Wildwood13 wrote:

I see a lot of talk about Rozier. My opinion is that he should be given the keys to drive us the next 3 years. If you watch Nowell for K State, you will see how a smaller guard has no problem playing against the big boys. The last few years Gilyard from Richmond caused havoc in the A10 for years. The coach has to occasionally go to zone to protect the smaller lead guard when they are exposing him defensively. Not sure our coach will. Offensively Rozier shows great leadership, looks to pass first, can hit the open outside shot and drives to the hoop and gets fouled. I really don’t think the Dukes are going to get a taller point that has the attributes that Rozier possesses.

Nowell is an inch shorter than Rozier. Or, better put, Rozier is an inch taller than Nowell. I like Rozier and he is likely going to start at point next year. So is Dixon, Williams, Clark and of course Grant. But we do need a lot of new guys from the porter to round out this team to get a deep bench.

Rozier is quite an interesting player. I've no idea what his upside really is. He may just be scratching the surface of his abilities. Don't know. If that would be the case, he could possibly grow into the best PG in the A-10. Who knows. I hate to relegate him to a player off the bench for 8 minutes a game when I have no idea what he might become. Glad he's on our side and looking for continued improvement from the young man. We could use more like him, but just maybe a bit taller!! We will see.

Good point on not knowing the upside to Rozier, El Presidente. He is off to a promising start. Rozier did average 15 minutes per game, so you can expect to build off of those minutes.

Here’s a little clip on Markquis Nowell.
https://twitter.com/overtime/status/1638676938251464705

Just throwing this out there as a stat; not suggesting or projecting….
As a freshman at Little Rock, Nowell had 5.5 assists and 4.4 turnovers per 40 minutes. Rozier had 5.4 assists and 2.0 turnovers per 40 minutes.

PistolPete wrote:

My Man Wildwood!!  You make a good point and I'm sure many of us just watched Nowell break the NCAA assist record with 19 as KState beat MSU in overtime in one of the best games ever, even for the Madness.  Wildwood I think part of my concern is the defensive side of the ball with a very small guard and I certainly don't think you should have two undersized guards, which we did with Brewer and Rozier.  KD's reluctance to play zone at times doesn't help, but I still would like a taller, lengthy PG with Rozier getting meaningful minutes and providing a spark off the bench.

Pistol I totally agree with you that our small guards get exposed on the defensive end. But I feel that is on the coach, because I have witnessed many small guards be successful in the college game, too many to mention. Pistol after watching and seeing Nowell is the real deal on the offensive end, I, in the second half was watching to see how K State was able to not get Nowell exposed on the defensive end. One thing I noticed is that when they played man to man, he would always switch at the top so as he would always be on the outer part of the defense. When someone would drive past him , which was not that often because of his quickness, the help defense was superb. Again, this is coaching. I wish I would have paid more attention to how Richmond used Gilyard defensively because he made the all conference defensive 1st team several years. As you know I’m not a fan of the coach, and his stubbornness is one of the many reasons along with coaching up the players. For Rozier to be successful the coach will have to be more adaptable to change and coach up Rozier and his teammates to make up for Rozier lack of height.

After he sprained his ankle last night, Nowell really had problems on defense.  They apparently didn’t want Nowell on Tyson Walker, so he got stuck with a big guard in Hoggard.  They tried to give Nowell help, but Hoggard was scoring at the rim with ease.  I don’t know how much the ankle injury effected his defense, but he did struggle after the injury!

Last edited by levon1975 (3/24/2023 6:02 pm)