The unis are tight. Wish it was on after the Chiefs tho
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Game starts shortly
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Elmarko starting over Timberlake.

Bill must like his defense.
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Really rough start for Hunter. He looked awful. The offense in general just looks stagnant with him out there. Just standing and watching. I'm sure it will improve but we don't look good early.
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Dickinson looks real fucking bad.
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Well since the Chiefs suck I can now watch this
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I wouldn’t look at this game if you want to feel optimistic about your sports teams.
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Not watching but if KJ is starting with him opponents will just collapse on him completely in the interior and there probably won’t be enough spacing/shooting around him to make opponents pay.
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Dickinson is proven enough that I wouldn’t worry
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Worry about him offensively? Definitely not. But you can defend us if we don’t have enough shooting with him.
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Self will figure it out.

Timberlake and Furphy are big time shooters. You could go with 4 guards around Dickinson to create spacing and play KJ as the 6th man to spell whoever struggles.
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Haven't looked great but tough road game. Illinois has made some tough buckets and threes.
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I’m sure he will.
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Illinois actually did the strategy I thought they would which is what shut us down in the last game second half of Puerto Rico. Play KJ Adams guy as a bit of a free safety and absolutely do not let Harris, Timberlake, or any guards have open shots. Give Hunter all the spin hooks and 6 foot jumpers he wants. He will miss enough that the massive 3 point disparity will probably outweigh it in the long run.

Self said in the broadcast he wants them to shoot more 3s but there isn't any way to do that if guards don't drop down to help on Hunter. Making matters worse is if Hunter misses there are no rebounders to get an offensive board. We don't have a single guard that can really generate consistent offense 1v1.

On defense...I just don't see how this gets fixed. Winning essentially 5 games in a row in the tournament is going to require a significant amount of luck if the only way we can play is to give up loads of threes and hope they miss. The underrated thing about the 2020 team was how quick doke was so he was serviceable on the perimeter. Hunter is the opposite of that and we gave up tons of open looks. Sure they hit a tough shot or two but that's going to happen against good teams.

And finally the depth is just awful. Braun does not belong on a D1 high major court. I know it's a fun story and everyone likes his brother but he's worse than Clemence. If guys could actually foul out in this game we might have lost by 20. Furphy has to be amazing and we haven't seen him play a single second so who knows, but if he's anything less than very good we have a huge problem depth wise.

I know things will generally work out but this team reminds more of last year's team in a "going to be good but there are definitely some obvious flaws here" and not a dominant start to finish one seed who just crushes everything in our path.
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You can’t let Big Dick get that deep
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