We have a legit shot to win it all

[Shooter McGavin]

Can't agree at this point. The duo of Joseph and Beverly (forgetting Walker) were slightly better than what we've seen so far this year off the bench. Very early though.

We do have 3-4 guys who could contribute, but ... will they, and to what extent? "Could" is the key word.

I see what you are saying. I think it’s only up from here for George. Casey needs to stop taking Anthony Walker threes. I thought Watson has played well to start the year. We could revisit this in March.

 

[Trav]

I'm going to have to disagree. We don't have enough size inside. KState finally figured out to just attack the basket because we don't have any real rim protection, and if we weren't lights out from 3, that's a very different game. And that's going to put a cieling on how far we go. We could make it to the final 4 again but I just don't see how we go all the way when our starting C is 6'5 and 1/2.

 

[Trav]

Our starting 5 is as good as there is in college basketball. I’m not sure how that’s being missed by most on the board.

There were 4 solid teams in Bahamar with us, 3/4 will prob make the tourny - Would you trade any of our starters for anyone elses? What about bench players? I wouldn’t. Bryce Hopkins would be a solid 6th man for us.

Was George not a reliable option off the bench yesterday? Played crucial minutes as KS mounted a comeback and Wooga, our best scorer, had 4 fouls. He gave us 5 pts, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists in 13 minutes. His 3rd shot rimmed out.

Watson is a lockdown wing defender and took advantage of scoring opptys against Georgia. Casey and Nwoko have played well for Omier to rest some.

By January, we will be a better team than we are now. It happens every single year under L.

Can we 100% beat a Kansas, Uconn, Duke type program? No, but that’s why we will play the games. (and we will slaughter Duke btw)

I would take a legit big who can clean up the boards and deter drives. Move Omier to the 4. In a perfect world.

 

[skyman]

Only thing i can say we’re missing is a guy like wong who can get to the rim consistently, bend the defense and create looks for others. But the edges of our team is improved imo, but the ceiling depends on if someone can take that leap

I like wooga,Cleveland and bens but they seem to be great complimentary pieces for the kind of player describing. But say wooga takes that leap then we are cooking

Agreed. I dont think thats playing to wooga strength, he has tried to do it multiple times and ends up turning the ball over, ALOT. Just not his game, treat him like Klay, catch and shoot and some midrange stuff with athletic dunks in open floor.

I havent seen that type of player unless they maybe develop George for it or Jakai gets more time, he has decent size where he doesnt get swallowed up and can dribble with pace, but he not really in rotation right now..

 

[hotshot]

I see what you are saying. I think it’s only up from here for George. Casey needs to stop taking Anthony Walker threes. I thought Watson has played well to start the year. We could revisit this in March.

George may have broken through yesterday. By far his best effort to date. That three hit nothing but net, just like most of Poplar's.

Casey came with the rep of being a good defender, shot blocker -- not necessarily being much of a shooter. If he can give us good interior defense and some boards, I'm happy.

Nwoko looks raw but not lacking confidence, which is a good thing for a true frosh.

 

[King of Allapattah]

Saying it right here, right now.

I've seen enough. This team can win it all.

We have experience. Guard play. 3 point shooters and a beast in Omier.

Don't be shocked.

Miami looks to have the best starting 5 in college basketblll. The only thing stopping me from crowning this team right now is depth. We're 2 weeks into the season. Just not sure if this is sustainable for another 4 months without bench production. Takeaway the 40 point blowout win vs. NJIT, and our bench is averaging 7 ppg. Going to need more from them in order for this team to reach its full potential. Will be fun. GO CANES!!!

 

[AmherstCane]

I'm going to have to disagree. We don't have enough size inside. KState finally figured out to just attack the basket because we don't have any real rim protection, and if we weren't lights out from 3, that's a very different game. And that's going to put a cieling on how far we go. We could make it to the final 4 again but I just don't see how we go all the way when our starting C is 6'5 and 1/2.

We’re not a perfect team and we won’t be favored to win the Natty but we have a team perfectly constructed for the style of play that has all but extincted “traditional” bigs in the nba.

K State didn’t figure out to just attack the basket… they were trying from the jump but we defended driving and passing lanes well and forced them to take contested 3’s that they missed.

They scored 50 points the first 32 minutes of the game and 30 points the last 8 minutes.

Their run had a lot more to do with our complacency defensively (and this team not being very good, at least right now, at slowing the game down and grinding out the W) than any strategy of theirs or roster deficiency of ours.

We also did the hardest thing in sport which is to gear up after coasting with a big lead against a dangerous team (we kept a 20 point lead until 6 minutes left).

Remember we lost this same kind of game last year against FSU.

There’s a reason we were on a lot of these lists (and I think we’re ahead of schedule right now):

College Basketball: Ten teams who can win a national championship in 2023-24

On3's Jamie Shaw discusses ten teams who have the pieces to win a college basketball national championship in 2023-24.

www.on3.com

 

[rsa coral gables]

we are missing a tall big guy. that could be what keep us from winning it all

 

[hotshot]

Miami looks to have the best starting 5 in college basketblll. The only thing stopping me from crowning this team right now is depth. We're 2 weeks into the season. Just not sure if this is sustainable for another 4 months without bench production. Takeaway the 40 point blowout win vs. NJIT, and our bench is averaging 7 ppg. Going to need more from them in order for this team to reach its full potential. Will be fun. GO CANES!!!

Take Kentucky. They've got all seven in their rotation scoring from 9-18 ppg.

 

[Shooter McGavin]

George may have broken through yesterday. By far his best effort to date. That three hit nothing but net, just like most of Poplar's.

Casey came with the rep of being a good defender, shot blocker -- nor necessarily being much of a shooter. If he can give us good interiot defense and some boards, I'm happy.

Nwoko looks raw but not lacking confidence, which is a good thing for a true frosh.

He looks a lot better than guys like Aire and Gak

 

[AtlAtty]

We’re not a perfect team and we won’t be favored to win the Natty but we have a team perfectly constructed for the style of play that has all but extincted “traditional” bigs in the nba.

K State didn’t figure out to just attack the basket… they were trying from the jump but we defended driving and passing lanes well and forced them to take contested 3’s that they missed.

They scored 50 points the first 32 minutes of the game and 30 points the last 8 minutes.

Their run had a lot more to do with our complacency defensively (and this team not being very good, at least right now, at slowing the game down and grinding out the W) than any strategy of theirs or roster deficiency of ours.

We also did the hardest thing in sport which is to gear up after coasting with a big lead against a dangerous team (we kept a 20 point lead until 6 minutes left).

Remember we lost this same kind of game last year against FSU.

There’s a reason we were on a lot of these lists (and I think we’re ahead of schedule right now):

College Basketball: Ten teams who can win a national championship in 2023-24

On3's Jamie Shaw discusses ten teams who have the pieces to win a college basketball national championship in 2023-24.

www.on3.com

Yeah there were a couple possessions near the end where all we had to do was run 30 seconds off the clock, whether we even took a shot or not, but instead Pack drove and Cleveland missed his pass, and Wooga took a side step 3.
We are great when attacking. We need to be better when we need to run 25 seconds before a shot. Wong and Miller were both very good at getting a good shot late in the possession. We will need to see who will do that on this year’s team because we will play close games in the ACC.

But I will write what I wrote at almost the exact same time last year-these are great problems to have. GREAT. We are discussing how to improve the bench, whether our center should initiate offense, whether we can slow down the offense late in games.
You know which teams discuss these types of specific issues? Really good teams.

UM is really, really good. And If we don’t end up with some unfavorable matchup again in the tourney (see UConn), we have as good a shot as any team to win it all.

 

[hanchiii]

Yeah there were a couple possessions near the end where all we had to do was run 30 seconds off the clock, whether we even took a shot or not, but instead Pack drove and Cleveland missed his pass, and Wooga took a side step 3.
We are great when attacking. We need to be better when we need to run 25 seconds before a shot. Wong and Miller were both very good at getting a good shot late in the possession. We will need to see who will do that on this year’s team because we will play close games in the ACC.

But I will write what I wrote at almost the exact same time last year-these are great problems to have. GREAT. We are discussing how to improve the bench, whether our center should initiate offense, whether we can slow down the offense late in games.
You know which teams discuss these types of specific issues? Really good teams.

UM is really, really good. And If we don’t end up with some unfavorable matchup again in the tourney (see UConn), we have as good a shot as any team to win it all.

And once again, team FT % is big with this team.

N O was clutch from the stripe at the end, or it would have been a nailbiter for sure. Also, Pack was in his own world and was lights out.

 

[AtlAtty]

And once again, team FT % is big with this team.

N O was clutch from the stripe at the end, or it would have been a nailbiter for sure. Also, Pack was in his own world and was lights out.

Great point. Having a big man who is a very good free throw shooter in Omier is such an advantage in that we don’t have to take him, or any of the starters, off the court in late, close game situations.

 

[skyman]

we are missing a tall big guy. that could be what keep us from winning it all

Was saying it all offseason but was told it doesnt matter so just dropped it.. Think we just should have one in the holster to battle teams like Uconn or Purdue types down the line, plus the hope Omier is available all year or never gets a foul doesnt seem like sound strategy for a team with championship aspirations.. it is what it is at this point, lets just enjoy

 

[jkdood]

We have one of the best starting 5's but many (15-20?) have a better "starting 7". This can change with experience and PT, but I would be somewhat (pleasantly) surprised.

We do have several flaws (Coach L should manage most) but due to great talent and coaching should (hopefully) lose about 5-6 games or even less. Some losses may be ugly, because we are not spectacular or deep enough (yet) to weather occasional suspect performance against a capable opponent having a good night.

Come March, if we stay healthy, we should get a good seed and be in a position again where if we play our best we may indeed win it all.

 

[ALLoverCANE]

We only have 5 Players. The other guys are "give the starter 2 minutes rest". What I really find amazing is the hype surrounding the Freshman George. Based upon my observations over these past four games, George doesn't bring anything special to the team.

I trust he will develop, but right now it's more hype than real player.

He's a 6' 8" PG with a pretty stroke. That's quite special.

He played by far his best game on Sunday. It's not even Thanksgiving. He's going to get better.

 

[ALLoverCANE]

This is what I can't stand about people who make declarations like this. Stop hedging. The 'happy to be wrong' crew are the absolute worst.

What's wrong with that "crew"? Just bc you root for a team doesn't mean you need to think everything is positive.

(For the record I disagree with the guy you quoted)

 

[ALLoverCANE]

Harland Beverly was the “big guard”.

Walker averaged 2.8 points last year. Bev averaged 3.5. Bens averaged 5.3.

Bens was the only guy good enough to be a starter.

Our bench will be WAY better this year than last year by the time March rolls around.

Now tell me more about last year that I didn’t know from watching just about every game in person lol

Actually… no beef. Happy to hear your observations and glad to have you on the board. The team deserves a lot more fans.

He is not some "rank amateur" so you should take his opinion seriously, even though he couldn't remember the name of one of our top guys off the bench lol

 

[Swampcity]

George is a true freshman from Switzerland. Was always going to be raw so not sure what you expected day 1. But physical tools are there to develop into legit player. He played efficient tonight which is what we need from him and let him get more comfortable scoring as year goes on

My critique is not against George, it really is focused on the incredible hype accompanying his arrival. We have had some sensational freshman come through and demonstrated their ability right away. I just don't see it in George.

 

[stormsurge]

I like what we got. I've seen some of UConn play and they look really really good.