Second look at the hoops team

[BBF]

Big, deep, strong, tough, hard-working.

A few thoughts: Watch out for Kyle Kelm. Wow, that kid has re-made himself. In the sessions I saw JJ was working hard in the post, and more effectively than I have seen before. Matt Tiby is bright, big, strong and competitive. He brings a mentality that I think is spreading to the other bigs. The Prahls are going to end up being very good players for us in time. Austin Arians is really playing hard, and attacking the rim more than he ever did last year. Cody Wichmann will need to work his way up to the speed of the game defensively, but brother can he shoot the ball. With so much additional depth at guard Jordan Aaron is playing much more within himself, and in that role he's very dangerous. Steve McWhorter is a better shooter than I expected. Bobo brings that energy and toughness that we really missed at guard most of last year. And if I didn't mention anyone it's not because they weren't playing hard.

One of the staff told me they really liked what our new strength coach has done, and if you want proof just look at Kyle or, and I mean this sincerely, Q. These guys attacked it in the off-season.

All of this is practice, of course, but this team bears no resemblance to last year's. I am extremely excited to see where these guys can take it. If any of the other HL teams have marked us down as two Ws on their schedule, good luck to them -- they'll need it.

Go to the scrimmage next week. I think after the downer of last season you are going to be amazed by the look of this team.

[Jimmy Lemke]

I was going to put this out as part of the preview, but a sneak peak is good.

The whole offseason, the program has been planning with the idea of Kyle Kelm taking a redshirt year. He dropped a bunch of weight last summer and his junior year he was hardly the same player, so Kyle had a plan to take a year to get back to playing weight, get himself feeling better about basketball.

After I saw them practice Thursday, it became clear that plans changed. Kelm spent the summer bulking up and is almost 240 pounds. He's also strong though - it's not just added weight. I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but I knew his head was in the right place during the Pro-Am - he no longer looked like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. He still looks like that today - carefree. He also looks like he spent the summer traveling with the Dave Matthews Band, with shaggy hair and a beard. One of the coaches called it Kyle's "Jesus of Nazareth" look, which got the gathered group laughing.

JJ is better in the post because he spent the summer playing in the Pro-Am against guys like Davante Gardner. He really had to work there, and it's paying off. Remember when Kyle was a freshman and he was often shy on the court, but by his sophomore season he was a banger and assertive? That's from the Pro-Am. Seriously, we've got to get as many of these players in the Pro-Am as possible. It's not just a month of pickup games.

On Thursday, the only time the Jay-O Show was on was when Jordan was teamed with Mitch, Dan Studer, Q and Connor Weas. Which makes sense. Flip that around to when Jordan is playing with any combination of Bobo, JR Lyle, Trinson White or McWhorter? Oh man, watch out.

I'm absolutely giddy about the prospect of Jordan Aaron, Steve McWhorter and JR Lyle on the court together. McWhorter, Lyle and White are all above average defenders, and Bobo is an excellent defender - who, by the way, is 100% and not hesitant to fight for loose balls or bang down low in the slightest.

As far as the scrimmage, anyone who went last year knew that Steve McWhorter was by far the best guard on the court. That's the same now, except JR Lyle has the best physical skills - he is so fast, so quick, and is so bouncy...it's effortless. I have no idea why UNI let him go, but I can tell you that on December 3rd someone is going to be extra motivated to play our Panther brothers. I don't know if JR Lyle is going to be a great player, but if he doesn't become one it won't be because he doesn't have the tools to do the job.

We got the Jay-O show because last year Paris Gulley forgot how to shoot three-pointers and we had no depth anywhere. Paris and Jordan were our only guards of consequence, Kyle's head wasn't right, James Haarsma was playing the role of clubhouse cancer (facebook message me again)...essentially it came down to the fact that we had one player with the capacity to play basketball at a high level for an extended period of time, and everyone knew it so they smothered him and he still tried to play that way. We were at our best at the beginning of last season, when Bobo was on the court and Jordan Aaron was guarding the second or third-best guard the other team had, and he wasn't stuck handling the ball and shooting the ball constantly. Right now the only guard I see we have that I don't want shooting the ball is Trinson White, who is a straight-up defender - our own Erik Buggs, or Ryan Allen if White can get more assertive and aggressive.

There's loads of depth at guard, a lot more than last year. We knew - well, everyone but SuperKing knew - that we were very thin on the front line last year. Now we have JJ, Kyle, Malcolm Moore, Brett Prahl, and Matt Tiby. All of those five will play the 4/5 spots (we'll see if Malcolm Moore can get going before mid-November). It's not great depth, but it's deep enough to win a championship (not saying that we're a championship contender, though I'd like to come into every year with some optimism. Just saying that we've got depth there), we'll see how strong it is. Now Alec Brown is the only prime-time post player in the conference.

I can't wait for Halloween, I can't wait for November 8th at Loyola.

[lutzow10]

Not gonna lie I have been fairly excited for this season ever since about a month after last season ended. I wasn't thinking we would be great or making any assumptions about how we will do. i just had this good feeling about the players we have as this years roster was finalize and things started to materialize. I don't know what it is but i think we have a good group of guys here. Now its a matter of if 1) My feeling is right and 2) if this group of guys can do something with the talent I see in front of me.

[striker14]

I'm really looking forward to the season starting. I'm trying to be realistic, but I'm hoping for the best. I'd be ecstatic with a record over .500 this year, anything over that would be icing on the cake for me.

[mrcubsfan]

Last year we were so weak defensively I am looking forward to seeing if our interior defense is better. I've heard the Tiby kid plays good D and the rest have followed suit.The key is keeping this group out of foul trouble and on the court and out of that god awful zone we tried.

[BBF]

From what I have heard that particular zone has been retired. (What was that called -- the point zone or something like that?)

Although Meech was a capable defender at times due to his size and athleticism, I think the group we have this year -- Kyle, JJ, Tiby, Moore, the Prahls -- gives us a bigger, stouter group inside overall. Probably not much shot-blocking other than JJ and occasionally Kyle, but a tougher interior wall altogether.

With the much better depth up and down the lineup I have heard that we will be playing more straight up, m2m defense. I'm all for that. If we throw a little zone in situationally, that's fine, but this roster is much more capable of playing straight up at every position.

One other thing I think will be significantly improved this year is our free throw shooting. How could it not be with Meech off to the NFL?

[MU/Panther]

Jimmy, I wish we did have more players in the pro-am. Talking to the coaches they don't feel the same as we do.

[BBF]

I'm with the coaches on that one. A couple glorified beer league games have marginal if any impact on the players' skills. The strength work and team work during the summer are far more important, especially now that there are some organized practices in that period.

[royalty414]

I've been trying to remain patient and wait for the season to come, but enough is enough. I'm giddy about this team and the depth this year is way more legit than what we thought we had at this time last season.

[MU/Panther]

I'm with the coaches on that one. A couple glorified beer league games have marginal if any impact on the players' skills. The strength work and team work during the summer are far more important, especially now that there are some organized practices in that period.

I really think the pro-am was a bit eye opening for the Panther bigs. It showed them there is a lot of room to get better.