Almost time to find out what we really are...

[jsglow]

Understatement there. Taylor has left eight points off the board in nearly every match this season. His positional awareness near the hoop is close to the worst I've ever seen from someone at the DI level.

Whether he ever had the goods to succeed is debatable but the injuries/mental trashing his first two seasons have certainly set him down a path of bad habits he can't quite break. Fischer becoming eligible may be the last chance he has to show he can be even a teensy bit effective.

No doubt he's regressed from Frosh year at least so far.  Remember how he was always at the right place at the right time?  That's what I'd like to see going forward.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

Yeah, unfortunately I have come to the conclusion that as a junior, Steve is who he is.  He's a not-overly-athletic big man who doesn't have the "old school" moves that a lot of similar players have.  (Davante.)  He can hit a mid-range jumper and can get hot, so the position change is probably going to help. 

But I have come to the conclusion that he was probably a little overrated coming out of high school due to the talent around him, and the knee injury took even more out of his game.  That doesn't mean he isn't valuable and can't play a big role moving forward however.  Our expectations may just need to be readjusted.

Steve was super efficient as a frosh. and I loved his hands and footwork. That wasn't an accident.

With this said, I'm not exactly sure why he hasn't made significant improvements. I'd guess injury, but that's a straight up guess.

A position change will help. He's probably best suited as a true PF/stretch 4... but he needs to work on a consistent jump hook, and his 3pt shooting.

[MU82]

I just think the math is pretty simple.  If Luke gets 20 mpg, those 20 minutes have to come from somewhere right?

Are the top scorers, Duane and Carlino, going to get less?  Doubtful.  I also doubt that Deonte is going to get less than the 16 mpg he is playing now.

So that leaves Taylor, Juan, Derrick and Sandy.  If you take five mpg off each of those guys, that get's Derrick right in that 20-25 mpg sweet spot that may here have been talking about.

This makes plenty of sense ... except my sweet spot for Derrick is well under 20 mpg!

(Oh yes I did!)

[WarriorInNYC]

I'm a little optimistic, but more than is healthy, but I really think adding Fischer is going to have a great impact, even if he doesn't add many scoring himself.  I feel like his presence down low will help give Deonte some additional space and allow him to attack the rim against shorter players.

I also think it will give more driving space to guys like JjJ and Duane as Luke will be able to seal off down low.  Additionally, I think Luke gives Duane a great option to drive and feed in the paint for some easy buckets.

And then to just add a shot altering presence in the middle.  This will be huge.

Again, I'm generally an optimistic person when it comes to things like this, so maybe I'm expecting a little much.  But I think there is a lot to gain here, even if Luke himself only scores 4 points a game.

[GooooMarquette]

With Luke finally eligible for our next game we should start to get a better idea of whether we actually have any tournament shot or not. I know it may take a few games for him to get fully integrated and that his first game is our last quality opponent until conference season but at least when he is on the floor we will no longer be able to use height as an excuse/reason for our struggles.

Personally, I hope I'm wrong, I don't see a lot changing except for more second chances for us and less for our opponents. We still need to find a way to be a more consistent shooting team and still need to improve on D even though the zone has been making us look better and most of all we need to improve our decision making.

That "except" could be huge.  Three of our four losses were to ranked schools by 11 points.  A few more second chances for us and a few less for OSU, MSU and Wisky could have made them awfully tight games.

[Hubert Davis]

With Luke finally eligible for our next game we should start to get a better idea of whether we actually have any tournament shot or not. I know it may take a few games for him to get fully integrated and that his first game is our last quality opponent until conference season but at least when he is on the floor we will no longer be able to use height as an excuse/reason for our struggles.

Personally, I hope I'm wrong, I don't see a lot changing except for more second chances for us and less for our opponents. We still need to find a way to be a more consistent shooting team and still need to improve on D even though the zone has been making us look better and most of all we need to improve our decision making.

Tournament?! I just hope we can win another game!

In all seriousness, I think our squad will show glimpses of a solid/good basketball team, but ultimately with the lack of depth/experience/talent we will miss out on any tournament. Excited to have Luke. Devastated to see Burton go... he's going to end up being a player somewhere. Sucks it won't be in a Marquette uniform.