Needless to say, I had a number of questions floating around in my head as I entered the Arena on Saturday for my first look at the 2000-01 Flyers. I read all of the comments after Flyer Madness about how good some players were and how bad others were. Those were the important questions that I worried about as I made the 90-minute drive to my second home. However, I walked away with a bigger question. Where was everybody? I bet there weren’t more than 500 people there to watch the Flyers battle each other. Where were the Faithful? If 3,500 came out for Madness, don’t you think that more would have made it to a full-fledged scrimmage? I guess that it was one of the last nice days of the year, but how can anyone worry about such trivial things like cutting the grass or raking leaves when the Flyers can be viewed for the first time? Despite this lack of caring, there will be 13,500 in attendance for the UC game.Now on to more important matters: who looked good and who looked bad?

All World: Tony Stanley will not only be the Player of the Year in the conference, but he will win the National Player of the Year award if he plays all of his games like this one. He easily scored 30 points and seemed to be everywhere. The key was that the 30 came easily. This was not a show of run and gun. He hit threes like he was throwing gum into a trashcan. He still had a tendency to pop the three before looking to drive the ball, but when you are 7 for 9, who cares? He looks like he is ready to lead this team to the Promised Land.

All Average: Just about everybody else. I know this flies in the face of some of the other things I’ve read, but just about everyone else had good and bad spells. That shouldn’t be unexpected due to the newness of so many faces and the lack of organized practices. If they look this way in two months, we might find ourselves in a bit of trouble.

My favorite of the new guys would have to be Marshall. Although he didn’t score a great deal, he handled the ball well and only made a few freshman mistakes. He has the ability to shoot the ball, but is probably doing his best to show OP that he can play the point when asked to. Is he David Morris? No, but he is quick and can score when needed.

My biggest disappointment of the new guys would have to be Lamar Hill. He looked good for the first two minutes, but after that didn’t show me much. Although this is not the popular view, I think he will be the odd man out when it comes to playing time at the 5 spot.

Another unpopular view of mine regards Sean Finn. He showed more confidence in the second half when he was not teamed up with the rest of the returning players. He didn’t score much, but did hit two of three free throws. I really think he will be the main player at center before the year comes to a close. Waleskowski made some nice moves around the basket and rebounded well. He probably rebounded the best of the big guys. He will earn that scholarship.

King was not the player that had been advertised. We’d been told that he was a slasher without much of an outside shot. He had a brief stretch of greatness when he canned 4 threes from well behind the line. Other than that, he played like a freshman. Twice, he faked out his point guard and forced a bad throw and had trouble hanging onto the ball when in traffic. He has a good body and moves well. He could get some playing time in a three-man rotation with Hall and Stanley.

Sammy Smith was the poster boy for middle of the road: didn’t look good and didn’t look bad. The thing that really ‘jumped’ out was when he had to grab a pass deep in the corner from one of his teammates. It was thrown well over his head but he skied to make the grab. He didn’t look out of his league as a number of Division IV players do when they hit the big time, but I don’t see him being a major contributor this year.

Osborne sat on the bench with a large wrap on his left leg. I’ve felt all along that he would be redshirted this year and this may be one more reason to push the staff in that direction. He was not as wide as I had imagined but he is still big. He may be a real asset in the future.

Of the returning players, Morris was the shakiest. He made two consecutive turnovers when his team was trying to come back from a 10-point deficit in the second half. Overall he played OK, but we’ll need better than OK from him this year. Green was the most aggressive other than Stanley. It’s hard to believe that he’s only a sophomore. I think he’ll get some playing time this year. The real question is if he will bring a lunch pale to work or just phone it in.Brooks Hall lived on the outside on offense. You need your best free throw shooter to make it to the line as often as possible. I hope he realizes that too. Holland was Holland and tended to show moments of brilliance and then disappear. He will have to become more consistent because he will be our main scorer underneath.

Overall, I was pleased with what I saw. We were as quick as any UD team I have ever seen. More importantly, there were very few times that we were searching for someone to take a shot with 2 seconds left on the shot clock. This team is going to be fun to watch.