This team is so physical....

It's official in my mind, for the first time since Monson was hired we're a physically intimidating team! You can just see the faces of the other teams bigs thinking "man, these guys are POUNDING on us" & "How many more of these 6' 10" freaks do they have on that bench?!"

It starts with Trevor Mbakwe. He's brought a toughness & aggressiveness we've lacked. Everyone else has to play up to Trevor's intensity. Colt rebounds like a mule kicks. RS3 is athletic enough that he can screw your offense up with his blocks. Big Mo's got the size obviously but his aggressiveness & skills are far beyond where I thought they'd be at. We've got 20 SOLID fouls to give out of our 4 & 5 positions, that's going to win us some games come conference season. Rodney & Hollins both play pretty decent defense & both have the chance to become monsters on D. I think the competition we see developing is good, they both know they're fighting for minutes & it's great to have depth!

Al Nolen's tough as nails too. We missed Al's defense so much last year & finally have it back. He just smothers people, he jumps passes to get steals, he scraps, he's on the floor, he's going low as the big men go up down in the blocks, he's just relentless. These PG's are going to dread having him draped all over them this season. Chip is becoming a favorite of mine. The kid reminds me of Nate Tubbs a little bit, one of the more impressive builds you'll see from a Freshman guard & not lacking for confidence or aggressiveness. When contact is made he's the guy still standing. He's also a scrapper who just gets after it & plays hard! Blake & Devoe are both a step down, but play as hard as they can. I've not seen enough of Mav to opine.

You can just feel it, like a prize fighter softening up his opponent with body blows that by half time the other teams are feeling every blow & are starting to fade physically.

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Al Nolen's tough as nails too. We missed Al's defense so much last year & finally have it back. He just smothers people, he jumps passes to get steals, he scraps, he's on the floor, he's going low as the big men go up down in the blocks, he's just relentless. These PG's are going to dread having him draped all over them this season. Chip is becoming a favorite of mine. The kid reminds me of Nate Tubbs a little bit, one of the more impressive builds you'll see from a Freshman guard & not lacking for confidence or aggressiveness. When contact is made he's the guy still standing. He's also a scrapper who just gets after it & plays hard! Blake & Devoe are both a step down, but play as hard as they can. I've not seen enough of Mav to opine.


PREVIOUS COMMENTS ABOVE******************************************************

I was wrong on Al this year. Al Nolen is a difference maker and a more mature and diverse player.

If Al does not turn the ball over like in PR, and he plays high powered Defense, he is invaluable and makes this a final 8/ or even FFour team.

Al even moved the ball to Hoffarber with ESP like qualities when it counted. Al Nolen is much improved over the Al of the past. He is strong, quick, reliable and tough as nails.

Our B10 brethren who saw this are crapping their pants.

Said it in the chat, Al is finally driving to the lane under control and with a plan. Before this year, it was like rolling dice when he drove in there, sometimes a great pass, but usually a turnover or a poor layup. But, a couple instances aside, he did brilliantly and drawing contact, finding guys on the perimeter, and pulling it back out when nothing was there. We knew he could play D, but if he can keep this up, it will be immense.