Leaderboard

We should be grateful that it didn’t happen last year.

UB is not a basketball school. It’s men’s’ and women’s’ basketball teams have been more successful than its football team. Agree that football is the squeaky wheel. Also agree that UB is financially low balling athletics relative to other conferences that fans have mentioned as desirable destinations.

Wow sucks for the five Kent State fans that were planning on attending.

Overall this roster is in good shape for next year. Which reiterates my position that Whitesell has some runway. Aka a win now window. Mballa - Was great. Simple said. Beast on the boards. The more he rebounded the more it led to us winning. Going forward would love to see him improve his free throws. And develop a few low post moves. I want to see him in more screen and role. Wlilliams - Made a big time jump from year 1 to 2. Now I want to see more. I want to see him continue to improve his outside shot and work on his right hand dribble. The combination will make him deadly bc defenders wouldn’t be able to sit on his left or play off him. And work on his defense. With his length he could be a better defender. Graves - Graves was Graves this year. We learned who he isn’t. He isn’t Batman. But he’s still a scorer and a leader. Maybe not a vocal one but still will be our senior leader. The more he can refine his all around game the better. Segu - Started off strong and closed out strong. Struggled in the middle. He is likely to be the starting PG and will have big shoes to fill. So we need him to take a big time leap. He needs to get better defensively and if he can refine his pull up game he will be deadly bc of his dribble skills. But more importantly he’s gotta be ready to be our floor general. Gallion - Was an after thought until the final weeks of the season. But he surely impressed. Wasn’t afraid to shoot and could shoot. Maybe just maybe we have a future diamond in the rough. Maybe he can be that vocal floor presence and outside scorer. Hope he makes a solid leap like Williams and Segu did. I wanna see him guard and rebound also. When we win our guards contribute in all stat categories. Hardnett - Started off slow. Was played out of position. But then found his niche before completely disappearing. I need to see more from him. And I realize he’s just a freshman. I don’t know what his game is though. When he was successful he just scored around the basket off second chance opportunities. I wanna see more. He will only be a sophomore. Nickleberry - Perhaps we expected too much from him. Hopefully he’s healed from his concussion. He’s going to be a senior so he needs to grow rapidly. I saw someone who could use both hands to dribble. Hopefully he refines that and just finds a role and becomes a useful contributor. I don’t need him to be a star. But I need more than what we got this season. Bertram - Is what he is. I think he’s been here long enough for us to know his game by now. I won’t be heartbroken if he grad transferred. Otherwise he’s a 10th man off the bench. Big bodied big man if you need to spell 5 minutes. Freeman/Robinson - I will just temper expectations so that we don’t fall into a trap like we did with Nickleberry. My only hope is that they come to UB for 4 years and are the future for this team. I would love for them to contribute next season but can’t depend on it. But hopefully they are backcourt mates for a long time here. Skogram - Really excited about him. Big men take longer to develop and he will be just a freshman but have high hopes for him long term. Hopefully he is good both inside and outside. Will add a nice pick and role or pop dimension to the offense. Could be a good stretch 4. Did I miss anyone? On paper we have a solid team. Great young nucleus. And tons of room for growth and improvement. We could reclaim the MAC in the next year or two. But a lot of that will depend on our PG play and willingness to play defense. Hopefully we get better shooting as well. Better shot selection. I feel that without Grant and Johnson that will be the case. Hopefully the coaching staff learns from their miscalculations this season and gets the best out of this team going forward. We have an open coaching spot let’s fill it. And an open scholarship...let’s get hard at work on that. Sorry for the looong post.