It is a bit comical how the goal poasts have moved for this program. 4 years ago we would be complaining about sniffing out wins vs LBS and UTEP, instead we're rejoicing about being undefeated against the children of the blind(and utep).
The team is showing much more promise, i'll give them that. I'm still incredibly concerned about depth, upshaw, and our shooting once we play quality teams and start pac12 play. One other bonus we used to enjoy was home court advantage. That is now gone completely and we can't except to go 7-1 at home even with a mediocre team. But at least our shooting seems to be less dismal than it started.
This team is much more fun to watch than the last few years. NWG and Upshaw(when he's playing) are an absolute pleasure to watch. Upshaw is still raw, but it's fun to see a guy who can change the whole landscape on the defensive end. AA is still one of the hardest players to watch, but if he could ever figure out how to not try and do so much he really could be a decent player. Sadly he's streaky b/c of his style of play, which more often sides to the negative than positive.
A few other thoughts on this team that have changed is fewer guys are getting to the basket than the last 2-3 years. Upshaw is certainly part of that, but realistically we're playing much better on ball defense. It's still not great, but it's not nearly the open door defense we've been seeing over and over.
Dorsey is the anti DJ. I thought DJ would be much better than year, and likely play a key role into this year. Instead, Dorsey is a guy I could see being a starter by mid pac-12. He seems to flow well on offense and plays decent defense and doesn't turn the ball over. His size still surprises me every time I see him on the floor. For some reason I still have this string bean player in my head. He's going to be a 6th man at worst by pac12 rotation and one of the other true 3 point threats on the floor(shooting 48% on the year so far).
By pac12, the rotation I see is
PG - NWG
SG(or off guard for all your fucktards who are going to tell me romar doesn't have a 1-5 system) - AA
SF - Anderson
PF - JJ
C - Upshaw
Bench rotation
1 - Dorsey
2 - Kemp
3 - Winters