Originally Posted by Wallage
I don't want to disrespect DD here, he grew alot for the role he was asked to play last year. His dribble drive was massively improved and hes shooting held relatively consistent. If we had gotten JR year DD instead of SR year DD this past season is probably unwatchable. But overall you are overestimating his importance.
DD made lots of mistakes last year you hope are ironed out of guys by their SO year. Mistakes that clearly and obviously drained a last years super young team emotionally. There was no way that eam could recover from that, in additional to their collective inexperience, lack of a bench and enormous minutes played.
I don't think anyone on the roster steps in this year and makes up completely for his 15 ppg. But if whoever starts in his spot can average 8 ppg and the rest of the guys improve to cover the rest we will be fine.
Our biggest problems last year were lack of experience (combined with new system) and lack of defense. Experience will obviously be better with a year under our belt. Defense will improve with a yea to understand of the system, and having a legitimate bench.
Conference title? Maybe, maybe not but I think we have the piece to be in the mix.
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While I agree that DD turned the ball over quite a bit, as he was just not strong with the ball, it's hard for me to agree that DD drained last year's team emotionally. From where he was earlier in his career and even thru his junior year, he had an overall excellent year...
DD is who he is and you simply find very very few to turn around their fortunes in a single year the way he did and be forced to be THE GUY and THE leader.He was neither of those things, nor even close, his first 3 years. He was not all of a sudden going to be a strong physical player nor was he going to all of a sudden be strong with the ball. Personally, he had a much better year than I thought he was going to have..
Defensively is what cost them. Terrible perimeter defense on the 3 ball and even worse dribble penetration allowed.....That automatically improves, imo, this coming season....
