1) I don't think the intent is to never play James 38 minutes. All 38 were pretty much needed on Saturday. I think the objective is to get him more rest during games where his sustained presence on the court will not be essential.
2) While there has been messaging that suggests that JBIV is all about winning right now and is happy to play less for the good of the team developing as a whole, I would not take this to mean that stats don't matter. After scoring just 5 points in 20 minutes against Stonehill, I believe that CC was looking for James to have a big scoring day if it were needed, which it clearly was.
3) Really good coaching: On the in-bounds plays down the stretch, we could have had someone pass the ball to James every time so he would get fouled and be near-automatic at the line. With the outcome of the game not truly in question, we had James pass to Jacoi who got fouled. He went 1-2 at the line but the point is you want to give Jacoi that actual game experience of making pressure free throws during a game that is still being contested.
4) As instinctive a defender that Stretch is in the paint, he looked a bit lost while having to come out on the perimeter. Either he was late on his rotation or on at least one occasion, the W&M big faked a shot and drove right past him. While this may certainly improve over time, I think you may have to consider sitting Stretch for longer stretches (pun not intended) when facing bigs who are three point threats. The Richmond game where their bigs can always shoot from distance would be a good example. I realize this is just one game but something to keep an eye on.
5) Darren Buchanan fascinates me. In high school, he must have been so much larger than many of his opponents that he could dominate based on size alone. That said, he has a tremendous handle for a frontcourt player. Something to make sure of is that he and Stretch don't get into foul trouble during the same game. I think we will always need at least one of these players on the court at all times.
6) If you don't think that desire has anything to do with rebounding, then you're not watching Maximus very closely. Between this and the range he has added to his outside shot, he is playing with great confidence right now.
7) The key to this game was asserting ourselves with high percentage shots after getting sucked in to a three point shooting contest earlier in the game (and falling behind in the process). That and the outstanding free throw shooting.
8) As DMVPiranha pointed out in his outstanding pregame analysis, W&M had 4 players who previously were on P5 programs. This is a MUCH improved W&M team from the one who inexplicably beat GW a few years ago. It's always easy to think "oh, it was just W&M" but this is an atypical W&M team. When recruiting, you can point to Northwestern, another strong academic school who recently snapped its streak of never having made the tournament, and sell smart, quality players on coming to help us make the Dance for the very first time in the school's history. I think that's working for The Tribe (whose nickname stays while ours goes...but let's not go there.)
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Long Suffering Fan wrote: