BOL Round Table

LOL at people making Engstrom out to be the white Patrick Ewing.

Kentucky lost Noel - a lottery pick. We lost a guy who had never picked up a basketball 3 years ago.

And yet we're finding a way to make more excuses than they are. I never cease to be amazed.

Engstrom is another big body. That said, we've had almost 4 months to adjust to playing without him. Only we haven't adjusted. It's not like we suddenly lost him last week.

Good post. In support of your point did any of you see Cooper, Pollard and even Randolph trying to guard UGA's big power forward? It did not go too well. When UGA woke up from having a big game Thursday night they had us outmanned. We were lucky to hang on. Their inside game killed us. We were saved because of the great defensive job Randolph did on K-C Pope. Held him in check.

This is the only part of your response that holds any water...

A) He never made even the slightest comparison to Patrick Ewing, he basically acknowledged the CE wasn't so much of a threat but instead an improvement and another body.

B) He never mentioned Kentucky, and regardless of how long CE has played basketball doesn't change the fact that through the first couple of games CE was obviously "better" than MG - not Ewing, just better.

It's not "amazing" or anything like that. Sure, the post was technically an excuse for our mediocre year, but I think it doesn't take a long stretch of the imagination to state we likely beat LSU, Tulane, Mercer, and UT w/ CE - if for no other reason that his defensive presence and potential at rebounding. If he only grabs one rebound or alters one made shot against UT and LSU while Gueye was on the bench we'd have likely won. I know, it's a "what if" type scenario. But again, it's not calling Carl Engstrom the great white hope or Patrick Ewing. He is just simply our best center and would have made us better. If we won 2 of the previously mentioned games we'd likely be in the tournament and the #2 SEC team or tied for 1st w/ UF.