If it were a matter of a Shaqquan Aaron for Damion Lee trade...go ahead and sign me up. Damion Lee and Trey Lewis with additions of Donovan Mitchell and Deng Adel immediately addresses something that probably put us out of the tournament this year...athletic and skilled depth at the two and three. I'd love to have Blackshear and Rozier back, but our system isn't designed for the two, three and four positions to go 35 minutes a night. We go from wearing out other teams to wearing ourselves out and we saw that against UNC in the ACCT and the loss to Mich State. Damion Lee has a REAL skill set that is a good fit; we immediately have become enhanced shooting FTs with he and Lewis which cost us this year.
With regard to Damion Lee and us vs. Maryland...ah, the power of the internet. My rudimentary research skills have discovered that his tie to Maryland aside from being a native of the Baltimore area is current asst. coach Juan Dixon and his involvement with the now defunct DC Assault AAU program. The same one that produced Chinanu Onuaku and I'm reasonably certain and more importantly...Louisville assistant Kenny Johnson. The one bumper for Louisville aside from Maryland returning their two primary backcourt guys aside from Mark Wells is a simple one and as old as Buster Ashley going to Western Ky...a girlfriend. Lee has been dating WNBA player Natalie Achonwa formerly of ND for at least two years...and she plays in Indy which isn't exactly close to Terrapinville. Some of the things that seem to benefit Maryland Louisville has in spades. And we need him.
All of that said, there is tremendous pressure (and I think good pressure) for improvement from Jaylen Johnson in particular and I think Anas Mahmoud. Enhanced production from the five and enhanced depth and flexibility at the 1, 2, and 3 positions and we're back in business. There simply is no replacing the power, the energy and the fear factor of Montrezl Harrell though, let's go ahead and dispense of that now. We will be a significantly more finesse and perimeter oriented team in 2015-16; but I don't think a greater dispersal of minutes across a couple more positions with good athletes automatically equates to regression. Like always, by March...a team you want to keep your eyes on if you are filling out brackets and our end of the excitement level generation is maintained. Damion Lee would be a big part of that and he's the type of two guard/wing that gets Rick back to his roots, overwhelming teams to make up points with high percentage twos vs. the three point deficit.
Haven't been to the Football Complex yet for Spring Practice, I may remedy that next week. I suspected our front seven would be very good and further suspected our front five would be very bad. It's been a four year domino effect there and one that was going to be predictably vexing for whoever inherited the problem. I like what I'm hearing about Jeremy Smith.
Baseball has my full attention now. I was spellbound by the color commentary on the UVa game the other night from Rooney, especially his statement that among college coaches Dan McDonnell was the best CEO in the business. Pitching is always your foundation in baseball at the MLB and the NCAA levels, and we have it. I've been extremely impressed with the stress every at bat puts on teams from 1-9 in our lineup; Hairston and McKay are perfect new additions and I noticed in the rain out of last night that McKay was penciled into the cleanup slot. The early season fielding problems largely have been improved. I've said this for a while now, but it's going to become evident the FSU series...May weekend series are going to become a pretty big thing in this town; it's post-Derby and there's a glut in sport related entertainment to some extent though I'm sure they'd disagree down at Slugger Field. Either way, the baseball expenses pale at Jim Patterson vs. the Bats and the accessibility is unparalleled.
With regard to Damion Lee and us vs. Maryland...ah, the power of the internet. My rudimentary research skills have discovered that his tie to Maryland aside from being a native of the Baltimore area is current asst. coach Juan Dixon and his involvement with the now defunct DC Assault AAU program. The same one that produced Chinanu Onuaku and I'm reasonably certain and more importantly...Louisville assistant Kenny Johnson. The one bumper for Louisville aside from Maryland returning their two primary backcourt guys aside from Mark Wells is a simple one and as old as Buster Ashley going to Western Ky...a girlfriend. Lee has been dating WNBA player Natalie Achonwa formerly of ND for at least two years...and she plays in Indy which isn't exactly close to Terrapinville. Some of the things that seem to benefit Maryland Louisville has in spades. And we need him.
All of that said, there is tremendous pressure (and I think good pressure) for improvement from Jaylen Johnson in particular and I think Anas Mahmoud. Enhanced production from the five and enhanced depth and flexibility at the 1, 2, and 3 positions and we're back in business. There simply is no replacing the power, the energy and the fear factor of Montrezl Harrell though, let's go ahead and dispense of that now. We will be a significantly more finesse and perimeter oriented team in 2015-16; but I don't think a greater dispersal of minutes across a couple more positions with good athletes automatically equates to regression. Like always, by March...a team you want to keep your eyes on if you are filling out brackets and our end of the excitement level generation is maintained. Damion Lee would be a big part of that and he's the type of two guard/wing that gets Rick back to his roots, overwhelming teams to make up points with high percentage twos vs. the three point deficit.
Haven't been to the Football Complex yet for Spring Practice, I may remedy that next week. I suspected our front seven would be very good and further suspected our front five would be very bad. It's been a four year domino effect there and one that was going to be predictably vexing for whoever inherited the problem. I like what I'm hearing about Jeremy Smith.
Baseball has my full attention now. I was spellbound by the color commentary on the UVa game the other night from Rooney, especially his statement that among college coaches Dan McDonnell was the best CEO in the business. Pitching is always your foundation in baseball at the MLB and the NCAA levels, and we have it. I've been extremely impressed with the stress every at bat puts on teams from 1-9 in our lineup; Hairston and McKay are perfect new additions and I noticed in the rain out of last night that McKay was penciled into the cleanup slot. The early season fielding problems largely have been improved. I've said this for a while now, but it's going to become evident the FSU series...May weekend series are going to become a pretty big thing in this town; it's post-Derby and there's a glut in sport related entertainment to some extent though I'm sure they'd disagree down at Slugger Field. Either way, the baseball expenses pale at Jim Patterson vs. the Bats and the accessibility is unparalleled.
