Thursday, September 20, 2018

Nowell will have to be good

I think every Little Rock fan is excited about the prospect of having Markquis Nowell on the roster. After all, he may just be the most highly-touted recruit ever to land here. I am very, very eager to see him on the court.

But, let's take a step backward look at this situation. Jaizec Lottie played 801 minutes last season, starting all but one game. That was second only to Oliver Black's 886 minutes, and accomplished as a true freshman. I realize that we were awful last season, but the staff obviously felt that Lottie was among the best of the talent we had. Add to that the facts that Lottie can be expected to get the normal sophomore jump in his performance, and that hopefully Walker is a considerably better coach than Flanigan was, and Lottie could turn out to be a pretty fair point guard next season.

What am I saying? Yes, we hope Nowell is the next Fish, but he is going to have to earn his minutes. Lottie is not just going to give them to him. And if Lottie improves enough that Nowell has to come off the bench, is that a bad thing?

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