Freshmen Point Guards

[Phantom Warrior]

Combined, Haanif and Traci played 40 minutes. They scored 11 points, grabbed five rebounds, and had eight assists, along with three turnovers. They did not shoot particularly well - 4 of 12 (33%) overall and 1 of 5 on treys (20%). Each one missed at least one lay up he should probably have made (which would have raised the shooting percentage to a cool 50%).

Defensively, Haanif was torched a couple of times when Belmont posted him up, and he got beat off the dribble a couple of times, and Traci had a couple of reach-in fouls, but overall I thought both looked like legitimate high-major players.

It will be interesting to see how mpg play out for the two of them as the season progresses. Frankly, I was surprised Haanif started with Traci coming off the bench, but I'm even more surprised that Haanif got virtually twice as man minutes as Traci got.

Both are exciting, talented players. I'd love to see them on the court together at times.

[TheSultan]

I'm just not sure that Haanif is a point guard. Traci looks the role and defends well. In fact I would have liked to see Duane more at the point than Haanif.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

I'm with Sultan. Haanif looks like a wing to me. I think he's fine if he has to back up at the point, but Traci getting 5 assists in 14 minutes really stands out compared to Cheatham's 3 in 26 minutes. Carter looks and plays like a point guard. He needs seasoning, but he's a true freshman. Also liked his defending better. I know people complained about the fouls, but I didn't think the quantity of fouls was as bad as I expected, and I'm not going to be too critical of reach and touch fouls early in this season knowing what a focus it is for the refs now.

It's a very small sample size, but I'd like to see Traci getting around 25 mpg at the point with Duane and Haanif spelling him as needed. I wouldn't mind running Duane and Haanif out there as PG1 and PG2 together when Traci's not in, similar to how we almost always had at least two guys who could ball-handle last year with the three-headed Duane/Matt/Derrick combo.

[Nukem2]

Wonder if, FBOW, Wojo started Cheatham for matchup purposes as Belmont's PG Austin Luke is a rangy 6'3". I would also prefer to start Carter or give him more minutes.

PS, as I recall, Traci was mostly matched up against #30. #30 played 13 minutes and Traci had 14 minutes.