only got to watch the final 10 minutes last night and found myself wondering if casey jacobsen had dropped acid or drank mushroom tea to illicit his rambling string of phrases and thoughts that make a cgmfp press conference appear concise and on point
watched the rebroadcast today and damn...... for a number of reasons
i really like how this team came out and competed. there are still rough edges that need to be knocked off as the pieces continue to fit together, but you can see there is a plan and the players are working to execute the plan on the tcu side of the ball
have no freaking idea what usc was trying to do and while i know they have had some injuries they have just way too much raw talent to just go through the motions. seriously they have 9-10 top 100 recruits and i have seen intramural teams better organized offensively and give better defensive effort
compare that to the development on the offensive end in bane, noi, and fisher's perimeter games. those guys have come leap years and that simply isn't a matter of guys staying after practice and shooting a few extra shots. not sure which coaches have been working with them, but you can see it in the development of their games.
same with big chris inside. true, a counter move to the right hand would be a nice compliment inside and i think the final piece will be an 8-10 foot jumper of the pnr, but the positioning, call for the ball, drop step, etc... are so much better than when i saw him play a few high school games.
i think it will be interesting to watch jaylen's role develop. not sure if he will ever quite be as explosive going to the basketball as he once was when he came to ft worth due to the injuries, but he is a legit outside threat and when you combine his passing skills with the perimeter game it does pose any interesting threat.
agree with farmfrogn on the level of play in the interior defense. i think that was a big part in getting usc to just say screw it when they weren't getting easy chances.
biggest thing to me for the game is that i think you see players fitting into their roles. archie is a perfect example. moose and others have continually talked about how hard he plays which the guy has from game one. there is enough scoring potential he doesn't need to contribute a great deal offensively and i think he can become a key piece on the defensive end.
dunk attempt showed his athletic ability, but the biggest thing was the confidence to even try that in the first place. there are videos out there of kaden doing similar things in high school dunk contests, but it is one thing to do that for fun in a contest and completely another when during the flow of a game you make the decision to go over someone from that far out.
not sure how good this team is because usc gave no resistance in the second half, but i do think an expectation of getting to baylor with just one loss is not too high and i think the game in lawrence will give us a better idea of if this is a team that finish near the top of the big 12 or around the middle in a very tough conference
