For as great a coach as Billy Donovan is, and he is simply fantastic, his roster management has left something to be desired at times. I understand it will all work itself out and we'll be fine by tournment time, but it is disappointing to watch us get beat by a very average Canes team in the O'Dome. Watching them talk trash and celebrate on our court is annoying and really shouldn't happen.

With that said the effort was fantastic, the preparation was fantastic, and we really played about as well as we could under the circumstances. And we got hosed on a couple calls down the stretch and that should never happen on our home court with time winding down. I still don't get that but sometimes it happens, although never in our favor it seems when we're on the road.

As for the roster, Graham not fully recovering from hip injuries and thus transferring along with DWalker being lost for the year, CWalker suspended, DFS injured and Murphy not eligible to play until January left us only 6 schollie players available with 2 of them being true freshmen and another playing in only his second game for the Gators.  As you said, that situation will right itself and we'll be fine come tourney time. 

This team is going to lose some games and with UK stacked like a class A stripper we (and the rest of the conference) are playing for second place, but that's OK.  Basketball is about building during the season, learning to overcome adversity, developing an understanding of what it takes to win - especially in close games.  I think the defense is going to be better sooner than my preseason expectations were, we've got a good four guard rotation with Chiozza playing under much better control than you expect for a freshman at PG, and we'll have just enough in the front court to keep players reasonably fresh. 

Once March rolls around I fully expect this team to be slightly better than sweet 16 level and if the parts truly mesh, the players buy into defense first, and UK has one off night vs us or someone else of note, then the sky's the limit.