Having not watched the game, its hard to totally judge ones performance, but the box score looks very telling. Its sorta a good news, bad news situation. The good news is our freshmen scored nearly half of the points, the bad news is they scored nearly half of the points. I guess I shouldn’t complain about who is scoring, but I think this could be a cause of concern.

Some other good news is Gerald Henderson’s performance: 21 points, 3 3-pointers, 4 assists, and 7 rebounds. This is what should be expected of him all season. He has got to become our go to guy.

Brian Zoubek appears to have recovered well from his off-season injury. He ended up with 11 points, and 10 rebounds. The only down side to his play were the 6 fouls. He wasn’t going up against a dominate big man, so he must have had a hard time keeping up with Kyle Singler and Lance Thomas in the post.

Outside of the those two and the freshman, everyone else seems to have just played within the offense. Also, Mary Pocius and David McClure did not play.

I think this is going to be a very interesting, a year with lots of questions that will need to be played out.

Who is going to be our backup PG? Will it be Scheyer or Smith?

What role and/or position will DeMarcus play? My guess is that he will split time between SG, SF, and PF. Heck, he may be our best post player at this point. Either way, we have got to be a running team if we want to succeed.

Will Thomas and Zoubek stay out of foul trouble and become legitimate post players?

Will our freshmen continue to dominate, yet not play inside the offense? They only had a combined 3 assist in the game. Yes they were scoring, but were the other players just siting around and watching?

Ultimately, all questions lead back to the post. Who will be the big man that shuts down the likes of Tyler Hansbrough. My guess it will be post by committee with Singler, Thomas, and McClure leading the charge and Zoubek, King, and Nelson being used as re-enforcements.

My final conclusion and prediction is that Gerlad Henderson will be our go to player and the guy that no team can stop. He will be our MVP and will be in the running for ACC Player of the Year….watch your back Tyler….and your face.

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After a tough first season in the NBA that included a pre-draft DUI, bad coaching, injuries, bad coaching, lack of playing time, bad coaching, and bad coaching, it seems as if J.J. Redick seems to have found his groove and comfort zone in Orlando. Throughout the summer league and now into the pre-season, J.J. Redick is doing what he does best, scoring. Not only is he doing it from the outside, but he has also made a concentrated effort to drive to the hoop.

Despite his offensive progress, head coach Stan Van Gundy wants to see what kind of defense J.J. is capable of playing. Anyone who has watched J.J. play defense knows his defense is not bad. He is not a lazy defender, he plays typical Duke hustle defense, but in the NBA, speed and quickness are as important as good positioning and footwork. Will he be able to guard the likes of Kobe Bryant and Michael Redd? Well, this past summer, during Team USA workouts, that is exactly what he did. From that experience, he feels he has made huge defensive strides. To what extent remains to be seen, but it will be the difference between playing 20 minutes or 36 minutes per game.

Luckily, he is competing for playing time with Keith Bogans. Bogans is not known for his offense, so he will have to prove he is the superior defender. However, in this past Wednesday’s pre-season game, Bogans started but was benched for a lack of defensive hustle, that clearly is not a good sign for him. My prediction for this season is that J.J. and Bogans will split starts but J.J. will get a majority of the minutes. Not only that, but J.J. will average at least 16 points a game, with multiple 30-point nights. It should be fun to watch…good luck J.J.

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