We mostly know what we’ve got from Crawford, Sobolewski, Hearn, Marcotullio. Let’s focus on the fresh faces.
Positives
Tre Demps – Looks fully recovered from injury. NU is going to be happy that he redshirted and has four more years of eligibility left. Shot looks better than expected and we get a sense of confidence when the ball is his hands that he will make a play by either taking it upon himself or setting up his teammate.
Nikola Cerina – Started slow but his shot looks better than expected. He may the type that will hurt teams if teams cheat away from him on help defense. His defense looked solid.
Lumpkin – Didn’t do too much but looked pretty solid for a freshman getting his feet wet.
Turner – In minutes limited by injury he looked very active
and probably the best of the big men on defense.
Mixed Bag
Swopshire – Victim of overhype? Thought he would be more dominant against
undermanned Maroons. Got to the rim with
ease as to be expected but his shot wasn’t great and didn’t have a nose for the
ball on defense. He shot MSU out of the
NCAAs last year which raises the possibility that this was an off-night or he’s
streaky.
Olah – It was a welcomed sight to see his offensive repertoire (inside and outside) and aggressiveness. Rebounding looked just ok. Tempering our enthusiasm are two things. First he won’t have that kind of height/weight advantage very often. Second his defense was pretty poor.
Abrahamson – Like his aggressiveness on offense which will serve him well once he works through the jitters, but boy did he look lost out there on defense.
Ajou – We liked his size and mobility. Very raw in terms of using his height effectively. Needs to keep the ball up high which is quite learnable. We expect him to be a contributor down the road.
Walk-Ons
We thought both held their own. Would be curious to see them against better
teams. Jimenez looked quick on defense,
and Montgomery was solid in his own right.
