Malik Mack

specifically, but this is a different team in a lot of ways, and I'm excited to get your take on it and talk about exactly how it's different.

But out the door from last season, Malik Mack transfers to Providence.

We can talk about that as we go.

KJ Lewis out to USC, hopefully recovering from his ankle surgery, and hopefully will be playing, albeit for that coach at USC who's been in the In the news a little bit recently, Julius Haleifunua, this is the one that stings us, stings me.

That's a tough list to crack right now.

But sure, I think he can flirt with all Big East honors.

You mentioned the ways that he has some similarities to Malik Mack, who he's obviously coming in and replacing.

He's a little bit undersized, a little bit of a skinny kid, lefty, likes the mid-range, not going to light it up from three necessarily.

I, I don't think it's, it's great by any means.

And I still have plenty of questions about Malik Mack.

But like you give me Vanterpool, Miles-Bird, Peate, Sable, like that is four guys who can play on the wing for you.

Personally, I don't think Peate gets eligible.

So that probably is a large part of why we differ on this team.

I'm gonna have him lower.

The other large part is because I don't have questions about Ma- Malik Mack.

I know the answer.

And I think this team is kind of lacking a pure point guard.

You know, Malik Mack's kind of known for his scoring prowess, and that's kind of what got him recruited to the Power 5 level.

Gavin Hightower, smaller, scrappy guard, not necessarily like a floor general distributor.

So I think this is what the team needs.

And another thing is that, you know, this guy, when taking the right shots can be very effective.

If you limit the volume, the efficiency, And I think that's kind of a theme with a lot of the guards that this coaching staff's recruiting.

Not to jump the gun on Malik Mack too much because we might cover him later, but the coaching staff saw, hey, when he's in catch and shoot scenarios, he's much better.

We're going to alleviate the volume, take a little bit off his plate where we can kind of work him into situations where he's more efficient.

I just think in basketball as a whole, just having shooters everywhere that you kind of need to respect opens up so many other avenues for you offensively.

So, I mean, if you have Malik Mack on one side, Sable on another, Pinion in the corner, and, you know, you need to respect those guys.

And that opens up the lane entirely for a guy like Miles Bird to get downhill, who we know him as a defensive guy.

But, I mean, if he's, you know, facing wide open lanes or a guy like Arrington Page or Samson Allenton, and you say, hey, you know, Stay down low.