Some thoughts on tonight's game:
The only one who can stop Bryson Williams is Bryson Williams. Yeah, I know that this was East Central, but we've also seen him dominate much better competition as well - at least when he's on the floor. If he can fix his Achilles heal of foul trouble he will be unstoppable.
Williams was awesome, Edwards was fine. Other than that our starters played poorly tonight.
After Williams the best players tonight were Tarke and Hawkins. Tarke finally seems to be adjusting to being back on the floor and to this team. In my opinion he's earned minutes against NMSU. Hawkins might just be our best playmaker in transition. He made the right play on the break frequently tonight.
Back to Hawkins. I've read a lot this season as to how he's been a disappointment at UTEP. Sone here must view things a lot differently than I do. I personally don't expect a freshman to come in and be a superstar. I look for that spark that tells me that this guy has the tools to be a good player some day, all the while expecting that often he will play like, well, a freshman.
I saw that spark last year. In the fact that he led the team in scoring during conference games at almost 14 ppg, and in the fact that he had several really good individual performances. Of course, he often looked like a freshman as well. In my mind, he and Lathon had similar freshman seasons, though Lathon was a little more consistent and more clutch. Hawkins didn't start out great this year, but I hope this game is a springboard to better things from him in his sophomore season.
If Boum going to bust out offensively, I hope that he does it real soon. His shooting these last few games has been hard to watch.
I've seen it hypothesized on here that Archie was nervous. I've seen it hypothesized that he is rusty. Yes. It will be a little too scary to let him work out his nerves/rust issues against NMSU, but I hope that he sees a lot of time against Pine Bluff and NC A&T.
I think that the worst thing to happen to Stroud may have been hitting consecutive 3 pointers against Eastern NM. It gave him, and us, hope that he had an outside shot. Except for those two 3 pointers, however, he has looked miserable beyond the arc. I do like the way he looks attacking the basket, however.
Efe has the size, strength, and skill to dominate against East Central. Unfortunately, like in the Eastern NM game, he was pressing too much, leading to a disappointing game. When he let's the game come to him and doesn't force things he is a really good player.
We have seen some really good things so far this year from each of our top 11 players. We've seen some disappointing things from each of them as well. If we can get them to play more consistently we will be in the conference title hunt. Continued inconsistency will lead to us losing some games that we should win.
