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[QUOTE="pfister1, post: 10522, member: 285"]
I am a little conflicted in my thoughts on how MCW and Cooney will be handled.    I don't believe JB is reluctant to play a deep bench so much as he is married to the idea that certain guys on a roster are his horses, can be trusted and should play the majority of the minutes.   I think this necessarily leads to a short bench.    After all if you have 3  starters who garner 32+ minutes each game, there are only so many minutes left to award to the guys sitting on the bench.  Last year those guys were RJ, KJ and Scoop.

Scoop, Brandon and KJ are players that I would expect might get that kind of run this season.    They are all upper classmen, returning starters and have been in the program multiple years.    If they get those kind of minutes there aren't that many minutes left to allot among Dion, MCW and Cooney.    That said, MCW is a McDonald's AA guard...when was the last time we had a McD's guard come in who didn't play?    Presumably Dion will play also as the kid is talented and it doesn't seem as though he is one that is content to sit and bide his time until others move on.    I simply don't see where Cooney's minutes will come from no matter how badly we may need outside shooting.   I also don't think our outside shooting from Triche, Scoop and KJ is so bad that it will require Cooney's insertion.   While they don't necessarily shoot as well as a Rautins or Devo they hit a serviceable percentage of their outside shots and will presumably improve at least marginally this season.

Clearly there will be lots of opportunity to win minutes in the front court.   We have no established starter at either PF or C.   While I think there are front runners, I don't think we have a situation where we have a returner who played well enough to be "guaranteed" the spot.    What is more, the guys playing those positions all have some questions marks; can Fab stay on the court, can Keita add some offense, can Rak make the adjustment from High school speed to Major D1 speed and does he have any offensive ability, can Fair bang with bigger bodies, can James show some consistency??

Should be interesting.
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