In Reply to: Mara doing well at Michigan posted by traprh on October 26, 2025 at 08:27:34
It is great that we now see teams playing exhibitions with real team, instead of the college version of the Washington Generals. These games are competitive and real tests for the teams and players.
Oregon dominated Utah without Jackson Shelstad, who will be out for several weeks. Nate Bittle looked terrific scoring 20, and backup center Ege Demir chipped in with 14. Chinese player Wei Lin also looked very good scoring 10.
Wisconsin lost a close game to Oklahoma, who looks like a strong Big 12 team in spite of being picked 11th pre-season. The Badgers kept it close in spite of having a bad shooting night. At times John Blackwell looked unstoppable and his new back-court mate Nick Boyd from SDSU looked very good.
However, the revelation was Portland transfer Austin Rapp. At 6-10, he is a deadly outside shooter and he can score around the basket. With Blackwell, Boyd, Rapp, and Nolan Winter, Wisconsin has a very talented roster.
Finally, Washington looks very improved. I thought they would be a bubble team this season, and I still think that after watching them easily beat UNLV without Desmond Claude and Zoom Dialo. UNLV was picked 6th in the Mountain West preseason poll, and they are now coached by Josh Pastner.
The surprise for the Huskies was unheralded German Hannes Steinbach, who will be Washington's best player from Germany since Detleff Shremp. He scored 22 in his Husky debut on 10 of 15 shooting.
Freshman guard JJ Mandaquit had 12 assists with 5 turnovers, along with 9 points. Indiana transfer Bryson Tucker scored 14 on 6 of 9 shooting.