3ontheway wrote:Time will tell, but early returns look like we miss R2 pretty badly. Mac is a pretty ingenious offensive coach so we shall see. If your point guard can't break down rhe D and force wings to collapse and force help, it is a pretty big problem.
This. Look at the history of our point guards from the last several years. They’re all different, but Mo, Z, and R2 could all get theirs. Trey is obviously a great player! However, you can tell the role he’s playing right now isn’t best served for him. When we play teams with athletic and/or physical guards, he’s helped a lot by having other guards that are just as good if not better at handling the ball or getting by his guy. R2 could do that. We literally have no one else to do that and we won’t the rest of the year.
I don’t love R2 or Art, they both had plenty of weaknesses. But the reaction that we would be able to just plug and play never made any sense to me. The only thing Ashworth does better then R2 is shoot from 3. That’s it. And it hasn’t won us any games yet. People over-criticize R2. Do we forget the 25 piece he dropped on Arkansas in Maui against NBA level guards? Do we forget the THIRTY piece he dropped to get us to the S16 against nba level guards at Baylor? One of if not the best NCAA tourney game ever played by a Jay. Yes, he had weaknesses. But we miss him heavily.
As far as Art goes, no one got more frustrated with his play than me. He could be a turnover machine. Ball stopper. Brick thrower. You name it. But, the fact is no one on the roster can do what he was able to do at that spot when he was on, or period. His athleticism and physicality allowed him to play much different than Traudt/Miller. We are going to miss that. His ability to create his own shot, or at least the *threat* of it, we will miss. Miller and Traudt are better shooters, bar none. But that’s the only thing they’re better at than Art. And that’s all they are right now and that’s likely all they’ll ever be. Art got off to a rough start at KSU, but his last few games he turned it on. The ultimate Art experience. He makes plays that no one else on our roster currently can. There’s been rumors and rumblings for months of chemistry issues from those two and them wanting to get theirs. But, we got to the Elite 8, so it couldn’t have been that bad. I’d take an Elite 8 with above average chemistry than an NCAA tourney team who all loves each other
We were sold on how good of a fit Ashworth was. He seems like a great dude, great teammate, leader, etc. But he hasn’t been good and his 3 point shot hasn’t been nearly the threat it needs to be for him to make up for the below average aspect of the rest of his game. I thought at the time, and feel vindicated now, there were much better options to bring in the portal, especially if we’re going to allow Trey to play point 40/50% of the time. Ashworth is a 5’10, unatheletic 3 point shooter. Not a ton of those at the starter level in P5 basketball.
Time will tell on this team. We can get better. But the roster holes aren’t going away. This team will win games by shooting lights out, and when they don’t, they’ll lose plenty. Teams are going to pressure the hell out of us, run us off the 3 point line and make us slash to the rim, and that’s just not a strength. CSU isn’t a bad team, but they’re probably a bubble ish team. Iowa isn’t great. They got dominated for a lot of their game against OU.
The OSU game, Nebraska game, and Bama game are all going to be extremely difficult because all of those teams match up well against us. I know OSU isn’t good, but if we don’t shoot well anything can happen.
My two cents.
by AttyAlum » Thu Nov 23, 2023 7:52 pm 
