Chol (damn auto-correct) Marial is a lost cause.

His defensive rebounding was a glaring issue, but Duke's struggle to score had a lot to do with him protecting the rim. He struggled to block out Duke's bigs, but every team in the nation will struggle there. He would have been better off playing defensive rebounds like an offensive rebounder and just going to spots.

Andela really wasn't that much more effective in this game on defense. He's undersized and committed obvious fouls that weren't even productive fouls. Both of them just need to get better. Or, we need to play Bildeau and Ratraj more, and have 5 guys go hard to the rim on every shot ala Houston.

Here's what I saw. His presence alone fouled (no pun intended) up their offense under the board. Loads of blocks, and even more deterrent. I saw 1-2 turnovers by driving guards kicking the ball out because he was there in the 2nd half alone, also saw several shots changed or passed up because of him.

The 2 young guys he was covering (and being covered by) were not only the #1 and #2 center recruits on both Rivals and on 247Sports, they were ranked between the #2 and #5 rated basketball recruits overall on the 2 respective services.

He was surrounded by sophmores and freshmen, playing against a top 10 team. The entire team had their hands full.

He doesn't seem to be much of a scoring threat, but he has had some decent short jump hooks this season. Not sure about his shooting 3 pointers, but heck, future NBA Pro Drew Eubanks couldn't consistently hit a 13-15 footer until his 3rd year as a starter here. I suspect if the coaches don't want him to shoot open 3s they'll tell him.

His rebounding doesn't seem to be what I'd expect for his height, looked like to me that it is more a matter of timing and hands than position. Some of the offensive rebounding on Dukes part was because missed 3 pointers bounce further, some was the fact that their guys had better hands. I suspect that both scoring and rebounding can improve over the course of the season.

I thought he moved better tonight than a couple games back. He stayed under better control this game as far as fouls went, noticed Andela fouled out in the same amount of playing time.

People in the past have complained about Tinkle's development of "bigs", but to me it has seemed that every big we've had that stuck around over 1 year showed quite a bit of improvement (I believe they've all played in the NBA or overseas last I looked).

Giving up on Marial right now seems to be unwise. I suspect if either he or Andela go down the remainder of the season would risk looking like last year's in the win results category. With both of them available it's a stronger team.

I'm excited to see what the future brings.

Touching on Treasurevalleybeav's comments above, some of his lack of rebounding was because he was helping out where he was needed at the time. Also, our other bigger 4s (and 3s) are young and have their best years ahead of them. If he and Andela were surrounded by future Ryuny/Rataj/Bilodeau/etc they both would be more effective.

Chol is a project and we knew that going into to this season. I agree with the comments above. After he blocked the second Duke shot, it altered their shot selection in the paint. He needs to work on a lot of things, but he's a fierce shot blocker, he goes after every one. I kinda like his game.