Childress, his first commitment from the current junior class, is just the start of great things. Not only is Wake getting a good player and the good legacy feeling of bringing in a legend’s son, Manning also hopes to now improve the Deacs’ position with a certain teammate of young Childress at Wesleyan Christian Academy in nearby High Point.
4. Louisville Courier-Journal: It appears that Louisville head coach Rick Pitino is happy with the progress being made by his young center Mangok Mathiang. The wiry sophomore appears to be following a similar career path of former center Gorgui Dieng, a key member on the Cardinals’ 2013 National Championship team. Like Mathiang, Dieng came to school as an unknown and was expected to take a long time to become a high-level college player, but he became a poster child for Pitino’s well-respected player development system, and ready for the NBA after only three years in the program. While no one is saying Mathiang will progress at the same rate, he certainly has a great role model to follow.
5. Hurricanes Sports: This is a very good read on Miami‘s new point guard Angel Rodriguez. It tracks his path from his native Puerto Rico to Miami for high school, Manhattan, Kansas, to play for Kansas State, and finally back to Miami as a transfer. It seems that Rodriguez has made the best of his redshirt year, immersing himself into practice. Jim Larranaga is counting on the junior point guard to be the prime leader for the young Hurricanes even though he’s yet to play a game yet in a Hurricanes uniform.

1. Raleigh News & Observer: At a widely-viewed press conference yesterday in Chapel Hill, independent investigator Kenneth Wainstein publicly revealed his findings concerning the academic fraud that we now know began as far back as 1993 at North Carolina. His detailed 131-page report confirms much of what the Raleigh newspaper has already been uncovering since 2011. In this piece, Luke DeCock captures the significance of yesterday’s revelations in Chapel Hill, including the fact that the school’s administration finally admitted what was suspected all along – UNC academic advisors steered athletes to phony classes in order to keep them eligible to compete in football and basketball.
2. CBSSports: Officially, head coach Roy Williams was not implicated in any of the wrongdoing. But according to CBSSports.com‘s Gary Parrish, that doesn’t mean Williams is innocent in the matter. Basically, Parrish makes a reasonable case that if Williams wanted to know the truth about the phony coursework, he easily could have. After all, the basketball program’s academic advisor at the time, Wayne Walden, was brought to Chapel Hill by Williams when he left Kansas in 2003. It seems reasonable to assume that the two had a close relationship, and that they would be comfortable talking with each other about the administrative intersections of athletics and academics. In Wainstein’s report, Walden admits that he knew that the classes in question were fake and that he sometimes steered players to them. So if Williams didn’t know what was going on, why did his basketball players stop taking those classes over the next several years?
3. CNN: One of the new revelations that came out in the report is that the fraudulent classes started all the way back in 1993. Of course the head coach at UNC at that time was Dean Smith. In this article, CNN investigative reporters Sara Ganim and Devon Sayers point out that 54 basketball players enrolled in those phony classes during Smith’s tenure, which ended after the 1997 Final Four. This now necessarily raises questions about those last four years of the legendary Smith’s career, someone who has always maintained a spotless reputation in terms of the academic integrity of his program. Many observers have noted that Smith’s philosophy behind recruiting also seemed to change around that time, perhaps in response to the rise of archrival Duke’s back-to-back National Champions in the early 90s. Smith brought in the talented but brash 1993 class of Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed Wallace and Jeff McInnis, which is not to say that these were bad kids, but they certainly didn’t act like what we traditionally thought of as quiet, humble and gentlemanly Dean Smith/”Carolina Way” players. There’s also the fact that upon his retirement four years later, Smith said that he did not enjoy coaching anymore. Remember that this was coming from one of the great competitors of all-time in the sport, someone who was about to begin the 1997-98 season with a completely loaded team. Is it too much of a reach to tie those two things — his suspected change in recruiting philosophy and abrupt retirement several years later — to what we now know about the academic fraud going on at North Carolina? Perhaps the bigger question is whether any reporter will be bold enough to take on that legacy and try to get to the truth, while fighting the “how dare they” backlash that would certainly ensue given Smith’s current poor health.
4. Raleigh News & Observer: Another surprise from the report was that the academic fraud extended to other teams in the UNC athletic department. Most of us have focused on the football players and men’s basketball program, but they weren’t the only Tar Heel athletes taking advantage of the fake classes. In another reaction article from the N&O, Jane Stancill describes how a current faculty member has admitted steering members of the women’s basketball team to the phony classes as well. It appears that there was a network within the academic advising community at UNC that spread the word about a way to help keep their athletes eligible and in the lineup.
5. WRALSportsFan: Former UNC academic adviser Mary Willingham was interviewed for her reaction on the report’s findings, which mostly vindicate much of what she originally asserted. Known now as “Whistleblower” Willingham, she makes the larger point that the real problem is that colleges are failing to educate their athletes. While that may be true, I think it’s time to face the root cause of what is going on across the country at the big-time programs. The model we want to put forward as fans of college sports is so outdated that it’s ridiculous. We want to see the best athletes play on the field or on the court for our favorite schools, but we don’t want to know how they are able to get admitted to the school or what classes they take or what grades they get, so long as they perform. We only want to know those facts about the OTHER school. Then there’s the colleges themselves, which cling to the notion that their athletes should be able to perform in the classroom just like the rest of the student body. Being an elite athlete today is a full-time job when you add up all the time requirements, and do we really expect them — many of whom the school made an exception to admit in the first place — to carry full course loads and stay on course to graduate? It’s time for a new model that fits modern realities. We are not going to give up high-level college sports so let’s rid ourselves of the farce that is the “student-athlete.” They’re already treated differently so why not change the class requirements to give credit hours (six?) each semester for full-time participation in a sport? Maybe if they only had to take two classes per semester, we could actually expect them to take some meaningful classes and perform their own work. The alternative is to cut time spent on their sport and that would mean fewer practices, less travel, no late night games for TV, and so on, but we know that’s not going to happen. But something needs to give in order to reduce the overwhelming incentives to cut ethical corners. If it happened at North Carolina, it doesn’t mean it is happening at all the other schools, but it does mean that it can.

Duke opened it’s 11th practice of the year to media and guests from the Duke Children’s Hospital yesterday, and based on their performance during the semi-closed practice at Cameron Indoor Stadium, its highly regarded freshmen class may just live up to the hype. While far from finished products, each of Mike Krzyzewski‘s four newcomers showed enough positive play to suggest that they might make up the core of this year’s Blue Devils squad. ACC referees officiated the scrimmage portion of practice, which was broken into four 10-minute segments with limited rest between each session. Some players switched teams after the first two quarters but the last two sessions featured the same lineups. We will use this space to analyze the play of each of the new Blue Devils and make some other general observations about the team, knowing that this represents only a one-day snapshot and the start of the regular season is still three weeks away.

Freshman Jahlil Okafor has Great (Big) Hands
(rushthecourt.net)

FRESHMEN

• Jahlil Okafor – Reports of Okafor’s improved body and conditioning appear to be true. His feet were quick; he ran the court well; and he did not noticeably tire during the entire 40 minutes of scrimmage play. The most impressive thing with him, though, is his hands, which he uses in a similar manner to the great Tim Duncan. Passes and rebounds stick to Okafor’s mitts like glue. While at the free throw line, it was especially noticeable that the ball looks like a grapefruit in his hands. He mostly had his way inside, but there were times when he struggled to finish at the rim with Marshall Plumlee bodied up against him.
• Tyus Jones – The touted young point guard played almost exactly as his reputation indicated — he wasn’t flashy with the ball but he was very efficient in running the team. He will have to adjust to playing hard defense over extended periods of time, and like most youngsters, Jones will need to become more vocal on both ends of the floor. But the greatest measure of a point guard is always the scoreboard, and in that respect Jones was outstanding, with his team winning each 10 minute session by around 10 points.

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