(11-02-2018 01:51 PM)dan10 Wrote:  Agree Rodney was our rebounding last year. His void will be apparent. Wish we still had Tramaine to help on offense, but it will be interesting to see how these guys all gel. I think we will find some scoring due to tempo, I do not see us being a good shooting team and I think we will still struggle badly on defense.

We didn't have Rodney last year, I assume you meant Austin Williams. Tramaine was big on the boards as well and Sammy chipped as well so I agree that rebounding is of concern. I think Butler will be a big contributor there. Perry is more of a shot blocker but I'm not so sure about his rebounding. The others Demir, Tadas, and Doles also seem kind of weak inside. Hopefully being on campus for a whole year will help some with that; I believe both Demir and Tadas weren't on campus in the summer last year just arriving for the fall semester. Walton had good rebounding numbers in JUCO but it is hard to know how that will translate here.

I expect that shooting will be improved over last year. All the guys who will be potentially taking the guard minutes vacated by Tramaine and Sammy have good three-point shooting numbers (Walton, John, Washington, Green) and Harper can't get any worse that he was last year. I think all the big guys with the exception of Perry have decent outside shots as well.

To me defense is the big question. We were so bad last year and then lose Stretch on top of that. Although Tramaine was not seen as a good defensive player (and still is not if you read the Saint Louis boards), he had among the best numbers on the team for the opponents scoring at a lower rate when he was in the game compared to when he was not. The glimmer of hope there might be here is that Spiker has said in preseason interviews that defense has been a focus in practice. I guess we'll see.