Did you feel after the Kentucky game that the program was at a level in which it needed to be restored to respectable?
Did you feel after the Kentucky game that the program was at a level in which it needed to be restored to respectable?
I didn't expect it either, trust me. But I also hoped and believed that TC would be our PG early on and Tony Woods would be there to clog up the middle. We had very little depth at any position besides the 2 or 3 this year, and it hurt. Our team composition was just not good at all.
The players and Bzz better turn this thing around quick in the ooc schedule or it's never going to get better.
Team composition would have been better if those two were healthy and available.
Although, I still think we would have struggled at PG all year.
Yeah, after seeing TC return, I think this may have been true regardless. However, I'll wait until next year to fairly judge him as a PG. He had some huge challenges to overcome, and I thought it was very gutsy for him to return in the first place.
I think Fields might contribute more than expected next year, but that's completely a hunch.
After Kentucky, we were looking at a typical rebuilding job, but we were in pretty good shape with 2 sophomores who had promising freshman years and a balanced freshmen class that was well-regarded with solid talent. Getting a new coach to rebuild after realizing that the previous coach couldn't do it was a good move.
Now we're to believe that the program needed to be razed and rebuilt and the man to do it is a journeyman NBA assistant/college head coach without a track record of success?
It's tough to stomach.
Yeah, I'm not trying to knock Tony at all. But I was always skeptical of people saying that all we needed was a PG and that the lowest of our 5 recruits would save the day.
I love Tony's mentality to come back and fight with and for his teammates, and I do think the PT he got this year will serve him well going forward. Looking forward to seeing him progress as a player.
It's just hard to tell how those freshman who had two promising years were going to look as anything but role players. CJ stepped up and played pretty well out of position, Ari did not.
As promising as our freshman class was, very rarely do you see non-5 star guys contributing significantly in their first years.
I'm just not sure if TC is athletic enough to be a starting PG in the ACC. He struggles to finish around the rim because he isn't quick enough off his feet or creative around the basket. Some guards can make up for that with their shooting, but he is not a good shooter either. He does have great strength though, so maybe he will use that to his advantage more going forward.
I would love to be wrong about all this though. Maybe a summer to train and fully recover will reveal a different TC next year.
It's just hard to tell how those freshman who had two promising years were going to look as anything but role players. CJ stepped up and played pretty well out of position, Ari did not.
As promising as our freshman class was, very rarely do you see non-5 star guys contributing significantly in their first years.
Not only is that false, Wake has had a strong history of non-5 star players contributing significantly in their first years, including McKie. Kendall Marshall was a 4-star and Stoglin was 3-star and they joined 5-stars Barnes and Leslie as All-ACC.
Our freshman class was around the same level or above as plenty of players over the years who contributed as freshmen from guys like O'Kelley and JGray to Darius and Josh Howard to more recently Teague and Johnson.