If Jevon is absolutely amazing, we could win 8 games. If he is the normal frosh who is skilled but slightly out of control, a little sloppy with the ball, not up to strength on defense, or if his natural tempo is drastically different than what our current team plays, then we could easily be a 4-6 win conf team. Easily.
My gut says he is better than Nigel in every way except three-point shooting. Faster, stronger, better dribbler, better disher and better driver. So you basically swap them out and bump up JT's minutes with everybody else staying healthy and I say it's 8-10 to 9-9 lock. This is all gut here. I don't know it, I just feel it. oscar will pull some upsets. He always does, even in his worst years. He's already cashed in some of his standard head scratching stinkers. These things follow a pattern.
It would be different if I thought he was losing this team, but I don't. Again just feelings.
I don't know how we rebound or score enough points to have it make a difference. Unless Shane turns in to Rodney McGruder we are screwed because our bigs our undersized and underskilled and our swings and guards are not good at distribution (besides Shane) or shooting (besides Shane and Foster).
I mean it is possible that Foster and Jevon somehow just relentlessly drive to the rim and will us to a victory, but that seems unlikely.
Good rebounding isn't really a necessary ingredient for oscar teams to win, at least it was never my perception that it was. He has been good at getting his guards and wings to crash the boards to make up for less than stellar post rebounding. It would be my expectation that's what he'll do again.
Scoring will be an issue. My guess is they'll slow the pace way down come conference play and hope to limit scoring oppies for the other side and try to win ugly.
I think this team will improve on defense. If they get to 8 or 9 wins, it'll be because they get after it defensively, they rebound just enough to get by as a group and they force other teams to play slow and ugly. A real grind, scrappy as all get out. The outside shooting will also pick up. They'll get over 30% which will make a significant difference.
I don't expect it'll be fun for anyone to watch. I get the feeling oscar and co. are succeeding at getting this team to buy into having a chip on its shoulder. Whether he can maintain that if they get their dicks kicked off in the coming weeks is the key between 8 or 9 wins in conference vs. a complete cum bath. If he loses the upperclassmen by getting humiliated again a la Georgetown in the noncon then he's mumped.
The real difference at this point is that he's got a guy or guys on his staff that are actually tough. Chester walked the walk when he played. That may be the difference. Jay rough ridin' Price wasn't firing anybody up.
