Lobo Men’s Basketball kicked off their season with an exhibition against CSU-Pueblo in a game the Lobos ended up winning 96-84. Exhibitions are always hard to really take anything out of for a few reasons such as different rotations, no scouting, and different styles of play. I won’t focus too much on the actual game, but instead focus on some observations that I picked up on during the game.

Rotation: To me, there is a clear top seven in the rotation in Cullen, Sam, Elijah, Tim Williams, Obij, Xavier and Devon. After these seven players, there are roles that need to be filled and those slots are up for grabs. With four freshmen on the team, it will be interesting to see if any of them can take hold of one of those roles and become a fixture in the rotation. It will also be interesting to see how deep of a rotation Coach Neal will go with this season. My guess is that he will end up going nine deep with the normal rotation and it wouldn’t surprise me if he goes with whoever has the hot hand for the last two rotation spots.

Back-up Point Guard: I think that this will be the most intriguing thing to watch as the season goes along. Will freshman point guard Jordan Hunter be able to step up and be an effective back-up this season and allow Cullen to play off the ball more? Coach Neal mentioned last night that he knows what he is going to get out of senior Tim Jacobs, so it will be interesting to see how many opportunities Hunter gets at the beginning of the season. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see Jacobs get more minutes at the beginning of the year and Hunter gaining more minutes by the end of the season as he becomes more comfortable in the system.

Shooters: The Lobos were lacking shooters last year and this year it looks like they have three very reliable shooters in Cullen, Elijah, and Anthony Mathis. It is very clear that Cullen and Elijah will open the floor for the starting unit, allowing Tim Williams, Obij and Sam to do work inside. If they can get consistent shooting out of some of the other guys, that will only open up opportunities for the bigs and slashers, which will make the offense really dangerous. I believe that we will see huge improvements in shooting from both Sam and Xavier compared to last year. If both of these players can hit at a 35% clip it will not only allow driving lanes to open for others, but it will give themselves great opportunities to get to the basket.

Cullen: It is great to have Cullen Neal back healthy and playing for the Lobos. He was our most important player last year and when he got hurt in the third game of the season, it made the Lobos play a completely different style of ball. Cullen was very effective shooting the ball last night, scoring 33 points on 17 shots and going 9-10 from the free throw line. Cullen also had 7 assists and yes, I know he did have 8 turnovers, but I don’t mind the turnovers too much if it is he trying to make plays for other players. The style of player that Cullen is, he will always be a relatively high turnover point guard, and will probably average over 3 a game. If Cullen is between 3 and 4 turnovers a game, this will be a plus for the Lobos because his rate in creating good plays would be at a high percentage. We can all agree that it will be fun to see Cullen get on a roll and it doesn’t seem completely ridiculous to think that we could see Cullen have a game where he hits eight or more threes.

Process: This season is going to be a process, as this is a young team with a lot of new faces, roles still to be decided, and the coaches need to find what style of play fits this team best. I trust Coach Neal and the staff to have this team running very well come Mountain West play, but some early bumps might be expected. This will be a year were we will see development in our players and will see some roles change throughout the year, so I think it is important for us as fans to enjoy the ride and view the season as a whole instead of in the moment.

Rule Changes: The rule change that I don’t get is the clock for timeouts. Coach Neal got a technical foul for not having his team ready for play when the timeout ended, which seemed a little severe. I have a feeling that it is going to take a while for teams to get used to this change. I wish that the penalty were like defensive three seconds in the NBA, with the penalty of one free throw but no other penalty, that way a coach won’t be sent to the locker room for something as silly as that. I love the new 30-second shot clock and am still surprised that it took this long for it to happen. I don’t think that it will be as much of a problem as some people are making it out to be. Yes, it makes you get in your offense earlier, but it shouldn’t change the style of play too much.