What I’ve been begging for since before the season even started. There’s a place for Wheeler in the rotation. But it’s not 35 mpg or with the ball in his hands with the game on the line.
and NOWHERE near the FT line.
The free throw thing makes some sense. The offensive spacing argument makes absolutely no sense and is just people layering their preconceived conclusion about how this team can succeed onto an individual game that doesn’t support it at all.
Yea. All of us with rational minds have been saying it since last year. Wheeler is a good player at a great program. He’s perfect off the bench for 12-18 mins per game. Anything more than that is not a recipe for success.
I don’t think the spacing was great but I didn’t think the ball got stuck as much. I would give us maybe a C- for our offense vs. an excellent defensive team. Would love to see Livingston/Thiero at the 4, but doubt that comes without foul trouble or injury.
That’s fair. I would say the offense was negligibly better than usual. What was really really good/better was the effort level, defense, rebounding, and free throw shooting. I think people are so ready for better floor spacing (myself included) that they’re trying to claim this game as an example of how better spacing will lead us to better results, when it really wasn’t about spacing.
That’s Cap. Watch the game again and see how many times we were able to drive the lane with players other than Wheeler. Reeves went to the rim as did Theiro and Livingston. Wheelers man lives in the lane and prevents us from attacking the rim. That helped our spacing. Plus we played a top 5 defense yesterday. We didn’t get to the rim much against South Carolina and they are terrible.
Spark plug for what? Eratic play? A none factor from the perimeter? I mean no one guards him. A defensive liability? He is walk on quality at best. You play him even sparingly and his bad habits will kill the team. He’s no 6’5” type lock down defender who you an put in to shut someone down. He really offers little more than 5 fouls. This change of pace stuff too means wheeler plays at his hectic pace while others are left behind.
Yeah that’s just wrong. We didn’t open up previously non-existent driving lanes. We didn’t create more outside looks. Didn’t open things up for Oscar inside. We’ll have to agree to disagree.
