How will Andre Cornelius' return impact this team?

Senior guard Andre Cornelius will play his first game of the season this Wednesday when the Patriots host Duquesne. He is returning from a 10-game suspension and will be the most experienced back court player on the active roster. A lot of people think he is going to step in right away and be the team's point guard, frankly I think he'd be better replacing Vertrail Vaughns in the starting line-up. Paul Hewitt has gone back and fourth with freshman Corey Edwards and sophomore Bryon Allen starting at the point and both have showed flashes of their talent but also a lot of miscues. Cornelius being in the line up gives the team added depth which will hopefully result in better bench production overall. Don't expect him to come in and lead the team in assists as he has has never been much of a facilitator (1.6 APG in 10'-11') and actually Mike Morrison dished out more assists than him last season.  What he does bring to this team is ball handling, defense, and three-point shooting.  Last year he only averaged about 1.5 turnovers a game. Currently there are four Patriots averaging more turnovers than that for this year.  He is a career 38.1% three-point shooter and is a lot better at creating his own shot than Vertrail Vaughns.  This year's team has basically had no three-point shooting presence outside of Vaughns and the occasional shot from Ryan Pearson.  Opposing teams will start filling the lane to prevent them from driving to the basket and they will need to start hitting outside shots to keep defenses honest.  

Cornelius could bring a new dimension on the up-tempo offense with his outside shooting and let's not forget he is also the quickest guy on the team.  He is very good in transition and will make less mistakes than Allen or Edwards on the fast breaks.  However I would not expect him to step right in and drastically help the team's turnover issues, that will take some time as he gets accustomed to his surrounding players.  I do expect him to help get the team out of scoring droughts, like what we saw in some of the team's previous couple of games. 

An area he probably help the most is on defense. He is the team's best on-the-ball defender and will get matched up against opposing team's best back court player.  The Patriots have been giving up a ton of open looks on the perimeter and Cornelius should help prevent other team's best shooters from running free. Corey Edwards and Bryon Allen have not been terrible on defense but Vertrail Vaughns gets beat often, which is why I think Cornelius will eventually replace him in the starting line up.