Growing pains or...?

"Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?"

Thank you Buffalo Springfield.

So is the sound being emitted by San Jose State University basketball (hopefully) growing pains?

Or what has been a far too long soundtrack loop?

Well, everyone has an opinion but nobody really knows. It's also too early in the season for any absolutes.

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As upperclassmen, guard Jordan Baker and forward Frank Rogers must become consistent backcourt and frontcourt leaders and producers. Both have DI experience and each practiced with the team last season so an early element of rustiness is expected but should be tempered by familiarity. Anything less is subpar.

Baker was the significant veteran pickup. The knock hanging on him has been inefficiency, meaning simultaneously involved in too many turnovers alongside forcing matters to be in that #1 role as top scorer. From a recent Spartan Daily article:

According to Baker and Spartan men's basketball head coach Dave Wojcik, the year spent practicing and learning helped fine tune the junior guard's game.

"Although he didn't play in actual games last year because he transferred, during practices I thought his shot selection was poor and he would just take bad shots sometimes," Wojcik said. "I talked to him a lot about knowing what the time, score and situation was. Maybe we don't need a quick shot and instead we need to move the ball more, which has helped him be more efficient."

As a third year collegian, a team's top scorer should already have such an awareness.

Plus, Rogers as a go-to-guy up front is a simple miscast. He's more of a second on the roster power forward type -- not a lead and more than likely not a starter. Consistency has also been his bugaboo.

Coach Wojcik annointed Jalen James as his "coach on the floor" last year and the young man may turn out to be solid as an upperclassmen but, at best, the jury currently remains out. Can he win his position against opposing points in a game? Not in the MWC and, so far, not very often elsewhere. But there is no veteran point to bring in when James isn't playing well. To call this season a make-or-break one for James is a reach. Thus far, he is still missing a proven big man to play with but he still needs to show both efficiency and stability towards the end of this season. If such isn't present then starting another year with the point position as a question mark belies the transition to a successful program.

Rashad Muhammad was Wojick's second significant recruit. He's a shooter, although inconsistent, and currently isn't demonstrating much else in his repertoire. Does he win his position on a game-by-game basis? No. Once in a while he busts out but that's it. Is it in his future to better his particular opponent nightly? The jury remains out as he needs to make a big jump.

The Spartan bigs are currently  limited role players. It seems freshman Leon Bahner has the best potential of the lot but his development to a consistent producer is more than a year away. Matt Pollard looks to be a longterm project and Ryan Singer will have to change his body before he can compete. In an ideal world, both should be redshirting this season.

The remainder of the roster are role players, not lead types. That is fine but alongside several standouts who are nightly winning their positional matchps.

An interesting case is the redshirt forward Princeton Onwas, a transfer from Utah. He left because he wasn't going to play much this season as the Utes brought in better and more promising talents. He's known as a very athletic defensive type which is handy but he averaged 4.8 points and 2.6 rebounds last season, shooting 20% from three and and 42% from the foul line. Yes, he did start 11 games but that was out of necessity. He may end up being the top defensive guy on the squad but his addition wasn't critical.

But the crux of the matter is that coaches don't know what they are going to get each game from every single player on the roster and that is not the makeup of a winning team.

Now maybe James and Muhammad will mature into players who can competitively play in the MWC. Maybe Baker will get 'it' sooner rather than later. But (and this isn't fair to Coach Wojcik) if past is prologue, well...

The additions of Cody Schwartz and Brandon Clarke will help next season but the former will need time to develop a Mountain West Conference body and the latter will face expanding his offensive repertoire. SJSU remains a landing spot for guys who need to re-make their physicality (the frontcourters) and raise their basketball skill levels (the wings and backcourters). That won't cut it in the MWC.

Remember that recruiting is no longer is shackled ... except by the APR ... meaning the requirement is to not bring athletes who have no interest in being students. The Spartan roster could consist of 13 out-of-state talents if need be and it's close to that right now. This wasn't an option just a few years ago.

The month of February is going to be a critical bellwether for SJSU hoops as progress will need to be demonstrated for there to be hope.

Now go out and kick some Bronco butt today.