The battle for the other guard spot is the most intriguing for me. Would be awesome if Crab was good enough. I don't know if we'll throw Wilbekin out there as the primary ball handler on day 1.
Leonard/Dinos for the other spot is interesting to me as well. Leonard is probably better offensively. Think Dinos will prove to be the better rebounder and has the size advantage.
If Overton starts, we have big problems.
Sitting them if lazy is coaching.I think many college athletes have to taught how to play hard. If Manning is going to get consistent effort from player to player, from game to game, from team to team, he's going to have to coach it.
This will likely be a very long season, but it could be a very interesting one. There are a lot of questions about players.
How will Greg play after sitting out? Has he developed a 3 point shot?
Can Dinos change from the soft Euro style to then banging of the ACC? Can his butt help him inside?
Will Hudson show us what excited Chill about him? How's his long range shot?
Can Mitchell give us some minutes and threes?
I hope Danny's quiet/Larry Bownish toughness will be seen on the court.
Wake Forest’s players have been working out for months, including a brutal two-week bootcamp, and Monday was its first “official” practice. Manning’s mellow pre-practice demeanor was all business once the session began and it was reflected by the team.
“Practices are more intense and I think we buy into what he says,” junior forward Devin Thomas said. “He’s a cool dude. He doesn’t do anything to make me nervous. I try my hardest not to disappoint him and get yelled at in practice. But he’s not that kind of dude. He’s the kind of coach that calms you down when you’re worked up. He knows you’re accountable. Still I haven’t seen him get worked up yet, so …”
Thomas drifted off into a sly grin.
I really love what we are hearing from the players, too. Sounds like Manning is really doing work in changing the culture (irony?) in our program and it seems like these guys are really buying in.
Regarding our lineup, I think we have to play to our strengths, mainly keeping the paint open for CMM, Greg, and Devin to operate. That's why I like the idea of using Miles, at least at first, as a screen shooter and spot up man in the corner. The same goes for Darius.
The more balanced we can keep our offense and the better we can get our best players involved in ways that play to their strengths, the better we can be this year.
One more point - If Mitchell Wilbekin doesn't set the world on fire, then I really wouldn't panic all that much. He seems like he has some work to do physically before he's capable of playing both guard spots, and he really has a skill set that could boost our second unit right now.
It seems like McClinton might be a really good fit for the fast break offense that Manning plans to run. As shown by the quote from Manning about McClinton, Manning keeps talking about how ridiculously athletic McClinton is. If he can get some easy baskets for this team, it'll really help take the pressure off of an unproven half court offense.
Overton looks like Jerry Schellenberg at age 58. At least he did in the summer league. He has a nice stroke and good skills but has no athleticism at all. None.