I did go to the scrimmage and, for the most part, liked what I saw.
One piece of good news is that Darius Johnson-Odom played and didn't seem to show any ill effects from his foot injury. Both he and Bucyks showed some good strong moves to the basket. I also like the way Bucyks shot looks; he seems to be able to get the shot off pretty quickly and looks pretty smooth.
Like the Madness scrimmage, it was good to see Fulce playing without any obvious problems with his knee. Also, this scrimmage reinforced my impression that Butler is going to be a much more confident and aggressive player this season. I enjoyed watching him and Hayward going head to head.I also like the way Maymon rebounded in traffic and, in some cases, was able to take the ball right back to the basket.
Otule also showed a few decent inside moves but, again, that may just be a case of him taking advantage of the fact that Mbao is even more raw than he is.
It would seem that Eric Williams is behind the curve. There were 12 players available tonight, and he didn't play much more than Frozena did for the other team. Unless he's hurt or sick (which wasn't obvious), I'm not expecting him to contribute much for the near future.
If I had to guess, I would say that Acker, Bucyks, Hayward, Butler, and Maymon will be the starters for next week's exhibition opener, with Fulce, Johnson-Odom, and Cubillan as the main reserves and Otule (and maybe Mbao) getting a few minutes. It looks like the team will be getting less from the three point line than it has the last couple of years. After a couple of possessions where both teams seemed to be intentionally working the ball around before shooting, the game really opened up. Given their physical makeup, to be at all successful this team is going to have to get points in transition. But, they may have a little more potential to score in close or with 10 foot shots from the guys like Hayward, Butler, Maymon, and Fulce.
The nonconference games are going to be more interesting than usual as we see the rotations taking shape. I don't know that the team will be able to keep up with a team as good as Xavier in just 3 weeks.