MItch as a starter?

Last night, we bumble around for the first 5 minutes of the game. Then Mitch comes in and injects a quadruple espresso into the KU bloodstream and we're off to the races. While Mitch won't always have a game like last night, it does seem that he's always good for some decent screens (although he was moving a few times last night), some rebounds, a block or two, and taking a couple of charges. Oh yeah, forgot one: HUGE energy.

As much as I like McCormack and think he'll be really really good in short order, Mitch is better than him NOW. Mitch is definitely smaller, but it doesn't seem to be holding him back any.

If we want to put our "best" team on the floor right off the bat, I think we need to switch Mitch for McCormack.

BTW, Grimes was better last night. Played decent defense and eventually found his shot. Nevertheless, I'm still not sold. Weak drives to the basket, can't seem to get a grip on the ball, and despite making 3, his misses were pretty bad.

My starting 5: D. Lawson, Mitch, Dotson, Agbaji (although he didn't do much last night), and Garrett.

I agree, except believe I've heard HCBS say he doesn't want Mitch getting his usual two fouls in two minutes (or words to that affect) - maybe this helps Mitch calm a little - he played 31 min last night to DM's 7.

Valid point. Not sure that the home venue makes the refs a little blind to fouls, but some of Mitch's stops could have been "seen differently" if the game weren't in Lawrence. When Bilas mentioned his moving picks, I had seen several that could have been called by the time Bilas mentioned it, so that also confirms that he might not have gotten away with them if we were heading to Norman or Stillwater.

Still, when faced with Mitch or McCormack, it seems like an easy choice from my view.

Yep all abt avoiding the quick early fouls when the refs call everything. Mitch had 31 mins to 7 for mccormack so clearly starter mins. Marcus ate into agbajis mins last nite since he has disappeared the last two games. Hope its just a temporary wall of some kind. Last night grimes was clearly better for us.

I think who starts is not as big of a thing as how many minutes. I think letting Mitch see how the other team is playing the post and how much they are sagging and all kinds of things like that helps him when he does get in.

I guess part of the logic of having him start it to address our slow starts. We started slow at Tech and never got rolling. We took almost 5 minutes to get going last night. Normally, I don't hit the panic button if we're a little slow out of the gates, but it seems to be a habit with these guys.