Deepak is a columnist for the RTC Big Ten microsite. Follow him on Twitter for more about B1G hoops at @dee_b1g.

NBA scouts salivate over Glenn Robinson III, a 6’6″ small forward who has a good jumper with great range and possesses the athletic ability to bring down the house with thunderous dunks. He could have been a top-20 pick in the NBA Draft last year, but he instead decided to come back for another season to polish his offensive skills. Robinson, along with his fellow sophomores, Mitch McGary and Nik Stauskas, will control John Beilein’s offense this season, but can he do it efficiently? We know about his athleticism and diverse offensive skill set, as shown in this clip, but can he handle the defensive pressure as the primary scoring option?

Glenn Robinson will certainly attempt more shots this season, but can he be an efficient scorer?

Robinson had the luxury of being the fourth and sometimes the fifth scoring option as Michigan marched towards the championship game last season. He parked himself in the corners and was the recipient of kick-out passes when Trey Burke broke his defender down off the pick-and-roll to penetrate the paint. Without Burke’s ability to penetrate this season, Robinson may not have as many easy looks on the perimeter unless he consistently moves into open space in Beilein’s half-court sets. He can still use his jumper to his advantage, but he will have to establish his game around the basket in order to be more effective this season. There is a small probability that he could end up mimicking Tim Hardaway’s sophomore campaign with regard to long-range shooting. Hardaway shot a dismal 28 percent on 187 attempts from beyond the arc last season. Robinson’s 32 percent shooting from beyond the arc by contrast was respectable, but that statistic needs to be around 38 to 40 percent this year, otherwise it could hurt the Wolverines’ offensive rhythm. With proper shot selection, Robinson can be a powerful stretch-four in the league because few Big Ten forwards have the size and quickness to match up with him on the perimeter.

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Deepak is a columnist for the Big Ten microsite of RTC. Follow him on Twitter for more about B1G hoops at @dee_b1g.

With approximately three months left until the college hoops season begins, Big Ten basketball fans can take two paths to fill the void of sports in their lives over the next few weeks: They could try to convince themselves that their football team is good enough to compete with the SEC until they get hammered again during bowl season; or, they could begin to entertain the idea that the conference will finally win the national title in basketball after a 14-year hiatus. Since Michigan lost to Louisville in mid-April, most of the news around the hoops world has revolved around all the incoming freshmen – Jabari Parker, Andrew Wiggins or the Kentucky All-Stars, to name a few – who chose to not take their talents to Big Ten country. Regardless of that lack of incoming star power, we at the RTC Big Ten Microsite are here to get you excited the stars who are returning and ready to take on the responsibility of leading their teams to conference glory.

Over the next few weeks, we plan to evaluate a number of key Big Ten sophomores who will have an impact on their team’s performance throughout the entire season. Today we start with Michigan shooting guard Nik Stauskas.

Nik Stauskas Won’t Disappoint Next Season

Nik Stauskas’ rise to fame in Ann Arbor was quicker than expected because he came out of the gates firing on all cylinders, shooting over 50% from beyond the arc during November and December. Michigan’s “Fresh Five” may never have cemented its nickname if only Mitch McGary and Glenn Robinson III had led the charge offensively; as it turned out when the Wolverines steamrolled through its non-conference competition last season, it was Stauskas who added the most early value to the offense as a member of the starting rotation. If he decides to stay on campus for at least two more seasons, he could go down as one of the best sharp-shooters in Big Ten history. Beilein’s offense is built to enhance his impressive shot-making abilities, but let’s also evaluate the other parts of his game that could determine if he will hit a sophomore slump during the 2013-14 season.

What did we learn about his game from last year?

If 44% shooting from beyond the arc isn’t enough to convince you about Stauskas’ effectiveness as a shooter, this clip where he makes 45 out of 50 shots should seal the deal. The defensive scouting report is clear: Take the three-point shot away from him — especially in the corners — and you’ll make him earn his points the hard way. But Stauskas’ offensive game expands beyond an effective jumper; for example, he is excellent off the dribble especially in going to his left. Check out these highlights that showcase his ability to dribble off screens and use his left hand to get to the basket for easy layups and dunks. He is comfortable enough finishing around the basket with this left hand and can shift direction when his defender goes even a half step too far defending him off the screens. At the outset, he may look like just a shooter, but Stauskas has already shown that he can do more than bomb from long range in Beilein’s offense, setting himself up for high expectations after a full offseason of strength and weight training.

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Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

The NBA Draft deadline can be a harrowing time for programs, coaches and their ever-vigilant fan bases. Player defections – particularly those of the lottery breed – not only control the fates of specific teams, they create massive rippling effects on college basketball writ large. Based on who does or doesn’t make their talents available to the most exclusively competitive sports league in North America, college basketball takes on a certain median composite talent distinction. Last season, that measure was low, and fans of all kinds made sure to scream and wail and cry foul about the dearth of “elite talent” and the oncoming barrenness of prospective upside on this year’s draft boards. “No dominant team” was a meme raised just as frequently, and by the end of the season, when two of the nation’s most talented teams navigated the predicted upset-laden waters of the NCAA Tournament and staged an epic final game – and when the nation’s “dominant team,” Louisville, actually won the whole thing – the conversation quickly turned to 2013-14.

With McDermott back, Creighton has every reason to be excited about its move into the Big East (Getty Images).

That brings us to Sunday’s NBA Draft deadline, the real draft deadline, the one that actually forces players to make decisions about their professional futures, rather than the teethless NCAA-imposed early date created for the supposed benefit of coaches’ scholarship and recruiting calculations during the recruiting spring signing period. There were some notable departures this year, National Player of the Year award-sweeping point guard Trey Burke chief among them, but all in all the final count leaves college basketball with an immensely intriguing selection of returning players that – when mixed with one of the most highest-touted recruiting classes of the past 10 or so years – should produce a general quality of play that far exceeds last season’s occasionally-ugly level. I’ve come up with five players (or pairs of players) whose reappearance in the college ranks will contribute most directly to making this season not only hugely appealing for its freshmen stars – as is often the case in the one-and-done era – but experienced and deep and seasoned enough to produce a boundlessly exciting pool of players and teams. We are going to see a host of really good returning players in college basketball next season, and unlike last year, many of these guys won’t come off as totally unfamiliar. There’s some star power here – as in not in the NBA. Rejoice.

Doug McDermott – Creighton. The end of last season, brought upon by a Round of 32 NCAA Tournament loss to Duke, ushered Creighton into a programmatic transition: Beginning this season, the Bluejays will become members of the new Big East. They leave behind a good but measurably inferior Missouri Valley Conference, and the step up in competition promises to be fierce. It would have been a completely reasonable move for McDermott to stare down the present, understand the rigors of a more challenging conference schedule, the increased defensive attention from better athletes across a larger number of quality teams, and cut loose with program and father-coach after a successful three-year career. It would have made the most possible sense.

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Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

Compared to the gutting four-man exodus that could have been, Michigan can breathe a collective sigh relief after Thursday’s news that starting forwards Mitch McGary and Glenn Robinson III will extend their college basketball careers for at least one more season. The alternative – McGary and Robinson turning their March spotlights and intriguing individual games into mid-to-late first round draft picks – would have necessitated a full-blown, revamped, freshmen-buoyed rebuilding project. Instead, the Wolverines won’t be rebuilding next season. They will be challenging, and quite possibly winning, a Big Ten championship.

Bringing back two key cogs like McGary and Robinson III gives Michigan enough firepower for a run at a Big Ten championship in 2013-14 (USA TODAY Sports).

But, wait, didn’t Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr., two starters on Michigan’s national finalist squad, the former a consensus National Player of the Year, just declare their intentions to do the very thing we are celebrating McGary and Robinson for not doing, for entering the NBA Draft? How can Michigan possibly recover from losing two hugely important perimeter stars from its roster? Those are valid questions to ask for any team who waves goodbye to two pivotal starters, let alone the unanimously considered best player in the country. Not even in Kentucky’s annually warped recruit-draft-restock business is losing a player of Burke’s caliber, and a secondary scorer with Hardaway’s athletic talents and experience, a welcome experience.

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1. With his Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Playoffs (for now), Eddie Jordan appears to have reached a deal to become the next head coach at Rutgers, which is nice except the deal will not be finalized until the school’s governing body meets next week. Jordan has apparently agreed to a five-year deal worth a little over $1 million per year, but we have no idea on the bonus structure of the deal is as coaches can greatly increase their income through carefully crafted bonus structures. As for the issue of needing the Board of Governors to sign off on a basketball coach, normally we would say it is a massive waste of time, but given the public relations hit the school took as the result of its last coach they probably should be extra cautious with this hire.
2. Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr. may not be walking through that door, but fortunately for John Beilein both Mitch McGary and Glenn Robinson III will be as they announced that they would be returning to Michigan in a joint press conference yesterday. The decision by those two to return is not quite as shocking as Marcus Smart’s decision was, but they are both lottery level picks so very few people will have offered them criticism for having left. Instead they will return to make Michigan a preseason top 10 team and a national title contender again next season.
3. Not to be outdone by its in-state rival Michigan State also received good news yesterday when Gary Harris announced that he will be returning for his sophomore season. Harris, the Big Ten Freshman of the Year, was also predicted to be a lottery pick and probably had less to prove  than either McGary or Robinson, but his return should make the Spartans the #2 team in the country going into next season and sets up a very intriguing early season match-up against Kentucky in the Champions Classic. At this point the only question remaining for the Spartans is whether Adreian Payne will also return. If he does the question of who should be the preseason #1 may get a little more interesting.
4. The decision by C.J. Wilcox to return to Washington for his senior year may not have as big of an impact on the national scene as the moves in the state of Michigan will, but it could play a big role in determining who wins the Pac-12 next season. Unlike the three other players mentioned so far who announced that they would be returning Wilcox was by no means a guaranteed first round pick so it makes sense for him to return, but as we have seen that is by no means a guarantee that a player will come back.
5. The grand jury hearing the case of former Kentucky star Richie Farmer (a former Mr. Basketball in the state and a member of “The Unforgettables”) will hear from former employees who worked with Farmer in his role as Kentucky’s Agriculture Commissioner. Farmer faces more than 40 counts of ethics violations while in his former role, but has not been called before the grand jury to testify. With the basketball-crazed culture and the cult-like hero status that Farmer once engendered within the state this is a trial that we expect to be hearing more about in the coming months.

Brian Otskey is an RTC Contributor and filed this preview of tonight’s game for all the marbles. Follow him on Twitter @botskey.

The National Championship Game: #1 Louisville (34-5) vs. #4 Michigan (31-7) – 9:23 PM ET on CBS. Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg and Steve Kerr will have the call live from the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia.

After five months and 5,744 regular season, conference tournament and NCAA tournament games, the college basketball season comes down to one game on one night in Atlanta. Top overall seed Louisville enters the game as the favorite but by no means will this be a walk in the park. The Cardinals are in search of their third national championship this evening and their first since 1986. On the other side, Michigan is looking for its second national title, having won it all once before in 1989. It is somewhat hard to believe given the strength of the two leagues over the years but this is the first national championship game between Big East and Big Ten schools since the aforementioned Wolverines held off Seton Hall in overtime to win it all at the Kingdome in Seattle 24 years ago.

Louisville has now won 15 straight games after surviving a major scare from Wichita State on Saturday night. In fact, the Cardinals have won 18 of their past 19 games since a three game losing streak in January and the one loss was in five overtimes to Notre Dame. This game features the nation’s best defense (Louisville) and the most efficient offensive team in the land (Michigan) going head to head in what should be a terrific basketball game. For the Cardinals to win, they must attack the rim and use their defense to fuel their offense. Rick Pitino’s team is no slouch offensively (#5 in efficiency), but its offense is largely predicated off its ability to create live ball turnovers and score in transition. Louisville is lethal in transition but not great in the half court unless it attacks the basket, either with its guards off the bounce or great athletes like Montrezl Harrell and Chane Behanan working the baseline and the low block. In Saturday’s national semifinal, Wichita State forced Louisville into way too many jump shots for Pitino’s liking and it almost cost the Cardinals dearly. The Shockers were rattled by a series of turnovers late in the second half and lost the game because of it. Louisville’s ball pressure is the best in the country and it starts with Peyton Siva and Russ Smith. Both play the passing lanes so well but Smith in particular is among the nation’s best defenders. After it scores, Louisville’s full court pressure takes full effect. The big question in this game will be whether the Cardinals (#2 in forcing turnovers) can turn over the Wolverines (#1 in ball protection) enough to fuel their offense. When Michigan played VCU in the round of 32, the Wolverines obliterated Shaka Smart’s “havoc.” There is, however, one major difference between VCU and Louisville. The Rams are not a great defensive team in the half court while Louisville plays the best half court defense of any team in America. Siva has to slow down Trey Burke, who picked up just about every imaginable award this week. Michigan showed just how good of a team it is by winning its semifinal game against Syracuse without its star sophomore point guard being a major factor. While it’s fair to say Michigan has never seen a defense like this all season long, Louisville hasn’t seen an offense with as many weapons as this one. When Michigan has the ball, the battle between the best offense and the best defense could be one of epic proportions.

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Two games to get to Monday night… here are our breakdowns.

#1 Louisville vs. #9 Wichita State – National Semifinal (at Atlanta, GA) – 6:09 PM ET on CBS

Pitino is Inching Closer to His Second Title (AP)

Let’s get this out of the way right off the top – Louisville is the heavy favorite. Vegas calls them a 10-point favorite and KenPom.com agrees. They’re on a 14-game winning streak and have won those games by an average of 18 points. In a season where for the most part there has been no clear-cut favorite all year long, we certainly have a clear-cut favorite now. If some team other than the Cardinals are cutting down the nets on Monday night, it will be a surprise. So, with that said, let’s ask how Wichita State can keep this game close? First, it begins with playing the type of defense it has played in the tournament so far (0.94 PPP allowed in their four games). In particular, the Shockers have caused trouble for some big-time guards, limiting Tray Woodall of Pitt to what he called his worst game ever, harassing Kevin Pangos into 6-of-17 shooting, holding La Salle’s perimeter players to a combined 14-of-47 shooting, and making Aaron Craft a non-factor offensively. If guys like Malcolm Armstead, Tekele Cotton, Fred VanVleet and Ron Baker can turn in a similar performance and limit potentially erratic guards like Russ Smith and Peyton Siva (who, for instance, in Louisville’s last loss, combined to shoot just 5-of-25 from the field in a five-overtime loss) to poor shooting nights, that is step one for the Shockers.

Step two is having the Shocker “big” guys, Cleanthony Early and Carl Hall (both just 6’8”), stay out of foul trouble and stay effective against the likes of Gorgui Dieng inside. Hall and Early have both been foul prone this season, but on a team without a ton of skilled depth up front, Gregg Marshall will need the services of those two for the bulk of the game. But not only are the Cardinals a potent offensive team, they are the nation’s best defensive team – by a long shot. In the KenPom era (dating back to 2003), they’re the only team with an adjusted defensive rating below 82.0, essentially equivalent to allowing less than 0.82 points per possession. And while Wichita has had good success offensively in this tournament (1.09 PPP), they are about to face a whole different animal. The good news is, they just got done withstanding the pressure defense of Craft, one of the nation’s best perimeter defenders. The bad news is, Smith is even better. And he’s paired with Siva who is also one of the nation’s best on-ball defenders. And should Wichita escape the perimeter pressure and get the ball inside, either on the bounce or on the pass, there’s Dieng waiting for them as a potent shot-blocker. For Wichita to have success against that defense, they’ll need to have guards like Baker, Armstead and VanVleet to connect from deep, and they’ll need Early to be able to bring his man out of the middle and knock down some perimeter shots as well, essentially softening up the Cardinal interior for exploitation later in the game.

One bit of good news for the Shockers, with Dieng attempting to block almost every shot in the paint, the Cards don’t do a great job cleaning the defensive glass, while the Shockers are among the best in the nation at getting on the offensive boards; that trend will also have to continue for the Shockers to have a chance. So, those are a whole lot of ifs and buts. And we haven’t even mentioned potent Louisville weapons like Chane Behanan, Luke Hancock, Montrezl Harrell and Wayne Blackshear. The fact is, it is going to take a major confluence of events for the Shockers to stick around in this game. They’ve shown that they not only get great coaching, but they take that coaching well. And, as always, they’re going to play angry, so if you look up at the final media timeout and see the Shockers in the ball game, don’t be, well, shocked. But more likely the talent advantage that the Cardinals have slowly but surely wears Wichita down and Rick Pitino advances to his third national championship game.

The RTC Certified Pick: Louisville

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The NCAA Tournament is here and there’s more news, commentary and analysis than any of us can possibly keep up with. To make things a little easier, we’ll bring you a list of daily links gathered about teams in each of the four regions all the way through the Final Four.

Louisville

• Many people around the country are very surprised that Wichita State has advanced to the Final Four, but Louisville coach Rick Pitino is not one of them. “I picked Wichita State to go to the Final Four,” Pitino said Monday during a conference call.
• Louisville junior guard Russ Smith was named a third team All-America selection by the Associated Press.
• When Louisville guard Kevin Ware suffered his horrific compound fracture Sunday, one teammate rushed to be by his side as he laid on the court writhing in pain; that teammate was swingman Luke Hancock.
• With the injury to guard Kevin Ware, Louisville’s backcourt depth took a bit of a hit. Walk-on Tim Henderson will be called upon to play increased minutes in Ware’s absence and Cardinals coach Rick Pitino expects him to step up in his unexpected role.
• The injury to Ware definitely has caused and will continue to cause some adversity for Louisville, but as Pat Forde of Yahoo! Sports explains, this injury is not the worst adversity head coach Rick Pitino has had to handle.

Wichita State

• Wichita State guard Malcolm Armstead‘s road to the Final Four includes stops at a junior college and Oregon before he had to pay his own way at Wichita State. While his road was uncommon, he is now living out a dream by playing in the Final Four.
• When Wichita State capped off a three-game losing streak in early February by losing to lowly Southern Illinois, Shockers coach Gregg Marshall thought there was a chance his team might not make the NCAA Tournament.
• Wichita State’s surprising run to the Final Four has captivated the sports world so much that the Shockers will be featured on one of the three Sports Illustrated regional covers this week.
• In basketball, first impressions do not always turn out to be lasting impressions. This is definitely the case when it comes to head coach Gregg Marshall and Shockers’ forward Cleanthony Early. Marshall initially thought Early was nothing more than a gunner, but Early’s success on the court has definitely changed Marshall’s tune.
• Maryland coach Mark Turgeon, who was the Shockers’ head coach from 2000-07, was certainly excited to talk about his old school earning a trip to the Final Four.

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#3 Florida vs. #4 Michigan – South Regional Final (Los Angeles, CA) – 7:05PM ET on CBS

Florida-Michigan may be an undercard to the ridiculous Louisville-Duke game later today, but that doesn’t mean that it will be of much lower quality as it features two teams that were in the top 10 for most of the season and in the top 5 for long stretches. It was only late season slides that kept these teams from being on the 1 or 2 line on Selection Sunday. Despite those late season struggles both teams have recovered and have managed to play excellent basketball leading up to today.

Florida is of course the darling of advanced metrics fans as they have put up impressive efficiency numbers, but many observers have questioned whether the team has the ability to win close games as they have lost all six games they have played this year that were decided by single digits. The flip side of that is that their other 29 wins have been by double digits showing just how effective they can be. The Gators will have a tough time making this their 30th double-digit win of the season as Michigan is much better than anybody they have beaten this season and probably better than anybody they have played this year with the possible exception of Arizona (one of Florida’s six single-digit losses). To beat the Wolverines the Gators will need to find a way to contain Trey Burke who rebounded from a scoreless first half to score 23 points to go along with 10 assists. The task of containing Burke will likely fall on Scottie Wilbekin, who compared Burke to Phil Pressey yesterday. While Pressey is an excellent player and creator he lacks the explosive offensive game of Burke. In addition, Burke has been exceptional in his ability to create while taking care of the ball as he came into the weekend with a 3.11 assist-to-turnover ratio, which ranks 4th in the nation.

Burke Will Be The Focus Of The Gator Defense

Burke may be the star for Michigan, but Florida will have to contend with a trio of outstanding perimeter players in Tim Hardaway Jr., Glenn Robinson III, and Nick Stauskas who all can provide scoring from the outside if Burke struggles to find his shot. On the inside, Patric Young will be matched up with Mitch McGary, who has recovered from a slow start to his freshman season, which he has openly admitted was due to his poor conditioning and effort, to lead the Wolverines in scoring in the NCAA Tournament with 19.7 points per game while making a ridiculous 75.7% of his shots from the field and has added 12.3 rebounds per game for good measure. Young should have the ability to overpower McGary, but based on the comments of the Gators yesterday (essentially admitted they knew nothing about him) they may be underestimating his game. And as Jeff Withey and Kansas found out that could be a very bad idea.

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Bill Self and Kansas are back in the Sweet Sixteen for the sixth time in seven years, and that’s not good news for Michigan, the #4 seed in the South Region that the Jayhawks will meet Friday night in Cowboys Stadium. Self is 5-1 in this round in nine seasons at Kansas and 7-2 for his career dating back to Tulsa at the turn of the century. But Michigan fans shouldn’t be worried about an arbitrary record in a certain round of the NCAA Tournament. They should be worried because Bill Self has an entire week to game plan for the Wolverines, and that is where he has made his teams most dangerous in March.  Between Tulsa, Illinois, and now Kansas, Self has made 14 NCAA Tournament appearances and has 13 losses, winning the NCAA Tournament in 2008. Of those 13 losses, nine came in the second game of the weekend (Round of 32, Elite Eight or National Championship game). As Self likes to point out, the NCAA Tournament is basically split into three two-game tournaments over three weekends. For teams not in the preliminary play-in games, there are four or five days to prepare for their first opponent after the bracket is announced, followed by a roughly 48-hour turnaround. The next week is the same at the regionals and it continues at the Final Four. With that near-week or so to prepare, Self is nearly automatic. He is 12-2 in the Round of 64,  7-2 in the Sweet 16, and 2-0 in National Semifinal games, or 21-4 overall with a week to prepare. The short turnaround has stung him, though. He is 9-3 in the Round of 32, 2-5 in the Elite Eight, and 1-1 in National Championship games, although a month of preparation wouldn’t have been enough time against last season’s Kentucky team. He has won at an 84% clip with a week to prepare and his winning percentage drops to only 57% with a quick turnaround. But the game still has to be played, and Michigan is not your average #4 seed.

Bill Self Is Money With Extra Time To Scout.

Let’s take a look at the match-ups in this game:

Backcourt

Michigan has one of the best players in the country in sophomore point guard Trey Burke, a Sporting News First-Team All-American Selection and possible National Player of the Year. Burke averages 18.8 PPG and 6.7 APG for the Wolverines and controls their offense almost exclusively. According to Ken Pomeroy, his possession percentage of 29.9% (65th nationally) is higher than all but one player remaining in the Tournament, Louisville’s Russ Smith (31.6%). Of the 12 teams remaining that had a player in KenPom’s top 100 for usage percentage, Michigan and Louisville are the only teams remaining. Since 2005 when Pomeroy began publishing possession percentages, only three Final Four teams had a player in the top 100 nationally: UCLA’s Jordan Farmar in 2006, and last year with the Cardinals’ Russ Smith and Kansas’ Thomas Robinson. That’s 90.6% of Final Four teams that have not relied heavily on one player. Fortunately for Michigan fans, Kansas has been torched by point guards several times this season. Baylor point guard Pierre Jackson had 28 points and 10 assists while handing Kansas its last defeat on March 9. Fellow All-American point guard Marcus Smart had 25 points, nine rebounds, and five steals in an Oklahoma State win over Kansas on February 2. Like Jackson and Smart, Burke should have the advantage over Jayhawk guards Elijah Johnson and his backup, Naadir Tharpe. Off the ball, expect to see Travis Releford guarding Tim Hardaway, Jr., and Ben McLemore on Nik Stauskas. Stauskas is a 43.4% three-point shooter and it will imperative that McLemore — or whichever Jayhawk is guarding him — chases him off the three-point line and funnels him into the paint. Burke is going to have a big game regardless. But if Stauskas and/or Hardaway (39.3% from deep) start knocking down threes, Kansas’ best defensive weapon slowly becomes irrelevant. Offensively, Kansas will need better production from McLemore, who had two points on 0-of-9 shooting against North Carolina. He leads the Jayhawks with 15.8 PPG but has disappeared at times this season. He is averaging only 7.0 points per game in the last four outings despite being the most talented player on the court in nearly every situation. Look for Self to draw up a few plays early designed to get McLemore easy buckets and to give him some confidence.

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