Meh We have done it a grand total of twice since 1996. So every other time we have had that kind of losses, we haven't been ranked a 3 or 4 seed. I don't make bets with those kind of horrible odds. I will leave that to others. By the way, the years we were seeded in the top 4 with that many losses was 2009 and 2013.
I also think we have a really good group. But, and I have beena fan probably as long as anyone on this board and longer than most, this is a rough OOC schedule. There wasn't anything as similar. A very good team will lose 3 games in Atlantis. Throw in Nova , G-town, Indiana. Those are real teams. And that is 6 tough OOC games. I think the ACC schedule is a bit softer than what we used to face but that is still 10 road games Vs 9
I’ve seen a few posts about this but can’t fathom why we’d want to play such a lineup? Seems like it would be bad for offense and defense. Maybe helps with rebounding.
Nice, not surprised though.
Before the name G-town is the word at, correct? In college hoop, that makes it tough on it's own.
Agreed. I honestly hope I lose.
Great post. I agree 100% with everything you said here. I think Jesse will improve our D dramatically this year. He really came on at the end of last year and from all accounts has had a good summer so that should pay dividends for us come winter.In this case, you are letting your narrative ignore the facts. Going back to Lydon at center, there was nobody else! There weren't centers to play center, so no centers played.
Going back:
In 14-15 We had senior Christmas in beast mode.
In 15-16 we went to Lydon playing out of position... The only other options were a broken Coleman or a terrible Obokoh.
In 16-17, we had Coleman and we replaced Obokoh with a first year Chukwu, plus Lydon at center had just gotten us a Final Four. Why would we switch?
In 17-18, Chukwu played 27 and Sidibe 12, not many minutes at center for anybody else.
In 18-19, Chukwu, Sidibe and Dolezaj split time at center, but Sidibe and Chukwu, while bad, still played 30mpg.
In 19-20, we had Sidibe play 24mpg, without a backup at all. Dolezaj picked up the slack.
In 20-21, we watched Dolezaj suffer through 35mpg at center, and it was horrible... But let's not pretend this is JB's new thing. We didn't have anybody else. We were hoping Sidibe would recover and play 35, but when he went down again, Edwards and Anselem (partially due to Covid preventing summer practice with the team) weren't up to JB's standards. If we had one of them play to fill in for Sidibe, we would have needed to bench one of Guerrier, Dolezaj or Griffen... Which guy would you have chosen? (During the Sweet Sixteen run, Edwards finally pushed Griffen to the bench, but a season of practices is a lot of experience.)
This upcoming year, we have an obvious rotation of:
Edwards/Anselem/small ball forward in emergency
Swider/Williams/JBJ
BBoeheim/Girard/Torrence
This is what we will see for the vast majority of the minutes.
Only if Sidibe has a clear and dramatic improvement in his health will this lineup change, and then one of Edwards or Anselem get pushed to the deep reserves.
Otherwise, Ajok, Owens and anybody else on the bench get sporadic minutes in blowouts or emergencies.
The only exception to this is if we pick up a late transfer or freshman recruit for deep depth. Whoever it is is unlikely to upset the rotation, as much as we would like a top 50 PG recruit to flip at the last minute.
Who are the 4 players who could shoot 40% from 3?
We still aren’t going to have much offense from the center.
Defense (results) will be better due to Jesse and having bigger forwards
I believe Covid hit him hard. Looking forward to the bounce back
Only if both guards up their games significantly. Also, I highly doubt QGs defense will be replaced so quickly. Three forwards learning to actually play this defense will take some time to gel.
It's hard to judge anymore a year in the future on rosters because of how easy it is to transfer now.
Clearly I'm not sold yet. I'd like to see who provides the relief valve for Joe when we play a team with decent defensive guards who push him full court. Who takes the role of Marek, acting as a point center when Joe couldn't get the ball over half? Do we think Joe was unable to dribble past most guards because of Covid, or because that's who he is? I hope he's much better at that, but until I see it for myself, I'll go with what I've seen so far.
