I expect this team to be more talented than the past 6 years, but also inconsistent. I love our Sophs, but they will be mostly playing with transfers and other young guys, which will mean turnovers and streaky play. Nobody likes the age excuse and it seems like we are #foreveryoung, but this year, it's especially true. It turns out when your former coach completely negates an entire class worth of recruiting, it can hurt you down the road.
With that said, inconsistent would be an upgrade from consistently bad. I think we have the talent to pull a couple upsets, we just need to start doing it. It starts with learning to play the last 5 minutes of games. Whether we have a lead or are trailing, we have been atrocious at closing out games. When we're ahead, we look slack, make unforced errors, and cannot convert at the FT line. When we're behind, we completely break down and stop running offenses. It becomes a 1 on 1, 5 second game that very few teams in the country can pull off.
Hopefully Woods and Arians can help out in both cases by being reliable free throw shooters at the end of games when we're ahead, and providing B Craw with some options to kick out to when we're behind. Too many times last year B Craw took it upon himself to make up late game deficits all on his own. I love the killer instinct and think the kid has the clutch gene, but he needs help opening up the defense; which I'm hoping Arians and Woods will be able to do.
