bball2223

I'll revisit the Texas being better than ND and others argument.


ND vs. Texas Starting 5's:

PG: Tory Jackson vs. Justin Mason Advantage: ND

Comments: Mason is a solid player as is Jackson. Jackson is a lockdown defender and a great distributor plus he has an experience advantage over Mason. Very underrated nationally and is probably the 2nd best player on the ND squad.

SG: Kyle McAlarney vs. AJ Abrams Advantage: Push

Comments: Both are shooters. They both are expected to light up the scoreboards and both do that. Not much seperates the two.

SF: Zach Hillesland vs. Damion James Advantage: Texas big-time

Comments: James is ready to breakout after taking a backseat to Augustin and Durant. Hillesland is a good defender, rebounder, and is very versatile but he can't shoot and isn't even near the athlete James is.

PF: Luke Zeller vs. Gary Johnson Advantage: Push

Comments: Neither has proven that much although if both play as expected Johnson will hold the advantage.

C: Harangody vs. Atchley Advantage: ND big-time

Comments: Atchley is a solid player but he isn't even close to Harangody's level. Harangody is as good as anyone in college basketball.


So we have a 2-2-1 result when we size up the matchups. ND has more experience playing together and returns basically everyone (minus Rob Kurz). Texas lost their best player and arguably the best PG in college basketball. As of now ND is a better team than Texas. I understand you like your team's potential Rocketeer but ND has proven more with the players returning.

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rocketeer

your analysis doesn't make a whole lot of sense, especially the first part.

your description of jackson is a great description of mason. he's the guy texas went to when they wanted to take augustin out or just let augustin play off the ball(which they did throughout the season) and he's a very good defensive player. and when both guys are going to be juniors and mason has started all but the first few games of his freshman year and has gone deeper in the ncaa tournament than jackson, it what way is jackson more experienced than mason?

and this will be mason, abrams, james, and atchley's 3rd year playing together. they definitely have experience playing together.

what really is going to determine just how successful texas is this year is what they get from their inexperienced guards. with dogus balbay, j'covan brown, and i think varez ward coming in, at least one of those guys is going to have to be productive to give the backcourt some depth. wangmene, pittman, and chapman provide enough depth inside for that not to be a problem at all. balbay has experience playing for turkish youth national teams and has been with the team for a year(he got injured and didn't play so i'm assuming he redshirted) so he'd be the most likely of the guards to have an impact.

texas was better than notre dame last year. both teams lost an important player(though obviously texas lost a better and more important player). you pass off losing kurz as if it was nothing, but he was notre dame's 3rd leading scorer and 2nd leading rebounder.

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bball2223

Okay then Jackson vs. Mason is a wash. Who says I was passing Kurz loss off as nothing? I know he is a huge loss I also know Zeller or Hillesland is very capable of providing similar production. Mason could fill Augustin's void but he isn't going to be as good as Augustin was. Augustin was Texas equivalent of Harangody. If anything these teams are very similar. Harangody is the best player on either team and that IMO makes the difference.

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TM setting the standard for Duke Basketball in '08-'09.