Season Opener vs. Northern State

[Bryoming]

The Pokes officially open the season tonight against Northern State! If you're not able to make it to Laramie to watch live (which I highly recommend you do if you're able to), you'll be able to watch the game on the MW app. Chad and I will be doing a postgame show over on the WyoNation youtube channel directly after the game.

 

[Bryoming]

Update: No post game show tonight. Life got in the way.

 

[LanderPoke]

Well we can score pretty well. Defense was not great

 

[TheRealUW]

Well we can score pretty well. Defense was not great

Agreed. Was not impressed with the defense at all. On the ball defense was decent for the most part, but off the ball positioning and help defense were atrocious. I also do not think we are going to be able to defend a true big man without a double team.

 

[LanderPoke]

Agreed. Was not impressed with the defense at all. On the ball defense was decent for the most part, but off the ball positioning and help defense were atrocious. I also do not think we are going to be able to defend a true big man without a double team.

Ya. Any decent big man will eat us up.

Magassa looks better this year. Hopefully he can somewhat guard opposing big men

 

[TheRealUW]

Ya. Any decent big man will eat us up.

Magassa looks better this year. Hopefully he can somewhat guard opposing big men

A good big man is hard to find, but we really need to try to get one in our next recruiting cycle. We've seen what Ike and Nance Jr did for the program. They can be a game changer.

Big men are similar to QB's in that a good one will mask a lot of deficiencies elsewhere. Kind of wild to me that the college game went away from them for so long.

I don't know what kind of NIL money the basketball program has to work with - probably not much - but I'd put it all into trying to attract a big man and then fill the surrounding positions with lower level transfers like we have the past couple years.

 

[Bryoming]

Sunny has directly addressed our lack of a true big and how there's no chance we have the budget to afford one in the transfer portal. We're going to have to keep digging to find them at the high school level. Gavin Gores is going to be a baller by the time conference play starts.

 

[TheRealUW]

Sunny has directly addressed our lack of a true big and how there's no chance we have the budget to afford one in the transfer portal. We're going to have to keep digging to find them at the high school level. Gavin Gores is going to be a baller by the time conference play starts.

Brutal.

I appreciate Sunny being so forthcoming with his assessment, but that essentially means our days of even being competitive for a conference championship in basketball are likely done. It would be one thing if we were bringing in high level talent at the guard positions and on the wings, but we look pretty mediocre there too. Those positions are primarily filled with D2 and lower level D1 transfers - that isn't going to be enough on it's own to get anywhere near the top of the conference.

Maybe I'm just in a pessimistic mood after watching the Northern State game. I know it's only one game early in the season, but I thought the overall talent level looked only mildly improved from last year. Our defensive performance was very disappointing - tons of missed assignments and really bad positioning all over the court. From that single game, 9th place seems pretty spot-on.

 

[jwy_poke]

Brutal.

I appreciate Sunny being so forthcoming with his assessment, but that essentially means our days of even being competitive for a conference championship in basketball are likely done. It would be one thing if we were bringing in high level talent at the guard positions and on the wings, but we look pretty mediocre there too. Those positions are primarily filled with D2 and lower level D1 transfers - that isn't going to be enough on it's own to get anywhere near the top of the conference.

Maybe I'm just in a pessimistic mood after watching the Northern State game. I know it's only one game early in the season, but I thought the overall talent level looked only mildly improved from last year. Our defensive performance was very disappointing - tons of missed assignments and really bad positioning all over the court. From that single game, 9th place seems pretty spot-on.

I think they will improve on d going forward. Takes time with a new roster