2024-25 PSU MBB Thread

[Erial_Lion]

One other thing I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet this season that shouldn’t go unnoticed…Hicks has really improved at both ends of the court. In addition to shooting well, he’s expanded his game and is putting it on the floor some more when guys close out hard on him. He’s also become a “plus” defender…he’s not getting a bunch of steals and overplaying passing lanes, but he’s staying in front of his man, and getting some blocks.

 

[bdgan]

One other thing I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet this season that shouldn’t go unnoticed…Hicks has really improved at both ends of the court. In addition to shooting well, he’s expanded his game and is putting it on the floor some more when guys close out hard on him. He’s also become a “plus” defender…he’s not getting a bunch of steals and overplaying passing lanes, but he’s staying in front of his man, and getting some blocks.

Hicks reminds me of Myles Dread. Both are/were very good 3 pt shooters when they could spot up. Neither one shoots well when shooting on the move and neither one takes/took many shots in the paint.

 

[PSU89er]

Hicks reminds me of Myles Dread. Both are/were very good 3 pt shooters when they could spot up. Neither one shoots well when shooting on the move and neither one takes/took many shots in the paint.

I'm ok with Hicks reminds me of Dread, but he's better player at almost every level. He's bigger and longer, Dread would struggle to play defense for Rhodes. He was never that quick. Hicks can go inside to score some twos, he did it last night once just going one on one. I don't know that Dread did that more than a couple times in his entire career.

Really if you compare this team to basically any team PSU has ever had player for player down to about 8 or 9. This is the best team PSU has ever had without question. 96 and 2020, were as good 1 to 5, but neither one had anything close to this depth. Keep in mind, both of those teams sniffed the top 10 during the season. I'm not saying this is a top ten team (though I wouldn't discount it ), but this team will see, at minimum, votes in the top 25 before the season gets too far along.

I guess I don't really know all about the other teams in the B10, but anyone thinking this team is 16th or 17th in conference has to follow with the B10 has half of the top 35 teams in the country. This team is really good.

Question for anyone that watched. Do you really think PSU played all that well last night, because I really don't think we did. We played well in spurts, but the ceiling of this team is a lot higher than what we saw last night. At least I think so.

 

[Erial_Lion]

I'm ok with Hicks reminds me of Dread, but he's better player at almost every level. He's bigger and longer, Dread would struggle to play defense for Rhodes. He was never that quick. Hicks can go inside to score some twos, he did it last night once just going one on one. I don't know that Dread did that more than a couple times in his entire career.

Really if you compare this team to basically any team PSU has ever had player for player down to about 8 or 9. This is the best team PSU has ever had without question. 96 and 2020, were as good 1 to 5, but neither one had anything close to this depth. Keep in mind, both of those teams sniffed the top 10 during the season. I'm not saying this is a top ten team (though I wouldn't discount it ), but this team will see, at minimum, votes in the top 25 before the season gets too far along.

I guess I don't really know all about the other teams in the B10, but anyone thinking this team is 16th or 17th in conference has to follow with the B10 has half of the top 35 teams in the country. This team is really good.

Question for anyone that watched. Do you really think PSU played all that well last night, because I really don't think we did. We played well in spurts, but the ceiling of this team is a lot higher than what we saw last night. At least I think so.

We played extremely well defensively last night…we forced VT out of rhythm all night defensively, turning them over and not letting them get into their offense until 15-16 on the shot clock.

I think the 95-96 team was the gold standard of our depth…hopefully we’ll surpass it, but Damien McKnight, Donovan Williams, Stephens, Big House, and Metzger could all give us something off the bench (especially defensively).

The Big Ten is really deep this year. Purdue at 12 in Pomeroy, no one else until UCLA at 23, but then 11 of the top 39, and all 18 teams in the top 81.