I was at the game and will offer my thoughts. Jones and Domask are both 1st or 2nd team all mvc. Great players and leaders! I think Muila will be a good player for us. Athletic, will rebound, alter and block shots and play good defense. He will score some points here and there. FT probably improved since JC. Still expect a 50-60% FT percentage, at best. Filewich will probably start, and deservedly so. D'Amico is the most game ready of the freshman. I like his game at 6'7". If his shot is falling he can do some scoring for us. Good passer and has good bball IQ. Has potential to be a complete player. Wonders will be a good one for us, but is tentative for now. Ebube has a lot of developing to do, but the talent is there and he could be real good in a couple years. Didn't think Banks and Verplancken played as well as they can. Need improvement from them, as I think they will be key contributors. Ben Harvey played well in limited minuets, better than I expected. I thought his defense and aggressiveness were both better than last year. D'Avanzo played less minutes than I expected. I can see us using him at the 4 when the matchups are right. We missed a lot of open shots, but created good shots for ourselves. Passing was stellar in 1st half, not so much in 2nd. We could be a very good defensive team, especially with a healthy Brown and Coupet. We looked good in 1st half, bad in 2nd half. I think we will be a good team and possibly very good, but winning may be dependent upon shots falling against good teams. We can shoot poorly and beat bad teams on sheer talent and defense alone.
I was at the game and will offer my thoughts. Jones and Domask are both 1st or 2nd team all mvc. Great players and leaders! I think Muila will be a good player for us. Athletic, will rebound, alter and block shots and play good defense. He will score some points here and there. FT probably improved since JC. Still expect a 50-60% FT percentage, at best. Filewich will probably start, and deservedly so. D'Amico is the most game ready of the freshman. I like his game at 6'7". If his shot is falling he can do some scoring for us. Good passer and has good bball IQ. Has potential to be a complete player. Wonders will be a good one for us, but is tentative for now. Ebube has a lot of developing to do, but the talent is there and he could be real good in a couple years. Didn't think Banks and Verplancken played as well as they can. Need improvement from them, as I think they will be key contributors. Ben Harvey played well in limited minuets, better than I expected. I thought his defense and aggressiveness were both better than last year. D'Avanzo played less minutes than I expected. I can see us using him at the 4 when the matchups are right. We missed a lot of open shots, but created good shots for ourselves. Passing was stellar in 1st half, not so much in 2nd. We could be a very good defensive team, especially with a healthy Brown and Coupet. We looked good in 1st half, bad in 2nd half. I think we will be a good team and possibly very good, but winning may be dependent upon shots falling against good teams. We can shoot poorly and beat bad teams on sheer talent and defense alone.
I'd say D'Amico's viability as a piece off the bench was one of the more interesting developments last night. Hopefully he can develop into a versatile, all-around-game type sub this year backing up both Coupet and Domask. If so, that could force guys like Harvey and Verplancken to really up their games to see extended time, which I'm fine with.
Watson seemed to love how D’Amico was playing last night which is a nice development. I watched a lot of D’Amico last year and thought he’d be more of a development piece but sounds like he’s making great strides. He struggled with scoring last year but it’s clear he has high basketball IQ and is going to fill up the stat sheet with assists and rebounds while playing good defense.
Hard to form an opinion without being able to see the game but I think Foster Wonders expectations need to be tempered a bunch. Doesn’t mean he won’t be good at some point this season but the transition from playing in the upper peninsula of Michigan to D1 basketball might take some time. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve tempered my expectations on him coming in. I’m still high on him going forward though.
I think this Freshman class is going to be good but there might be a lot of growing pains along the way this season. The good news is this team has a ton of depth to make up for it and they’ll hopefully be able to balance winning and developing the young guys. Marcus Domask coming in and dominating as a Freshman is a rarity as opposed to the norm, it was clear from the first exhibition game that he’d be good right away.
Tend to agree with most of what you said. Only real difference is I think Muila will be very situational. Filewich is , at least at this point a significantly better player overall in my opinion. I think JD will help but I can't imagine Kyler not starting if both are healthy. Ebube has a ton of potential and it does certainly look like Troy is the farthest along of the three freshman. I cant wait for Foster Wonders to catch up and begin to feel comfortable. He will light it up. Anyway, not a pretty game but was good to get a look at everyone.
I also was there last night...1st time in ages. Lance Jones came to play, but I think he should drive a little more...only 2 assists. Domask passed up a lot of open shots in the first half, definitely not a ball hog. Filewich is pretty good, but he missed some bunnies that he made last year and the big Serb Miholjcic may have had something to do with that. D'Amico did play well, Wonders got beat on defense...just my opinion, but it looked like he was over-anticipating instead of just playing his man. Harvey the best player in the second half. D'Avanzo played well in limited time. Banks was OK, Verplancken was not. Muila and Etube are fouling machines.
Henderson State was athletic, but not real talented in comparison. We were sloppy with the ball(15 turnovers), especially in the 2nd half when they actually outscored us. We need handle the ball better and make our gimmies. It's not all bad; we screened better on rebounds and hustled from start to finish.
“The best thing about freshmen is that they become sophomores.”
-- Al McGuire
The promising thing last night to me was rebounding. Yes, we should be able to out rebound a D2 team, but the hustle and effort our guys showed going for them last night was encouraging. If JD and Edube are fouling machines, that could be a problem. Filewich I feel like was a fouling machine last year. We don't need 3 centers racking up 5 fouls every night. I love the depth we can display with the amount of fouls to give on each player, but still, that is a lot of free throws to give up.
One game, especially an exhibition and the first at that, isn't enough of a sample to really project the rest of the season; plus like others have mentioned both Coupet and Brown sat out so a lot would have changed (especially defensively with Brown) in my opinion. That said, let's give it a whirl:
- Who was surprised to see D'Amico as the first freshman off the bench? It could be he just had the best week or last few practices; or it could be a sign he's much further along than anticipated.
- Kyler will start the entire season, and will likely end up as our 3rd leading scorer. It's still incredible he's just starting his sophomore year, and add in the depth we now have down low I haven't been this excited for an SIU frontcourt since BMF was throwing down dunks over Anthony Tolliver.
- We still *really* need a consistent outside 3-point threat beyond Marcus and Lance. Brown showed flashes last year, but if this team is going to compete for the top of the Valley they have got to have one or two guys that can keep defenses honest and keep double-teams off Marcus and Lance. If Kyler can improve down low then he'll continue to suck defenses in; guys have to be able to knock down the outside shot.
- Fouls down low: others have mentioned this, and while JD impressed me while he was in, 3 fouls in 13 minutes is tough. JD is probably our best chance to somehow containing Gage Prim, so its' going to be crucial that he's able to stay in the game.
- Brown and Coupet: I'm guessing Brown is a lock for the starting five based on his defense, but it will be interesting to see how the trio of Coupet, D’Avanzo, and D'Amico end up splitting minutes. D’Avanzo was extremely efficient last night, and like Coupet is a senior, but D'Amico showed promise; that position behind Marcus is probably our deepest, and I like the idea of being able to go really tall in some lineups by slotting something like: Lance, Coupet, D'Avanzo, Marcus, and JD, and then seeing how the heck the other team can guard that.
- We still *really* need a consistent outside 3-point threat beyond Marcus and Lance. Brown showed flashes last year, but if this team is going to compete for the top of the Valley they have got to have one or two guys that can keep defenses honest and keep double-teams off Marcus and Lance. If Kyler can improve down low then he'll continue to suck defenses in; guys have to be able to knock down the outside shot.
I think the 3 point shooting will be fine. Mullins mentioned that he thinks fans in the stands affected their shooting a bit (Jones & Domask are the only ones left from 2019 that played yesterday) and that he was confident in the shooters they had. I think Harvey and Verplancken will both be consistent from 3. Verplancken seemed to get better as the year went on last year and he got more adjusted to D1 and Harvey kind of fell off like Brown when Domask went out but then carried us against Bradley when Jones went down in St. Louis.
Ben Coupet was also pretty decent from behind the arc last year at Little Rock (37.7% and 404th in the country) and should get even more open looks playing with Jones and Domask.
Since everyone got an extra year, that means our players listed as sophomores are freshmen as far as eligibility. correct?
Since everyone got an extra year, that means our players listed as sophomores are freshmen as far as eligibility. correct?
Yes, everyone but the incoming Freshman are eligible for the extra year. And Coupet and D'Avanzo are in their last year obviously.
I would be REALLY surprised if Ben Coupet was not starting. I doubt he would leave Little Rock to come to SIU to sit on the bench. He adds length, athleticism, shooting and experience.
- We still *really* need a consistent outside 3-point threat beyond Marcus and Lance. Brown showed flashes last year, but if this team is going to compete for the top of the Valley they have got to have one or two guys that can keep defenses honest and keep double-teams off Marcus and Lance. If Kyler can improve down low then he'll continue to suck defenses in; guys have to be able to knock down the outside shot.
I'd keep in mind that we did play without 2 most likely starters, and those two starters can definitely shoot 3's. That includes 4 legit 3 point shooters in the starting lineup alone. Lance actually led the Valley in 3 point%. I think we will be fine.
@quatroschallengesaluki Saluki Athletics video people are not the incompetent idiots you apparently think they are. They can not put the video on Facebook or anything else because it is against MVC rules. You CAN turn a camera on a Facebook Live account if it is a closed group. IE, only family members can watch. This has been done with swimming. ESPN has the rights to all telecasts. If you want their $100K per year and their exposure you either put it on their platform or not at all. Plus, Mullins and the Salukis choose to be one of the programs that don't televise exhibition games so that the opening day opponent doesn't get any current video of their team for scouting.
