Lost to Davidson by 13 on Thursday (65-52) and to Marist by 17 (50-33) on Friday. It may sound simple but just not putting the ball in the goal. Kede Johnson and Kyle Fuller played 38 and 36 minutes respectively yesterday at guard, after playing the same amount of minutes the day before. Kede was awesome Thursday with 28 and Kyle added 14 against Davidson, a high caliber team, but they just lost their legs on Friday and both scored only four points. There is no depth at guard right now with Dai-Jon suspended and A.J. Astroth, our freshman, hurt with a strained hamstring. Neither are playing. They should be back soon. The bright spot is the play of power forward James Siacum,. He had eight points and eight boards yesterday. James is a little undersized, but he really plays hard and is going to be a very productive player on the block for us this year. Sheldon Jeter, our freshman small forward, is going to be a good player for us also. Center Josh Henderson, power forward Shelby Moats and small forward Kevin Bright are learning as they play in their first year.They have talent, just need more experience. We need to get Dai-Jon back; it should be December when he gets back. Kevin is tough on his disciplne, so I hope Dai-Jon has learned his lesson and has gotten his act together. I think he’s a good kid who made a mistake. We need him to get his act together and start helping us play good basketball. There are a lot of good players on this team, we’re just going through some growing pains. I still think we can be a good basketball team come mid-January, early February, it’s just going to take some more developing. Can we make it to the tourney? We’ll have to see. It can happen. Power forward Rod Odom has to play better. Kevin said we’re just pressing right now, we’re tight, and I think Rod is putting a lot of pressure on himself to carry the load at power forward and as a leader and it’s kind of working against him. Hang in there with Rod and the rest of the team. Rod is a good player. Waiting for him to break out. He just needs to relax and play his game. We’re all pressing some and that causes us to miss some easy baskets. We’re hustling and defending pretty well and doing a decent job on the glass, just need to keep developing the chemistry and keep working hard. I know that sounds simple, but it’s what we need to do. We’ll keep getting better. I like the fact that we have no seniors on this team. So we can keep getting better and keep this team together for next year when we add a four-star center and an outstanding transfer point guard from Tulsa and hopefully two more good players in recruiting. Like the character of this group. We will get better. Play UTEP tomorrow at 11:30 ET/10:30 CT on ESPNU in the final game for us of the Old Spice Classic in Orlando.
James may call it 1-0 this week, but to a lot of us, 8-4 sounds pretty good too. We need to home in and get this done today. Amazing day for college football with some incredible rivalries. Should be very compelling. We just need to take care of business to finish off an outstanding second half of our season and get ready for a high caliber bowl game. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be something like the Chick-fil-A if we win or the Music City possibly. Either one works. The Chick-fil-A would be pretty outstanding and excellent exposure for recruiting. I remember Bobby Johnson said after we went to the Music City Bowl in 2008 that it was an excellent recruiting tool for the 2009 class. It was as we put together a very solid class most of whom are heavy contributors on this year’s highly successful team. Same thing for 2014 class. 2013 is already going very well, just need to finish it off. We did lose a recruit on Wed. night. Defensive end Mike Tyler out of Ohio decommited and is now going to Stanford. Sorry to have lost Mike. Stanford is a great place and he is a very good player who is having an excellent year in high school ball in Ohio with a ton of sacks. But we’ve got to move on. We have 20 commits now and will add at least three and maybe four more before the February signing day. I hear high three-star (247 Sports) and four-star (Rivals) running back Mark Dodson of Memphis is starting to show some real interest in us. Mark is committed to Ole Miss so it’ll take some work. It would be nice to add Mark to Rudy Ford as our other running back in this class. Offensive lineman Delando Crooks is also interested in us. Delando is a solid three-star out of Georgia. Would be nice to get an offensive lineman in this class. Five-stars L3 and Jalen Ramsey are still in play along with solid three-star Trevor Walker. Haven’t given up hope on solid three-star linebacker Skai Moore either. Need to finish strong against Wake and win our bowl and we’ll lock down this excellent recruiting class and add some stellar players to it to close it out. But first things first. Need to win at Wake. Wake is 5-6 and with a bowl game at stake we’re going to get their best shot. They’re going to be pretty focused. Need to just keep the momentum going on both sides of the ball. So good to get three interceptions last week. Need to be opportunistic today on defense and have JRodge, J Matt, Zac and Chris Boyd playing well on offense. Wake’s defense is pretty decent so our line and skilled players will be challenged.
Us 31, Wake 27
Jay’s status for the game tomorrow at 1 PM ET/noon CT will be determined today by the team neurologist. Jay recovering from his concussion and he practiced on a limited basis Thursday and yesterday. Lovie and the Chicago media are both positive about Jay’s prospects for starting. If he plays we’re a whole different team. Want to keep Jay safe, but if he’s ready to go, we could sure use him. Play Vikings tomorrow. They have the stellar Adrian Peterson at running back, so we’ll be challenged on defense after getting roasted by the Niners on Monday Night. We’re now 7-3 and need to get back on the winning track. Game at Soldier Field.
Bears (with Jay) 31, Vikes 28