re: Where's the Mike Anderson Haters?

The team had 28 assists last night and 38 points off the bench.

Those are elite level stats.

Going back to something I said in the thread last night, it’s hard for me to keep with who is who on the team so far. Usually you have a couple standouts above the rest so you can sort of slowly get to know them. But we have so many good ones, I’m not sure who to love most.

(Should be read with an amused and slightly smug tone. )

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They stuck a dagger in the CSU players last night when they cut the lead to 7. They had all the momentum and then in a flash we were back up 20. So yeah, I like their toughness so far.

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Speaking of this, Mike called a time out at that point, but I don't remember our team using time outs other than that one time.

There was never really any need to other than that one time. That's a very good sign. Especially in the road. Hogs controlled that entire game.

This team actually does remind me a LOT of our old teams that were real good. That game last night could have easily been way worse than it was. We didn't defend the perimeter as well as we could have. I mean, teams are always gonna get good looks at deep balls against Arkansas, but these guys had actually been defending the perimeter better than I expected. Until last night.

If they had forced a worse % from the 3 point line, that could have been a 35+ point victory on the road.

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He's got a WAYYY higher ceiling than Durham.

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Oh for sure. Hes better right now as a soph than Durham was as a Sr.

I'll reserve judgement on how good this team is after they play in Knoxville.

The first real road test

So if we lose to a top 5-10 on the road, that's when you'll decide whether you like the team or not?

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You really struggle with reading comprehension don't you?

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Yes, he does.

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I responded to exactly what you said... you'll judge the team on the outcome of a road game against a top 5-10 team.

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He will judge the talent level against one of the measuring sticks in the conference to ascertain about where we stand in terms of talent after we play them.

He in no way insinuated whether or not it was going to determine whether or not he "liked" the team.

We know this team isn't untalented. What we don't know is just how talented they are in comparison to the other strong teams this year. It's really not that hard.

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And regardless of the outcome in Tennessee, you might still not know.

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We'll know a lot more than we did before, though. Cmon man. You're not a dumb guy. You of all people should know that a game against a quality opponent will show us a lot.

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Judging how good a young team is against a top 5-10 team will only tell you so much.

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It still gives strong indicators for where your team's strengths and weaknesses are. Obviously situations are dynamic and the amount of weight you put on any given experience varies based on different factors.

The point is that we don't know a whole lot yet just because the teams we're playing right now aren't going to push us. It's the same reason none of us outside of BoarEd will go out and make any bold predictions right now.

My "reserve judgement till" game is LSU at home as I have stated before. Waters killed us in both games last year and being weak against strong guard play was by far the team's biggest shortcoming last year. If these guards can handle Waters and the offense stays efficient against a team like LSU, I'll be prone to much more outlandish predictions.