re: Hopefully gray learns from this benching

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For what? He is the weakest link on the team when he is at point guard.

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That's why we need him. Players get hurt. Did he play fantastic tonight? No. Was he instrumental in helping us to victory? Yes.
He really seemed to settle down later in the 2nd half. Still a few wtf moments. But overall he held it together when we needed it and got us 5 quick points in the last couple mins of the game.

LSU has 6 SEC basketball players at this point. We have 4 guards and 2 bigs. The rest of them play less than 15 minutes a game total and don't do much when they play. LSU needs Gray and I thought he did well in the last 3 minutes. Hopefully he got some confidence at the end, because he is needed. Any injuries to those 6 will kill LSU. Depth is why JJ cannot press and was forced to play zone, so he doesn't wear them out. Every game from here on out will be a battle unless the opponent or LSU just totally sucks.

LSU is fortunate in that the 6 players they have are better than any of the 6 best players for any other SEC team except perhaps UK, and LSU is not far behind them on their best 6.....7 thru 12, LSU would be fortunate not to get doubled by UK.

Our problem as fans is that we look at that gaudy scoring average in Juco. Josh averaged 9 points a game as a freshman at Texas Tech, about what he is averaging at LSU. Just maybe Tech and LSU play better teams with much more talent than Josh did in Juco, just a thought.

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Problem is you can't teach basketball sense and Gray frankly just doesn't have it

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That's not true at all. Look at TQ from last year to this year. People were saying a lot of similar things and he had a lot of "wtf" moments. But he figured it out and is thriving now. The light flicks on at diff times for every player.

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turnovers at an alarming rate

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While I do agree he turns it over too much... The PG position typically leads teams in TOs because of the fact that he brings the ball up and has he ball in his hands a lot... So knowing that, what do you call it when 1 of our post players turns it over at a very similar rate? Going into tonight, Gray averaged 3.5 turnovers per game and Mickey averaged 3.3 turnovers. That should be mentioned just as much as Grays turnovers, but it's not.

Why?

Because every little mistake Gray makes is magnified by a lot of people on here. In the game thread, there were people talking about hel careless he was and the turnovers he had in the 1st half... And he didn't have a single turnover in the 1st half. He's been made the scapegoat.

And yes, a lot of it is warranted, but people just love to bash the kid and focus on every little thing he does wrong. And IMO, that's the biggest issue with his game right now... It's his confidence. He came in here with a good bit of hype and he has talent and all that, but hes struggled. Now 85% of the "fans" just love to bash the kid. And it's gotten to him. You can tell he is not a confident player right now. And 1 of the few times he's played with confidence was tonight when he hit that step back 3 and then drove to the rack and hit a nice leaner off the glass in traffic. He looked very confident in those 2 moments and was playing in rhythm and loose.. And those arguably were the biggest moments of the game.

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He definitely can put the ball in the basket and plays tough pressure defense in back court but that's about it.

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And he's also 3rd in the SEC in assists... Don't forget that. So he can score, play good D on the perimeter, and 1 of the top assists guys in the conference... If he gets him some more confidence / plays loose and cuts his TOs by 1 a game... I'll take it and be happy about it.

Gray is going to be a big factor for us down the stretch and we need to do a better job supporting him instead of focusing on every little thing he does wrong. Because believe it or not, there are some things he does that helps us out a lot and are things that he can grow on and build confidence.

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Gray is going to be a big factor for us down the stretch

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I agree with this. The rest I speed read.
We'll need all our guards including Patterson to make a run.

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And I guess people don't remember what happened at Vandy...

Mickey and Martin were getting gashed on the backdoor cuts all game long. Way more than just 2x.