One win does not a season make, but winning the first game over a good team is very encouraging. What is even more encouraging is that we won because we did some important things right: rebounding, defense, taking care of the ball.
First, the most significant number to me was Markquis Nowell's 4:1 assist to turnover ratio. That was not there last season. If he can keep that up for the year, all sorts of good things are going to happen. And we had 17 assists against 13 turnovers as a team. Second, our big guys were getting the boards, with Coupet, Monyyong and Johnson grabbing 8, 7 and 6 respectively. (Three of Coupet's were offensive boards.) And we were +6 versus Missouri State. Third, MSU came out determined to live by the three, and we made them die by it. Over half their attempts were from the arc, and we held them to 28.6%.
I hope Walker emphasized the positive. "See what happens when you do things right?"
Two of the starters did not end up with starters minutes. Bankston could not stay in the game because of fouls. I don't know what happened with Palermo. Ben Coupet had an outstanding, well-rounded game.
Sure, we have room for improvement. We won't win many games in which we are 3 of 14 from the arc, and our FT shooting can still improve. And we have to keep up the good things for more than just one game. But it definitely was a nice start.
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