As we reported on the broadcast last night, Jack is available to play, but only if needed. The ultimate hope (and I'm reading into this a little bit, but seems obvious) is that he won't be needed, and in a few weeks they can go back to the regular redshirt plan.

Nwaokorie holding his own on 3 balls. 10 for 21 @47.6%. Sheldon has taken the most 3 ball shots so far (70) and is 27 for 70 @38.5%. Sheldon doing well.

I know Nwaokorie has taken only 21 shots but it does show promise. With JD out, maybe we need to get him a steady dose of 3 ball chances.

Des played 39 minutes yesterday.

Someone mentioned that JQ had no TOs, yeah, we definitely could use more of that. Hawaii will be interesting.

While the results were not what we hoped for - a 12 point margin at home over a winless team - we did see some positive things that we had hoped to see.

1) While the post play was ineffective, at least we gave it to our bigs a few times. We tried! Which is something we did not do against SF. Miles has a long way to go but he just has to keep working at it - if he couldn't get a clean shot off against Canisus (and he couldn't), he is really going to struggle in conference play. Deloach has a better post up game than Miles - normally gets a clean shot but he just isn't making many.

2) JQ was very good in this game. Still ended up with 4 fouls, but didn't have 3 of them early in the game so he was able to stay on the floor when needed. Didn't realize that he had zero turnovers - I'll take more of that please!! He also made a couple very slick passes in traffic for assists - something we have not seen a lot of from him

3) The freshman played! And despite some lapses on defense (which was expected) I thought they played very well. Great to see Sief brought in to as the back up PG. That has the potential to be very exciting. He was the victim of a bad offensive fouls call - after which Drew pulled him out (which I hated) - but overall he played OK. Hopefully he gets more confident and aggressive in the games ahead. Danili did play aggressively - Finally! Drained a 3....took another one. And 2 very nice drives to the basket - though he could only finish 1. I loved it. And drew did not yank him for his defensive lapses, which I loved even more.

Opponents gameplan too. Rubin's a rim runner - great for fast breaks and pick and roll - but his back to the basket game isn't going to remind anyone of Krutwig, and that's okay - they're different styles. If you're game planning against Loyola would you rather focus on defending two high level pick and roll threats or just seeing if you can survive against an average 3 point shooting team WITHOUT their best shooter? We struggle feeding the post because teams are denying it - as soon as our bigs roll to the hoop Canisius (and SF) would send a help side defender to try and pick the pass, so we'd swing it outside. The last two years when this happened with Phil/Miles we'd just huck it inside anyway for a turnover.

Jayden helps stretch the floor and open up space inside given he's a high level shooter, but opponents don't have to fan out as much right now without him - especially if sheldon/des aren't both on. We get great looks from 3, just haven't made enough open shots, it's why our last three opponents have been digging really hard when we feed the post or drive.

Also for what it's worth, of the players in rotation DeLoach has the highest usage rate on the team, so they are feeding him. He's efficient but also foul and turnover prone (which he has been his entire career).