Let’s start with the bad: everything about the Northeastern game. That was a complete burn-the-tape outing. There was almost nothing positive to take away from it. Fortunately, it’s also been an outlier.
The injuries haven’t been great either. I’m not sure what Hunt’s injury is, but we’ve missed his shot-creation the last couple of games. Touomou, who might be our best freshman, should at least be ready soon. Between him and Sullivan, we’re going to have some good depth behind Batties and Pigge up front (more on them in a second).
Maybe the biggest surprise is that Hinton has had such a rough start to the season. He’s just in a mini-shooting slump. He had a lot of wide open looks against Penn State in particular that just didn’t go down. If you had told me he’d score two points and we wouldn’t have Hunt, but would be within one possession of Penn State on the road with a minute to go, I would have thought you were crazy.
Which brings us to the good: how well Batties and Pigge have been playing. They’ve both been lights out from three—Batties is over 70% and Pigge 50%—which, while obviously unsustainable, is still a credit to the open looks our smallball lineups generate for them matched up against slow-footed big guys. Our experience playing small last year is certainly helping now.
If we can get Hunt back and Hinton going, we’re going to be in good shape.