I am thrilled to see Newman have a good game tonight. I truly believe that he is the key to this team being elite as opposed to very good. Most good teams we will play this year have a solid starting unit; I think what can make this year special is our bench playing at very close, if not the same level as our starting five. Brandon excelled last year when he started, but seemed to lose focus coming off of the bench. This team has ten players that could start, but I think it is more impressive to be able to have the confidence to contribute at a high level coming off of the bench. Shooting like he did tonight keeps things open for the bigs, but more importantly I was impressed with his defense. The stats may not show it, but he frequently was in the right place to stop the fast break, prevent the pass to what could have been an easy shot, and disrupt the general flow of the Wright State offense. This team will win a lot of games this year, but we need Brandon Newman to win the big ones.
