Had to watch this one delayed due to actual work from 11-12:30pm.
Yeah, that was ugly. Decent win. If we can beat Valpo/Monmouth, that'd be a 2-1 result, which was probably best case given this field. I think Racer said it the other day... The easiest path to 2-1 here was to drop the first game.
Good to see Smart out there... He didn't contribute much to the box score, but I thought he added toughness underneath that we don't otherwise have. He should be good for 10-15 mpg and a 5 fouls. That's fine.
I like Wright Jr, a lot... his size and ability to handle the ball are very helpful. Shoots it well enough.
Love Mucius, but this was not his day. If his shot isn't falling (and it wasn't), he needs to contribute in other ways... I guess he had 5 boards, but he seemed largely invisible.
Johnson is just OK. Doesn't add a whole lot, but doesn't take anything away, either.
Sarr & Brown have been disappointments so far. I like Sarr best when he protects the rim, rebounds, and runs the floor. Don't need or want the offense to ever really flow through him. Brown still disappears WAY too often... Needs to be more aggressive in driving to the hoop (like Wright did a few times).
But this team's success will largely depend on Childress... He was up and down this game. When he's bad, our offense is horrible. He also still forces his way to the hoop too often with no real plan... He's way too short (and below the rim) to finish those drives consistently.
I hope Manning realizes that it needs to be Childress, Wright, Brown, Hoard, & Sarr... With Mucius subbing in as instant offense and Johnson/Smart coming in to give guys a rest. I mean, that's basically what we did today... Just seemed like our offensive execution was abysmal. Defense, I guess, was better... Helped that they missed a ton of open 3s.