Casual basketball fans like me don’t have much difficulty figuring out who can score, dish out assists and rebound but it’s more difficult to assess defensive skills beyond steals and blocks. I’d be interested in assessments of the defensive skills of the Yale players. Bez Mbeng was so exceptional that I could see he was a great defender but how about the current crop of Elis? And is defense such a team effort that individual skills are secondary?
I believe your instinct is correct. We need to tighten up our team defense
Mbeng is a big loss.
our calling card is offensive efficiency so far. Is that sustainable? We shall see.
I do think our positional size can be a defensive asset over time against league foes. We have struggled at times keeping the ball in front of us however.
our best defensive players imo and in no order are: aletan, Simmons and brathwaite.
Samson still doesn’t look 100% so getting him healthy will be key to tighten up the back end.
There is a chance we can be effective as having an elite shot blocker can allow us to better pressure the perimeter shooters
uri and Akron shredded us but in different ways. I believe a clearly hobbled then hurt aletan really hurt us defensively against akron in the 2nd half as we extended on their shooters and they got to the rim far too easily with Samson on the bench
I hope I am correct