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Message: [QUOTE="billsin01, post: 2648590, member: 837"] I get it and appreciate the line of thinking. I'm not really sure I agree, however, which is fine b/c we're both attempting to predict the future so who knows what can happen. Here are my thoughts, bullet-pointed: -- We would all love to have at least three shooters on the court if we can b/c not only does that open things up for the offense but it's the way most teams are going. However, having said that, we go defense first. We had a final four team where our two guards hoisted close to 300 threes and shot 29% (12-13 with Triche and MCW). Conversely we had a team with four guys shooting roughly 37% or better (Battle was technically 36.6%) miss the tourney all together. Not knocking the need for shooters, but simply pointing out that the success of these teams starts with defense, or at least it has since the start of the 2012-13 season. The high-water mark for points on those six teams was the 16-17 group at 76 and they missed the tourney. Otherwise we've been in the 65-70 range. -- Hughes and Thorpe are two pretty different animals in my book. That doesn't guarantee success for Hughes, nor that he's a great shooter by any stretch. But he's a kid they had a relationship with in the original recruiting process and then have had on campus for over a year at this point practicing with the team. Thorpe was a scramble-mode addition once we lost out on our primary PG options and, judging from the way it worked out, may have had a couple red flags to begin with. Just my opinion. -- The guys who are returning have a huge advantage in today's game simply because so many teams are so young (probably also why we've seen the zone be even more effective in the postseason). Hughes/Howard/Chuckwu/Battle all are at least third-year guys who have logged a ton of minutes, Brissett played over 1400 minutes last year and Dolezaj logged more than a 1000 and he's a bit older than your typical sophomore (he's already 20). That's a lot for a young player to overcome. -- The guys coming in don't really fit the basic profiles of players who generally play early. Usually those guys fall into one of three categories: 1) Highly recruited big guy who the staff wants to get on the floor even if they're not ready (see: Christmas, Rak; Melo, Fab); 2) Highly recruited player; 3) The guys who have to play out of necessity. Beyond that you don't see a lot of frosh playing. So at the end of the day, I would think it would be tough for Braswell and/or Buddy to work their way in (not to say they'll redshirt, per se). So I think they'll get some minutes here and there and if we're really improved maybe they even play a pretty fair amount the first 12 games or so. But a path to a spot in a rotation in key games would mean, IMO, either some sort of injury or Bras/Buddy proving to have been significantly underrated and ready for prime time. I don't think we'll see them because they may be (or are) better shooters than the guys in front of them in the rotation. Just my opinion. [/QUOTE]

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