Quote:
Originally Posted by Mongoose
i've seen very little of how the freshmen point guard can open things up for his teammates as well as score in various settings. Once Mika gets adjusted he'll be an integral part of the team because he's a point that can facilitate and score and has a great feel. Would be stupid to stifle his development, as going forward would benefit Cincy and him to play 20 min a game and potentially more by mid to late season. It's a reason he was going big ten and then was about to commit to another big ten school. Why prolong tge process? To play a stop gap grad transfer who's smaller and not as gifted? At this point he is what he is and can help as we're thin at point guard, but won't keep power 5 level kids if you take the slow approach. We have great tradition but we aren't Duke to dissuade kids from believing they can thrive early. Good players don't come to sit , just the reality. Especially when there's a need at that position.
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Most freshmen don't expect to start. It's not like MAW is a 5-star (or even 4-star) guy. MAW looks like an excellent shooter, but I think it will take him a while to adjust to being a true PG. He plays more like a SG and played the SG role in HS quite a bit.
I agree though, that McNeal probably isn't much (if any) better. McNeal's assist/TO rate is nothing to get excited about and he can't shoot threes at a high percentage. At least MAW seems like he can hit threes at a high rate.
I still think we just play without a traditional PG. Cronin's plan was to have Jarron play PG this season and I don't see why we wouldn't follow that plan. McNeal and MAW rotating at PG while having Jaevin/Williams sit on the bench sounds like a disaster.
McNeal probably comes off the bench early in the season. But as MAW gets adjusted he may be off the bench before McNeal later in the season. If we play a true PG he'd probably just bring the ball up the court, then hand it off to Cumberland and play off-ball. MAW's ability to shoot threes makes him a much better off-ball guy then McNeal.