Podz playing defense for Brad
Well known issue coming in and a part of his game he still has quite a ways to improve on. But that's typically a given for freshmen. It's not like Jayden or Skyy didn't struggle on that end, and while Ty and Sencire were phenomenal for freshmen they also still have a decent amount to improve. Just the nature of things with how big of a jump it is from high school to college. And similarly, DGL will also be likely matadoring it up next year as the OTE ball he's playing is somehow even less defense oriented than the low A Podz played.
Overall, defensive ability usually takes time to nurture the awareness necessary to adapt to the college level. And if we were to judge our 1st year players on how they play defense alone, a lot of the players we've grown to love and buy jerseys of never would have made it past freshman year for us. Podz simply needed to do more both on and off the court with the time he had to make him a higher priority for the staff and make him a lock for the following season. Had he not struggled with his shot freshman year and was the lockdown shooter he's pretty much always been, I think that would have changed the equation a bit. That said, it is what it is. Let's just be happy for him and move on.