What about the wing? Pitino, Lobos figuring out who should be third starting guard

Nov. 20—There are four UNM Lobos who played regular minutes last season.

They are Donovan Dent, Tru Washington, Mustapha Amzil and Nelly Junior Joseph and each is now a starter. Nothing is changing there anytime soon.

But the “3” spot — call it the third guard, the wing, the small forward or just the 3 — remains unsettled through four games of the season.

And as the Grambling State Tigers come to the Pit on Thursday night, Richard Pitino isn’t saying if he’s yet made a decision on whether to start Filip Borovicanin or C.J. Noland.

Arizona transfer Borovicanin, who’s started all the games so far, is a 6-foot-9 versatile guard who has yet to assert himself in games the way he has in practices. North Texas transfer Noland, a 6-4 senior, has thus far provided a scoring punch and veteran presence off the bench. However, his relative lack of height brings the Lobos back to what they were last season: A team that could be vulnerable to bigger backcourts.

Sunday in New York, Borovicanin played nine first half minutes, though you could hardly tell. He had zero points, zero rebounds, zero shot attempts and other than one turnover, would have an 0-fer statline. He played zero minutes in the second half.

Noland got the start in his place to start the second half, finishing the game with 15 points, three assists, four offensive rebounds and three steals in 28 minutes.

“We’ll see,” Pitino said Wednesday when asked if Noland would get the start moving forward. “I think (Noland) … did a lot of good things. St. John’s is aggressive, pressure you. You’ve got to take them off the bounce a little bit. And C.J. did that. I think he’s probably a little more comfortable with that than Filip is. That’s why we went with it.

“But with that, we gave up a little size and that obviously hurt us on the glass as well. So we’ll continue to evaluate it. I don’t It’s not like a quarterback situation where you have to put one on the bench. All options will be certainly available.”

The Lobos didn’t just…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/wing-pitino-lobos-figuring-third-040100519.html

Author : Albuquerque Journal, N.M.

Publish date : 2024-11-21 04:01:00

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