Okay, I'm back from Chapel Hill now. First of all, there was a line out the whazoo to get tickets. I felt like I was at ticket distribution again....
A few things to add to hoops' excellent report:
1. I don't believe hoops said anything about Jawad. Well, I was torn in my assessment of his game. He had a lot of positives and negatives. He really tried to force his shot a lot, which is something I'd hoped he wouldn't do as much this year. He still does a lot of fastbreak "stop and pop" as I call it, and I don't believe he hit one of those shots the entire game. He is much better from a set position. That is the thing I think he still needs a lot of work: shot selection.
He did, however, make a lot of good plays. He had some great passes, and some good shots when he was set. His all-around game has continued to improve. Those will be huge positives for us.
2. Felton was just as advertised. Many times through the game (as he was hitting three after three from the top of the key), I was thinking to myself that Felton can be a great scorer when his shot is on... but the beautiful thing about him is that when his shot isn't on, he doesn't try to force it -- and he still has the all-around game that makes the rest of the team better. He's good either way.
He had some excellent passes that made you go "Oooh." Perhaps the most telling thing was that he had one bad pass that I can think of -- where he tried to pass it to someone behind the entire defense. It ended up being intercepted... and it was actually kind of stunning that the pass didn't get through. He's so good that you expect him to do something great every time he's out on the floor.
3. Noel is our most athletic guy by far. This is nothing new to most people, but I always believed he was a great athlete that could add a bit in that area -- but he's much more than that. He makes plays when he's out there. He's somebody that you're not going to forget about when he's on the floor. Having that type of presence out there is only going to make the rest of our guys better.
4. McCants was hitting threes like they were nothing. I had no idea his shot was so good.
5. Grant really impressed me early on. He reminds me a lot of Haywood, which is saying a lot for a guy who wasn't a big recruit (while Haywood was). The main difference to me is that Grant is already a lot stronger than Haywood will ever be. That's a huge plus. He is going to have to work on his conditioning a lot, though, and he's going to have to learn to be selective with his fouls. And he has a lot of work to do on his post moves. But, this guy isn't as much of a "project" as people say.
6. Sanders looks more like a "project" to me than Grant. He looks a little intimidated out on the court. Not to discredit the young man, but he doesn't do a lot of things out on the court yet. He is perhaps the exact opposite of the way I described Noel -- you will often forget that he is out on the court. Also, he needs to add some muscle mass if we expect him to do any damage down low.
7. Holmes is going to give us a lot more than I originally thought this year. I kept thinking "Archie Miller" when I saw him yesterday, but that is probably an unfair comparison based merely on the fact that they are both short, spunky white guys. Holmes will not quite be that kind of shooter. But, he will be a great spell for Felton off the bench. But no, you don't want him playing too much or he's going to get overpowered and abused.
-JD
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