Wichita State (W 58-50)

Yesterday's game against Wichita State was ugly. We did not look good at all. We played disjointed and out of rhythm and didn't shoot well. All of that can be fixed with time and experience and JTIII's coaching. What is of much greater concern for me and what may be a flaw in JTIII's system is our team's inability to defensive rebound. We got killed on the boards again by a smaller team. This was even happening last year. Whether it is a function of our personnel or the positioning of players on the court when we defend that makes rebounding more difficult is not clear to me, but that is our biggest problem and something that I don't know if we will be able to remedy.

Julian Vaughn needs to do nothing other than rebound when he is on the court. He needs to be like our Ben Wallace out there. If any other player on our team focused strictly on rebounding, it would take too much away from the rest of what he can bring to the team to the extent that it would be detrimental. We can't afford to have Summers or Freeman or Monroe score no points and get 12 boards but we can have Vaughn do it. If he does that, we wouldn't lose much else because he can't really do anything else that well on the floor anyway.

The game was the classic ugly game where a less talented opponent drags the more talented opponent down to its level of play and slows down the pace. We are too young and inexperienced at this time to deal with that adequately and it is unfortunate that we couldn't dictate the tempo more. In time, we might be able to but not yet.

That being said, it speaks volumes about the composure of the team that down the stretch we hit clutch free throws and sealed the game. The game was ugly and we looked rattled on offense but not so rattled that we couldn't close the door and hit our free throws. That to me says, hopefully, that we weren't so much rattled but are still learning how to play together and maybe Wichita State can actually play some good defense. We are also very talented and fast and when these guys get the system and the offense with the speed, strength, quickness and size we have, we are going to crush people. As we get more comfortable in the offense, the shots from outside will fall more because we won't be thinking so much and just reacting. That is important as it is also that we have a true leader on the floor. I think it is great that different guys can do it every night but I think we would be better off if one guy stepped up and just led the team. I don't know if it will Sapp or Wright or Monroe or Summers, but somebody has to be the true go to guy - the focus on the floor. If teams try to take away our leader on the court, then other guys can step up but with a young squad that is learning every game, I think it would be better to have one guy be the leader than have it be by committee.

Tennessee could just spank us but I don't think they will play the same kind of defense that Wichita State does. They are more athletic and more undisciplined and given the high scoring games they played in all last year, I don't think they are as defensively oriented. That will open things up for us and should be to our benefit. I expect we will score a lot more points in this game. We will be able to defend against them but they might just destroy us on the offensive glass. Either way, we couldn't have a bigger contrast in opponents from one day to the next. No matter what, this game will be a great learning experience for the team. I don't care if we lose today, we just cannot lose to the Terps. We just can't.