Bird Friend
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2017
- Messages
- 12,547
And I stand by that assessment, based on what I've seen so far. He wants his numbers. I believe he came here thinking he could improve on his numbers from TSU. He's also supposed to be a plus-defender. Haven't seen that out of him yet. Until I see that, I don't want to see him trying to get his numbers. MSU's guards were a combined 22-42 / 6-15 from the field. Take Williams out of the mix (5-19 / 1-5) and MSU was 28-51 / 6-15 from the field. Our best defense seemed to be to get the ball to Williams.You stated that Freeman was a “Me” player because he shoots too much. Just pointing out that four players on Murray State, and three player’s on Illinois State must also be “Me” player’s.
I also called Strong a me player. Frankly, I think Reeves is, too. But Reeves is the only one who can score at all 3 levels. Freeman can't hit 3's often enough, and Strong can't take it to the hoop. Of the 3, I want Reeves to be the only me player.
Lewis and Chatman are both at or near 50% on 2 pt FGs. They both need to continue to attack the basket when they get the ball. Chatman gets the ball quite a bit. Lewis, not so much. I think half of his 2FG attempts have been from getting the offensive rebound. We need our guards to get the ball inside to Lewis more often. That said, Lewis has got to stay out of foul trouble.
This year so far the Birds have played 2 really good halfs (2nd vs UNCW, 1st vs EMU) and one okay half vs MSU. Otherwise, they've been poor defensively and offensively. Reeves and Freeman have 22 of our team's 46 turnovers. As a team we have 24 assists on 76 made baskets, which is abysmal. Amazing thing is that we've only given up 28 assists on 87 made buckets.
We excel at making guard-oriented teams play us 1-on-1 on both ends . . . and then letting them beat us on both ends. That comes from having too many me players in the backcourt.