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Progressive development is all that matters. I saw enough tonight. Observations:

1. Jason Hart Jr. Still in street clothes on the bench, but he looked way more mobile tonight. Since we never hear anything, I'll predict he's ready by December.

2. Ramel Lloyd Jr. Best game yet. Started. Good idea, got him into the flow at first still a bit forcing the action but once he got into the team flow he was productive. He has tools to be a dynamic offensive threat. Solid on d tonight. Hustles a lot. Looked comfortable the more minutes he got. 15 pts 4 rbs.

3. DMX: 5 pts, 6 boards, 2 blocks. We need this type of output from him. Our most athletic big that can cover inside and outside. Talked to an Indonesian guy named Jeff who is a rep of the Indonesian program and helps out with DMX. Cool guy who really likes our coaching staff.

4. Askew didn't score as much but still had 10 pts 8 boards 6 assists. He's our go to guy. Credit Portland for switching the 6-10 Rapp on him that final play, Askew had nowhere to go but at least got a shot off, wasn't close though.

5. Wainwright had a subpar but not a bad game.

6. Denson was all hustle, 3-11 FTS sucks and he hit his first 2 nicely then went 1-9. But, he finally gave the team some real identity on defense and offense with his non stop hustle, so did Lloyd. We need more of that.

7. Nagy 7 boards and solid d he's the real deal has a good BB IQ, aggressive, confident and stays in his lanes. Credit the coaching staff for signing a kid no one else seemed to be looking at.

8. Kam, Christian, and Austin struggled. We need more from Austin Johnson, or maybe I'm expecting too much.

Team defense was very good at times. This team will need to keep the opposition below 70 to win. We won't win games by excessively scoring but by playing lights out team defense. We don't have human erasers like Aboubacar to recover from a missed assignment. We gave up too many baseline scores early. Offense was less stagnant but not dynamic enough yet. Shot great for a while from 3 then cooled off, it at least feels like we can be solid from deep as the season progresses.

Acker is very engaged. Doesn't argue with officials.

As a team we were getting outrebounded early then caught up with hustle and aggressive activity.

On the boxscore, bad FT shooting lost the game. But we were down by 8-12 pts most of the game and a valiant effort at the end fell short. We have to be better at establishing ourselves especially with aggressive defensive effort. Someone can take a charge too, why is it I'm seeing almost none of that anymore did some rule change?

Refs did a decent job. A bad call here or there but they let the teams play.

Portland doesn't suck, that Aussie big is a load and he's only a freshman, seemed to me to have NBA capabilities if he develops more, a big strong shooter who can also mix it up inside. Once we get established as a team, we win many games at home against Portland level talent...Portland would be right in the middle of a typical BW. That 41 point home loss to UCSB is probably an early season aberration.

Gonzaga is gonna whack us, I don't even care if we lose by 60 its a bodybag money game and Few can feel good about it for his little pal Monson. Gonzaga last played Nov 4th and whacked #13 Baylor by 38. They play SDSU Monday before us next Wed. Its on ESPN+ if you care to watch. Hope the team just stays relaxed. Probably best to slow the game down to a snails pace.