RE: Paul M and Pitino

["Noah P. Evans" <ishbak@conknet.com>]

>  Another thing to remember is that Pitino prefers to use 10 players. If
>  we start to see his 3 or 4 best players getting over 40 minutes on a
>  consistent basis, I would start to worry. The most severe problem that
>  Pitino has right now is to be able to go to the bench with enough
>  confidence in his top 10 players.

An astute(and true) observation.

> The rest McCarty, Pervis,
> Dontae,Travis and Minor) are just there to take bench space.

I disagree here. Pitino puts far more faith in McCarty than most of us
realize. McCarty is the uberbench player for Pitino's system. He's tall,
athletic, has marathon runner endurance and has a marshon frame(marshon
syndrome is a type of genetic disorder causing elongation of bones and
connective tissue, it's also known as Abe Lincoln's disorder). He's weakness
are lack of physical strength, a poor shooting and finishing, and lack of
confidence. From Pitino's comments in practice he assumes that Walter should
develop into a decent scorer(when he becomes more confident in his outside
shot) and post defender(when McCarty was in college is was ~230 now he's
around 216, Pitino expects him to put on weight).
	Travis, too, could contribute if he becomes more confident(although this
may be doubtful, the rift in Travis's relationship with Pitino may be
irrepairable). Travis was competant until he was injured. He was useless
after that though. His confidence was shot.

Noah