Last season LU as a team was in the bottom half of Division 1 foul shooting percentage teams. None of LU’s first 6 players’ (the starting 5 and Kennedy) foul shooting was as good as the top half of the NCAA’s free throw shooting teams averaged. It should be a coach’s point of emphasis.

At this point Aher Uguak, is tied for 15th in the MVC in rebounding with 5.2 per game while only averaging 20.6 minutes a game. He is shooting 50% from 2 point range. He has 8 assists & 4 turnovers and is tied for second on the team for steals. His defense is great.

When we get Agunanne & Hutson active, hopefully Welsh & Uguak will end their backup center duties & we will have 4 solid forwards which hopefully the coach will bite the bullet & use 2 at a time (or else call them guards in his preferred 1 center & 4 guard rotation): Uguak, Hall, Welsh, & Anderson.

If we are healthy, LU’s current depth may be the best we have ever seen as we go into conference play.

Go Ramblers!

Following up to Fleet and previous posts,
I think “point of emphasis” from PM regarding free throws is very polite. It’s on the players. THEY want to be top 50 or better, then THEY need to figure this out. It is just wrong to accept as something that can’t be improved. It is going to cost W’s all season.
Also my opinion is that the emphasis on increased percentage of three point shooting is a good one, but not at the expense of committed hard drives to the basket for old school three point plays. I am seeing, as a fan, too many non committed drives that show no intention of going all way to basket and it is messing up the players, ie Hall and Williamson who get in the lane and stop cold. Am I the only one seeing this? Our opponents will stay more honest on defense if we mix it up and not always defer to the three...
Aguak..story plays over and over. As others have expressed, I think Welch could be a better alternative. Let’s just pretend he isn’t a “forward”, as it seems to be a bad word in Portersphere. He is a big ten sized small forward with smarts and energy. Rebounds. Runs the floor and has some touch.
Let’s not get stuck in a box with one “big” and four “guards” For example, Wisconsin had two non 6-4 types playing and even taking threes. We watch that game and note how big their lineup is, year defer on that same potential on our side when we have it on the bench....
MK is the best example of committed going to the basket. Should be part of the acceptable offense.
We will sort all of this out but we are on the clock.
Go Ramblers! We all want this, so let’s just do it. Time to show up as the real deal, not just almost there’s...

just a point on Welch...who I like...but everything you have seen of him this year has been as a replacement for Krut at Center( I think) and has sometimes we have subbed Krut back in fairly quickly cuz Welch was beat defensively.......if he has to guard someone who can put the ball on the floor???? So he is a puzzle....has a lot of offensive skills....and defensive when guarding not quick players( and can continue to improve).....and I still think Porter is a defense first coach... so Welch and Ugak are opposite puzzles.....seems to me that is what Coach has to do is fit all the pieces of the puzzle together....gotta play to your strengths and hide your weaknesses....right now you have a couple guys with strong offense but still inconsistent on defense in Welch and Kennedy (who should be able to be great on defense) a guy who is great on defense but weak on offense in Ugak....Williamson, Clemons, Norris, Kaifes and Krut might be your 5 most complete players.

For me Marquis Kennedy is still the most dynamic player we have...but has made a lot of defensive mistakes this year....I think he tries to use his athleticism (remember the game ending steal against Valpo?) but misses some stuff fundamentally..... GO RAMBLERS....

So we are seeing the issue from one side that we need to stay small to defend smaller an quicker players , why don’t we get taller and pressure smaller opponents to deal with our bigger players? I guess I’m saying we put our best offense on the floor and let opponents change their love nips to deal with us rather than the other way around. With Aguak we essentially play offense with four players. Give up a few points on defense but gain more points on offense...
How many seasons have we been wishing we had bigger players?
We will not get them if we don’t play them. Plus we have an upside Soph vs a we clearly know what he’s got senior....

If it was just Uguak not scoring, it might not be that big of a problem. What really slows us down is not being able to free up Norris, Hall, Williamson, Kaifes for open threes because teams know they can cheat on defense when Uguak is anywhere behind the perimeter. If Welch or Anderson are good enough to bring the defense out to the arc, you’re gonna free up some of those shooters and/or create more space down low for Krutwig.

Sounds dirty!

"Change their love nips" was a head scratcher for me too.
It might be dental slang.

Sounds like a slightly hopeful, but still somewhat sad, Def Leppard remix

I guess things could be worse.

I think Kennedy is being mishandled. He may not be the best on the ball defender, but what he does is create chaos. He is a guy who gets steals, and hands on the ball. His minutes have also been dramatically reduced. He is a rhythm guy and he needs to play more extended minutes with more of the starting 5 then a complete bench squad which should open more space on the floor for him to operate. If this continues, he maybe gone at the end of the year, especially with the no sit out rule.

Welch, in my opinion has looked good. His offense has picked up, he is securing the ball after rebounds much better and his defense considering he is more of a swing SF/PF has not been horrible on centers. With being said, there is a limit in how big of a center he can defend. Frank would have made a difference in the Richmond game. Their center was big, but not that mobile. Frank may have been able to bother him a bit more than Krut.

As far as our defense goes, we have not switched (especially in the Richmond game) as much as we have in the past and when we do switch, we have not been as smooth or coordinated as we have been in past. This maybe due to working some newer guys into the mix. We are not currently a team that is built to defend the ball one on one. We are a switch and help defensive team and have been vulnerable to dribble drives from quicker players for a couple of years now.

The talent is there but FTs and the sense of urgency need to get better. We need to approach every game as if we are underdogs and get after it from the jump and carry it through 40 minutes. We have a tendency to get out of whack when a few things go wrong and drift for large chunks of the game. Hopefully, as we enter the conference season, we will start to get mentally a little tougher.