Courtside observances

[Catreporter]

1. West is very fun to watch. Terrific find by Collins. With Singleton, the team would have had two nice building blocks. Oh well....
2.Gelo is our best rebounder and is a great finisher around the basket, but HE STILL CANT MAKE AN OUTSIDE SHOT which limits his effectiveness
3. Pratt found his game again. Cats will need double figure scoring from him.
4..Smith played but his shot looked terrible; ditto Kostic
5.Krasinski is a three point deadeye when he gets room but that could be tough against bigger and better teams
6.Bigs are weak and teams will be attacking there all year against us and rebounding will be a nightly challenge The Finn is our best option but he needs to get much stronger
7.Hodge was still on the bench but he looks close to being ready. We will need him

 

[Sec_112]

1. West is very fun to watch. Terrific find by Collins. With Singleton, the team would have had two nice building blocks. Oh well....
2.Gelo is our best rebounder and is a great finisher around the basket, but HE STILL CANT MAKE AN OUTSIDE SHOT which limits his effectiveness
3. Pratt found his game again. Cats will need double figure scoring from him.
4..Smith played but his shot looked terrible; ditto Kostic
5.Krasinski is a three point deadeye when he gets room but that could be tough against bigger and better teams
6.Bigs are weak and teams will be attacking there all year against us and rebounding will be a nightly challenge The Finn is our best option but he needs to get much stronger
7.Hodge was still on the bench but he looks close to being ready. We will need him

1) It seems like West has taken a leap. We'll see against better competition but you saw it against Iowa State. He was a nice player last year, but so far he's displaying more confidence in his handles and his outside shot is much more consistent. He's going to have a tough time when teams start focusing on him because he's the only concern. But he's been really impressive so far.

2) 100% correct about Gelo.

3) The team tried to work on Pratt and Gill at the 1 a little bit last night. There's a definite difference in how the offense runs.

I don't know if they NEED double-digits from Pratt. They need it from either him or Karasinski night in and night out. But they need Pratt to be able to create off the dribble and play reasonable defense.

5) If Karasinski shoots like that, it will be a reasonable year.

7) I saw Hodge jog either before the ISU exhibition or the open practice. It was just a simple slow jog out with his teammates, and it didn't look good. He still had a very noticeable limp in his very slow run. It's the guess of Dr. 112 that it's still going to be awhile.

 

[DaCat]

Regarding #6 (the bigs) it seems Collins did not address the size deficiency during the off-season. McEldon and Ghai are not going to win you a lot of games in the B1G this season. Now with McEldon out, a very raw Ghai and an undersized Federiko, who is rumored to play soft, are now the top options. Ugh.

 

[CappyNU]

Regarding #6 (the bigs) it seems Collins did not address the size deficiency during the off-season. McEldon and Ghai are not going to win you a lot of games in the B1G this season. Now with McEldon out, a very raw Ghai and an undersized Federiko, who is rumored to play soft, are now the top options. Ugh.

I heard there's this international recruit named Natt Micholson who might address the size issue, CC should look into this.