If we are healthy, I would rotate Cook and Noveroske at center, play Garcia at PF, Sammi at WF and Wiard and Q at the guards. Not sure how well Noveroske and Garcia can guard long, lean players with hops, but it would be fun.

So, in the presser video uploaded on the website, Cullop doesn't say anything about Garcia. I assume the Blade fellow has the right info about her being out for the rest of the year, but it is weird after the in-game announcers said she was fine. Also, she was at the game and didn't appear to be wearing any protective gear on the leg, but maybe it was under the sweats or I missed it. Too bad for her, assuming it is true, as that would be the 2nd knee injury in under 2 years.

Heller tried to ask about Barnes and Bolser in the radio interview, but he made a mess of it. Asked Cullop about "the players who haven't seen the floor yet" and Cullop asked, who are you talking about. He then just said Barnes. Cullop said she is "getting closer" and implied she has been working out off to the side during practice. That to me sounds like she is still a few weeks away, but we will see. Her shooting would be a welcome addition, and give them a nice 5 guard rotation for the 3 spots. Cook reportedly is out with an "illness" and was said to be close to returning. No word on Bolser, and you have to wonder if she still has a future playing ball or not.

Interesting stat on Noveroske, she is averaging 0.73 points per minute played this season. That would project to 25ish points per game for a starter who plays 35 minutes a game. That's impressive. Now, no way is she gonna play that many minutes, but if she can give them 20 solid minutes a game, that will be really big. She has to keep the turnovers and bad fouls down. And there are probably some teams that she is a really poor defensive matchup for, so she may not get those minutes every game. In those situations, Cullop said she has no problem playing Curry at the 5, which is strange that her name comes up before Idowu in that situation.

(01-02-2022 12:07 PM)DetroitRocket Wrote:  If we are healthy, I would rotate Cook and Noveroske at center, play Garcia at PF, Sammi at WF and Wiard and Q at the guards. Not sure how well Noveroske and Garcia can guard long, lean players with hops, but it would be fun.

This would be an interesting lineup but I would have a difficult time picking between Sammi and Goss as the fifth piece. Sammi's rebounding would be less critical and Goss seems to have a defensive capacity which can be applied against a range of opponent types. And she has more offense this year than Sammi.

On the coaches show tonight, Cullop confirmed Garcia is out for the year. Too bad. Also repeated that they are "close" to getting Barnes back, and said that Bolser is still a ways away from playing. Didn't comment on whether Cook would be back for Wed or not.

One interesting point about the Akron game was that they said they had never seen the 1-3-1 zone from Akron on film to date, so that's something they put in during their COVID pause - so that explains why they weren't prepared for it in the 1st half. EMU will be another mystery on Wed, since they haven't played in almost 4 weeks, the Rockets don't have a scout and won't know what to expect from them until game time.