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Some great defensive intensity and hustle tonight. I think the final was something like 75-35. Hopkins shot the ball extremely well and pentetrated and found the open man at will. He also dunked on a fast break which was good to see. I was impressed by the unheralded freshman Killen. Very heady and mature player who has good defensive fundamentals and gives great effort. Theres a place for a guy like that on every team. Pearson is going to have a big year. Ike was a little tenative, but should improve. All of our guys looked energized and ready for the season. We don't have alot of depth, especially without Miller and Rack.

Great job guys!!

I intended to go tonight, but a family matter got in the way. My understanding was they were going to roll out the new unis tonight, if so your critique.

What's wrong with Miller and Rack?

Hoop Fan wrote:I was impressed by the unheralded freshman Killen. Very heady and mature player who has good defensive fundamentals and gives great effort. Theres a place for a guy like that on every team. Pearson is going to have a big year. Ike was a little tenative, but should improve.

Jon Killen was impressive - it will be interesting to see how much playing time he gets and where he plays. When did he commit? How was he rated coming out of high school?

Ike was somewhat tentative when it came to shooting but I thought that Simpson had a couple of shots the he should have taken but did not.

It was very evident that this team has been hitting the weights in the offseason and it was nice not to see that zone defense that we played previously. The team had a lot of hustle and there seemed to be a lot of communication between the players out on the court. With almost two weeks before the first game, I expect them to look even better in the game against UT-Tyler.

I wasn't a big fan of the new uniforms. Not too drastic a change. Looked like the letters and numbers were navy with red trim. The shorts had a weird pattern on the side instead of a regular stripe.

I wasn't at the scrimmage last night but I've been to couple of practices and I was also impressed with Killen. He's fairly big (6-3,6-4) and you can tell he knows how to play the game. The thing that surprised me the most was how well he shots the outside jumper. He should provide a nice backup for Hop this year.

Killen came to SMU very quietly. He didn't get a lot of attention from the recruiting services...probably because he did put up big numbers at Arlington Martin. He could be a prime example of how a good prospect gets lost in the mix of the big-time recruits in DFW.

Killen committed to us a year ago, and signed in the early signing period. He wasnt "rated" much of anything coming out of high school. Zero "stars" on Rivals, for the folks who like to follow that kind of thing. I think North Texas was the the only other school to offer him a scholarship. He didnt have impressive stats in high school, he was the set-up man in Martins offense, his job was more to distribute and run the offense, not score on his own. He has good court vision and a decent looking shot, but everything he does needs to be a split second faster. He needs to make his decisions faster, and put them into motion quicker. Thats something that will come with maturity, though, right now he's still adjusting to a higher level of play. As things stand right now, Killen will have to play alot this year. While Miller and Roberts are hurt he's pretty much the only backup guard we have. Until Roberts returns, Killen is going to have to see alot of court time, perhaps more than he is ready for.

What I didnt like about the scrimmage: We had problems attacking the zone for the first 10 minutes. The team has mostly worked against man-to-man in practice, and it took a little while to adjust. We also let them get some very open looks from three point range, early on.

What I liked: We adjusted well to everything they did. Its not unusual to struggle early against a team that you have no game film of, and havent had any chance to scout. Its difficult to know what they'll do. We let them stay too close for the first 10 minutes, but once the coaches had a good look at what they were doing, they adjusted well to everything. We scored more in transition, and Hopkins 3-pointers forced them to come out of the zone. Intense man-to-man defense completely shut down their offense. They were 4/5 from beyond the arc in the first 10 minutes, but just 1/8 for the rest of the game. In the first 12 minutes of the second half, they scored only 2 points. Even after we cleared our bench with 8 minutes left, they could only manage another 6 points to finish out.

Biggest problem: Depth. There isnt any at guard, right now. Chris Reay did a solid job off the bench, he contributed the defense and rebounding you need from your back up center, and he hit the only 2 shots he took. Reay has a sprained thumb right now, and plays with his hand bandaged. From what I've seen in practice, he sometimes has trouble catching the ball. He may be more involved offensively when his hand heals.
Ike Ofoegbu is strong and a good athlete, but needs to improve his footwork and free throws. He's athletic enough to give solid backup minutes while he works on the fundamentals.
At guard, though, Killen is it. Brian Millers back injury appears to be chronic, and I'm not counting on him to contribute at all this year. That doesnt mean he might not play sometime, I'm just not counting on it. Roberts may be back in 3 weeks, but thats the optomistic view.
Donatas Rackauskas was ahead of Reay and Ofoegbu in practice before he hurt his knee. He's getting scoped today, and will be out for at least 4 weeks.

Overall, it was a good warm up for the real thing, which starts in 12 days. Thats all I can think of for now, I'll add more later as it comes to me.

I agree with much that has been posted above and will not repeat it here, but I thought there were a couple of things that I noticed that haven't been mentioned.

Last year, SMU average 7.5 steals per game. Last night, I counted 17 steals by the Mustangs - The SMUMustangs.com said there were 16.
Either way, that is an impressive number. The steals came from playing tight defense on the ball and overplaying the passing lanes. We probably got 4 or 5 dunks of of this defense. This is the style Tubbs used at Kimball. We only used a full court press 3 or 4 times and it appeared to be only token - the main damage was done in our helf court defense.

Castro appeared to be faster and stronger and got a few steals. I was most impressed with the progress of DeVon Pearson. He is going to do good things in his career here. He played excellent defense, got several
boards, and scored 9. B-Hop, as some people have said recently appeared to be faster, stronger, and quicker than last year due to Tubb's conditioning program or work by B-hop in offseason. Chris Reay has made progress - and it is true his right hand was taped making catching the ball difficult, but he is left-handed and hit both of his shots. I thought Killen showed that he can help us as a backup. He is fast, plays good D, and looks to distribute the ball instead of shooting although he can shoot.
I will attach a short blurb about what his coach said about him in high school.

In talking about our depth at guard - don't forget that hopefully D. Roberts will return and will add scoring, quickness, and defense to this team. (assuming his leg heals well.) I don't know if Miller's back will let him play this year, but if it does, he will also give us some depth at shooting guard - off the bench. We need Rack to come on. I don't know if anyone else saw what I did in Simpson. I was disappointed in his play. I thought his timing was way off. He seemed to be a day late and a dollar short with most of his passes and assists. He missed several chances to his wide open men because he wasn't aware and reacted too late. He also dried to dribble in a mob after rebounding - you'd think that he would learn to keep the ball up and get it to a ball handler and hopefully he was just having a bad bio-rhythm day.
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SMU Basketball Signs Three
Killen, Ritter & Roberts Join Squad In 2004-05

For Immediate Release
Thursday, November 13, 2003

DALLAS (SMU) -- SMU Head Basketball Coach Mike Dement announced the addition of three players to SMU's 2004-05 roster on Thursday, November 13, during the NCAA's Early Signing Period. The players, in alphabetical order, are Jon Killen, Paulius Ritter and Derrick Roberts.

Killen, a 6-4 point guard, hails from nearby Arlington. Coached by Jeff Plemmons at Martin High School, Killen was the first player to commit to the Mustangs this fall. He chose SMU over offers from Louisiana Tech, UTEP and North Texas.

"The kid is 6-4, plays point guard and benches 270 pounds - he's very strong," said Coach Plemmons. "He jumps pretty well, is a good passer and handles the ball extremely well. He's not flashy. He's not going to cross anyone over ten times in a row, but at the end of the game he'll have a bunch of assists and zero turnovers. He's very unselfish. He'll get the ball to the scorers."