I was thrilled with our basketball team's performance last night/afternoon. Sure, we have things on which we need to improve, but the results were excellent.
Bullet points:
- Terrance Henry played much better than I anticipated. When he was hurt before the season, I initially thought it didn't really matter because he still wasn'tbig enough to make an impact. Well, Henry only got to play for 5 minutes yesterday, but he made those minutes matter. 3 blocks, 1 steal, 5 rebounds, 1-1.
- That being said, Reggie Buckner is still awesome. Buckner played the most of any big men with 23 minutes on the floor. With his increase in minutes, he brought down 12 rebounds, scored five points (on two great looking put-back dunks and a free throw), blocked three shots, and got one steal. Honestly, his presence was felt even more than that. Indiana was unable to drive the lane effectively and had to settle for silly shots all day.
- Murphy Holloway is ridiculous. Holloway scored 26 points, 24 of which didn't come at the charity stripe. He also had seven rebounds, and while he didn't specifically register a steal or a block, he was a major part of a good number of turnovers.
- Our backcourt is absurdly deep. To think that Zach Graham is the fifth guy off the bench is nuts. Graham saw a ton of time in the game against Indiana because of Gaskins' foul trouble, and he really did well with it. His passes were fluid , and his shots were on the money. Also, seven rebounds from a 6'5" guard is pretty helpful to the team.
- Trevor Gaskins continues to impress me with his defense. He's a strong on-ball defender, and he is very aggressive, something I really appreciate during games.
- Terrico struggled a little bit, but that's alright. The great thing about this season is that when Terrico isn't playing that well, we can still win the game. Chris Warren's 16 points after a cold first half really made up for Terrico's issues, and Eniel Polynice was very good, distributing seven assists.
- I think this team could make a lot of noise this season. I'm not going to begin to predict how far we'll go in the big dance, but I think it's fair to say we'll be playing relevant basketball in mid to late March.