Got defense? Then you’ve got playing time in Ben Howland’s system. But, bigs James Keefe and Alfred Aboya can’t play the entire game. Howland wants some of the freshmen to step up on the interior defense.
Here’s some thoughts from Howland:
“There’s a major dropoff inside defensively after James and Alfred come out,” Howland said. “We need Nik to become better on defense and the two big freshmen (J’Mison Morgan and Drew Gordon) to get better defensively.”
“J’mison Morgan his size is a problem for people to match up with; we’ve got to get him to be more reliable defensively so when he goes in the game it’s not a minus. That’s something I talked to him about after the game. That’s going to determine playing time – guys who go in the game and do a good job defensively and don’t hurt your team defense by being in the game.
“I was disappointed in Nikola (Dragovic’s) defense. We need Nikola’s offense but he’s got to be a better defender for us. Last year, he played the 3. He never played the 4 because we had Luc (Richard Mbah a Moute) there. Now, he has to play minutes at the 4 spot, and he’s got to continue to improve there because we need him on the other end of the floor.”