Agree with everything you wrote. The biggest injury by far is Rojas. We just have a huge hole inside and it will be difficult for us to overcome the lack of player who can bang, rebound, and collect a few some garbage points around the basket. If Herb is sidelined for any length of time, this may be a building year. I think Avery left cupboard pretty bare at that position. I hoped Smith would turn the corner, but while he is big enough, he just hasn't developed the skills to compete with quicker players down low. He was a better defender than Davis who I think can develop into a good player given time, but at this point the position is a glaring sore spot.
Kira gave it everything he had last night so anyone who criticizes the kid needs to back up. If Quinnerly was in the lineup, I think he makes those 2 free throws, but honestly he was just gassed. I was very impressed with Shackleford and I thought Forbes gave us some quality minutes. The only way forward is to become a 3 point shooting team. We simply have no skilled bigs inside so we'll have to play around it until we can get some recruits on campus. With all that being said, if not for a horrible wave off of a tip in that clearly showed it was not in the cylinder, we would have won the game. Coach Oats said as much in his post game comments. This just shows how good Coach Oats truly is for us to even have a chance when at the 35 minute mark of the game, we had zero points from a big. I didn't realize Reese was hobbled, but early on, the Penn center just abused him and pretty much every player who guarded him. Reese did get more aggressive toward the end of the game which makes you wonder where that energy was in the first half.
RTR
