I think they finally had players with both the desire and willingness to actually play defense.
I agree - Audige was always ready to play defense.
Some people think Beran was a good defender. His length helped, but he was soft.
Nance was talented, soft and a bad teammate.
A frustrated freshman named Barnhizer was willing to kick anybody's ass on the court, but only played 58 minutes the prior year.
Nicholson played a total of 40 as a sophomore. My pleas went unanswered.
He and Barnhizer were so eager to play in games that they paid to join a team for a European tour over the summer.
Julian Roper and Ty Berry were the two remaining rotational pieces.
Collins publicly stated (later) that his recent teams in general had been too soft.
Importantly, Boo Buie hadn't yet bought in on the defensive side.
Casey Simmons. Very soft. But lots of stars.
Lowery ramped up the toughness, but the personnel had shifted in that direction, with the departure of Nance and to a lesser extent Simmons, probably Ryan Greer too... I thought Ryan Young was pretty tough, so I don't count him. His departure was a loss.
Lowery brought knowledge about how to play defense, how important it is to defend the paint, but also how to jump passing lanes - a more aggressive style of defense.
Interviews confirm parts this - Collins said he wanted to double the post but needed Lowery to teach the methods.
So we lost Nance, Young, Simmons, Greer and Elyjah Williams and replaced them with freshmen Hunger and Martinelli and the veteran Verhoeven. In reality though, the only new player added to the roster and rotation was Verhoeven. The 10 man rotation was cut to 8, with 2 of those 8 guys "not good enough" to play the prior year.
We struggled to score, but we
won. And Chris Collins learned and improved significantly as a head coach.
It seems like magic.
