** There was a time not all that long ago when first exhibition game of the Basketball team served as a useful antidote for a major disappointment by the Football team.
** Still, I wasn’t expecting that kind of cleansing this evening. A nice little shot of hoops hopefulness would have been nice. I can’t say I really got that.
** Keep in mind that over the last 20 years or so, from time to time we have struggled with exhibition opponents. In 2004, CMU led our Panthers by 2 at the half, and that Pitt team went onto the Tourney. In 2008, IUP had their way with DeJuan Blair in the paint, and he went onto be a consensus 1st Team All American.
** And even if the Panthers performance wasn’t enough to give me the shot we may have been looking for, it wasn’t completely terrible either.
** One can say at least say this because Femi played the kind of second half that we all hope we’ll see from him this year. In the first half, he seemed to be trying to facilitate, but it the second half he started to attack. He readily got to the basket or got to the line, where his foul shooting looks much improved.
** Additionally, Femi played in control on offense at a good pace, and because of this he didn’t turn the ball over. He also looked decent shooting the three. Plain and simply, I think this team will need Femi to score plenty this year and just about everything we saw from Femi this night was something to like.
** Ithiel scored 16 but it wasn’t an impressive 16 to me. He’s still missing more spot up open threes than is healthy for our offense. But that happened at times last year, so my expectations are that Ithiel will be the same player as last year too. He’ll really help us in some games, but may disappear in others.
** Nike might be the team’s most aggressive offensive player (scorer), and he was certainly missed in the first half when the offense seemed out of sorts with him only playing 8 minutes. In the second half, it felt to me like Femi decided he needed to do more aggressive work since he knew Nike wouldn’t play at all, and eventually that paid off.
** But the payoff didn’t come until Gannon cut the second half lead to 8 when a switch to a 3-2 zone stymied the Panthers for several straight trips.
** This was around the same time when Will Jeffress came alive and planted himself in the middle of a 15-0 run that put the game out of reach. This included a nice put back and a spot up three.
** It was a darn good thing Will came alive because fans might have ready to leave him for dead after a really tough first half. He wasn’t even close of his first three 3-point tries, and struggled to do much anything else.
** So let’s hope this is the start of something for him, because this team really needs some help on the wing.
** Well, that is unless one considers Mo Gueye a wing. There are plenty of times he actually plays like a wing and I mean this in a good way. My thoughts on Mo remained the same as after the scrimmage a couple weeks ago. There were times when it looked like he’s the Panther’s best player. That would be a little more exciting to report if we didn’t already know what his offensive production was in two years in the America East Conference.
** Still, I’m looking forward to seeing what Mo does against some better competition, because there is some lighting to his game and he’s capable of some highlights. If he can do this consistently, maybe this team can surpass expectations.
** Regardless, surpassing expectation seems like a bit of a pipe dream if Big John struggles like he did tonight. Nothing seemed to work for him offensively, which is mostly because his finesse game played into the way Gannon was defending him. He never used his bulk to get good ball position, which is something one might expect against an undersized opponent.
** It’s not that John didn’t put it the effort, because that wasn’t the issue. I’m hoping it’s more just that he’s got a lot more learning to do. Hopefully he can learn fast.
** As for the rest of the Panthers – Dan Oladapo, Nate Santos, Chris Payton, Onye Ezeakudo and Noah Collier – even if all five might see some minutes as the season goes on, we didn’t get much of a reason to think any can make a notable impact. It's an easy guess that Mr. Burton will be a welcome addition.
** On the defensive end, I was generally pleased with most of the effort, and there’s a real focus on staying in front of dribble penetration. However, we still are having difficulty rotating to the kick out and we were truly fortunate that Gannon just shot the ball really badly for most of the first half.
** It's hard to know exactly just what went right in the second stanza, turning what was looking to be a close game midway through the half into a 25 point win. I’m hoping it’s a little bit of “spurtability” if there really is such a thing.
** I should also say that there where about a half dozen times when Gannon made easy work of the Panthers in the paint, and in a couple of those trips, Big John was the biggest culprit.
** To be honest, after two looks at our Panthers, I have no idea what to expect in the opener against The Citadel. Hopefully, we can outdo that horrific start from last season. Like most other Panther fans, I want to start to feel a little more excited about our basketball program. I’m hoping that will begin next week. Because it hasn’t started just yet.
** Still, I wasn’t expecting that kind of cleansing this evening. A nice little shot of hoops hopefulness would have been nice. I can’t say I really got that.
** Keep in mind that over the last 20 years or so, from time to time we have struggled with exhibition opponents. In 2004, CMU led our Panthers by 2 at the half, and that Pitt team went onto the Tourney. In 2008, IUP had their way with DeJuan Blair in the paint, and he went onto be a consensus 1st Team All American.
** And even if the Panthers performance wasn’t enough to give me the shot we may have been looking for, it wasn’t completely terrible either.
** One can say at least say this because Femi played the kind of second half that we all hope we’ll see from him this year. In the first half, he seemed to be trying to facilitate, but it the second half he started to attack. He readily got to the basket or got to the line, where his foul shooting looks much improved.
** Additionally, Femi played in control on offense at a good pace, and because of this he didn’t turn the ball over. He also looked decent shooting the three. Plain and simply, I think this team will need Femi to score plenty this year and just about everything we saw from Femi this night was something to like.
** Ithiel scored 16 but it wasn’t an impressive 16 to me. He’s still missing more spot up open threes than is healthy for our offense. But that happened at times last year, so my expectations are that Ithiel will be the same player as last year too. He’ll really help us in some games, but may disappear in others.
** Nike might be the team’s most aggressive offensive player (scorer), and he was certainly missed in the first half when the offense seemed out of sorts with him only playing 8 minutes. In the second half, it felt to me like Femi decided he needed to do more aggressive work since he knew Nike wouldn’t play at all, and eventually that paid off.
** But the payoff didn’t come until Gannon cut the second half lead to 8 when a switch to a 3-2 zone stymied the Panthers for several straight trips.
** This was around the same time when Will Jeffress came alive and planted himself in the middle of a 15-0 run that put the game out of reach. This included a nice put back and a spot up three.
** It was a darn good thing Will came alive because fans might have ready to leave him for dead after a really tough first half. He wasn’t even close of his first three 3-point tries, and struggled to do much anything else.
** So let’s hope this is the start of something for him, because this team really needs some help on the wing.
** Well, that is unless one considers Mo Gueye a wing. There are plenty of times he actually plays like a wing and I mean this in a good way. My thoughts on Mo remained the same as after the scrimmage a couple weeks ago. There were times when it looked like he’s the Panther’s best player. That would be a little more exciting to report if we didn’t already know what his offensive production was in two years in the America East Conference.
** Still, I’m looking forward to seeing what Mo does against some better competition, because there is some lighting to his game and he’s capable of some highlights. If he can do this consistently, maybe this team can surpass expectations.
** Regardless, surpassing expectation seems like a bit of a pipe dream if Big John struggles like he did tonight. Nothing seemed to work for him offensively, which is mostly because his finesse game played into the way Gannon was defending him. He never used his bulk to get good ball position, which is something one might expect against an undersized opponent.
** It’s not that John didn’t put it the effort, because that wasn’t the issue. I’m hoping it’s more just that he’s got a lot more learning to do. Hopefully he can learn fast.
** As for the rest of the Panthers – Dan Oladapo, Nate Santos, Chris Payton, Onye Ezeakudo and Noah Collier – even if all five might see some minutes as the season goes on, we didn’t get much of a reason to think any can make a notable impact. It's an easy guess that Mr. Burton will be a welcome addition.
** On the defensive end, I was generally pleased with most of the effort, and there’s a real focus on staying in front of dribble penetration. However, we still are having difficulty rotating to the kick out and we were truly fortunate that Gannon just shot the ball really badly for most of the first half.
** It's hard to know exactly just what went right in the second stanza, turning what was looking to be a close game midway through the half into a 25 point win. I’m hoping it’s a little bit of “spurtability” if there really is such a thing.
** I should also say that there where about a half dozen times when Gannon made easy work of the Panthers in the paint, and in a couple of those trips, Big John was the biggest culprit.
** To be honest, after two looks at our Panthers, I have no idea what to expect in the opener against The Citadel. Hopefully, we can outdo that horrific start from last season. Like most other Panther fans, I want to start to feel a little more excited about our basketball program. I’m hoping that will begin next week. Because it hasn’t started just yet.
