Gotta love what you see from this freshman! Nice looking shot!
Ladji
- Thread starter cleotishaywood
- Start date
Honestly, I think I was a little disappointed, based on what we'd heard up until now. Supposedly, dude was "controlling every rebound" and was a rim protector. Not what we saw last night against a good team. I mean great that he was 2 for 3 from three or whatever, What we NEED on this team is a glass monster and defensive presence in the post. None of that did we see last night. He seemed to be on the perimeter most of the night. I was hoping for a better shooting Cook or Reggie Evans. Hopefully this is just a one game deal, but we need an inside presence WAY more then another 6'8" guy shooting three's. Krikke was smooth on the mid range offense, but he'll either be in foul trouble EARLY in a lot of games, or he'll be playing that matador defense we've come to love so much. I was impressed with Freeman though, who I thought was the most ready of the freshman to contribute.
my god, I wanna see more of Ladji (14 minutes) and Owen (14 minutes), that's for sure.
Ladji has a sweet shooting stroke, too. He was 2-2 from 3 for 8 pts, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 0 turnovers
Owen was 4-7 from the field for 8 pts, 3 blocks, 1 rebound, 0 turnovers
Ladji has a sweet shooting stroke, too. He was 2-2 from 3 for 8 pts, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 0 turnovers
Owen was 4-7 from the field for 8 pts, 3 blocks, 1 rebound, 0 turnovers
This... I'd love frans rotation to be keeping freeman/harding/ladji together as much as possible. If that's his stat line for every game this year, he will have NIL people chirping in his ear nonstop. This group needs to see themselves as a group within the group that has a bright future.
What? He was playing forward, with Freeman at center much of the time. If your guy is 20 feet away from the basket, there is no way you can protect the rim and grab a ton of rebounds. Geez. Some people really don't understand what's going on right in front of their eyes.
Biggest problem last night was the boards and defending the basket without fouling. We took care of the ball pretty well, especially for on the road, but you can't get outrebounded by 10 against an elite scoring team and expect to win. There was probably a little home cooking contributing to the discrepancy in foul shots, but mostly Iowa was less aggressive going to the basket. Owen is really good at getting the ball to the basket, even against a really good shot blocker, but he left some points on the court that were there. I also liked the look of Ladji's outside shot, but I agree with the poster who wanted to see a lot more from him around the basket.
Sure, so he plays power forward but on neither end of the floor is he going to be in rebounding position. So only the center can rebound, is that your take. I fully realize that this was a small take from 14 minutes of one game, BUT if what we're talking about at the end of the year is this guy shooting three's then I don't think thats a good thing at all for this team. Here's the problem, Other then these two freshman, (whether they are ready or not), we have ZERO inside presence on this team as far as defenders or physical board men, ZERO. This kid looks the part, and possibly big O as well. Now put it on Fran, for how he's going to use him whatever, but we'll need his presence on the glass and the paint.. We got outrebounded badly in the 2nd half which is crazy because they rarely missed a shot the first 15 minutes oh the second. Of course also due to our lax interior defense.
You were playing a team that’s playing 1 in and 4 out, if the man you’re playing is 24 feet from the basket , best you are out there with him unless you are doubling down on the center. Do they need to get better at turning when the shot goes up and keeping your man from getting inside for a rebound, yes but they were playing their first road game against an experienced ranked team in their own facility, I know you’re basing this team on the ones that don’t get out of a first or second round of the Tournament but let’s give them a chance to improve on the things they need to do better and build on the things they did well.
Hopefully you realize that when they rarely miss a shot, there are very few rebounds to get. Also if he had defended the paint, his guy would have been even more open for the 3. Creighton may well be the overall best 3 point shooting team we see all year. It seemed that they always had 4 players on the court who were deadly from outside.
