This team is still really young. Pope spoke of their hearts and minds last night after the game. Said they've got character guys. They just need one or two of them to rise up and take an alpha role. The team is largely sophomores and a few very talented freshmen. In other words, the core of the team is very young and only has the first few games of the season of really going to battle together. GG is the lone veteran senior that's been with the program. Williams is the only other senior on the team, but a transfer. Really thought those two guys experience with the game along with SJ would be the shining stars of this team with. Unfortunately that hasn't panned out. GG is as inconsistent as he's ever been and appears to be putting too much pressure on himself with how he handles the ball, how he shoots, and so on. Williams also appears to be putting a lot of pressure on himself, or feeling the pressure of high expectations for himself and hasn't been able to take it in stride yet, and like GG, often forcing some things too much. Fous has been the most consistent of anyone, by a long shot, but he needs the guards to start hitting shots at a better rate to pull more pressure off him and get the inside out game into a good rhythm.

Ball control and ball movement has been improving bit by bit though and now, they really just need their shots to start falling more consistently. They need an inverse of what's currently happening with their shooting. They've had one or two games where they've been efficient with their 3 pointers, field goals, and free throws and terribly efficient with all of that in most all other games thus far. Flip that around so that the poor shooting nights are only happening as rarely as the good shooting nights have happened to this point and they'd be a good team that would be fun to watch again.

I'm hoping they can all keep trusting each other and not give up on each other or themselves and use whatever frustration they ought to be feeling to fuel the fire to get better and keep grinding, work on their shooting mechanics, and so forth. If they can grow from the adversity and turn a corner sometime soon and finish the season off much stronger than they finished it will go along way in giving Pope a core foundation and identity to build on. I just care that the ship gets righted and the team is clearly trending upwards by season's end. That's what now holds my interest in continuing to watch and support the team.