SWC75
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This is my annual review of excerpts from my pre-season preview, considering what came to pass.
Then:
Lindy’s asked “How did this program become a perennial NCAA Tournament bubble team?” That’s a good name for this era in SU basketball - the ‘Bubble Team Era’. We haven’t always been on the bubble in this era- we voluntarily excused ourselves from post season play in 2015 in an effort to get the NCAA to lessen sanctions on us, (did it work? – who knows what they were going to do to us?). In 2016 we were a 10 seed and didn’t need to play in a play-in game, (which is for 11 and 16 seeds). In 2017 we were an NIT team. In 2018 we were an 11 seed and won a play-in game. In 2019 we were an 8 seed and didn’t have to win a play-in game. Last year’s team looked as if it were headed for the NIT until that North Carolina game. We probably had to win the ACC Tournament to avoid that fate. But to me a ‘bubble team’ is a team that winds up the regular season in the teens in victories with double figures in losses. At the end of these regular seasons we were: 18-13, 19-12, 18-13, 19-12, 19-12, 17-14. Lather, rinse, repeat.
But those teams were not identical. The 2015 team out-scored its opposition 67.6-63.4 (+4.2). 2016: 70.0-65.1 (+4.9), 2017: 76.3-71.1 (+5.2), 2018: 66.6-63.8 (+2.8), 2019: 69.7-66.1, (+3.6), 2020: 74.3-69.3 (+5.0). It’s interesting that the two highest point differentials belong to the one NIT and the likely NIT team. Being more offensively explosive makes it more likely that you will put some space between you and your opposition. (Last year we won four ACC games by at least 23 points – only Duke had more such wins). But it is defense that keeps control of games, protecting leads or at least giving you a chance to scrape up enough points to win when the offense malfunctions. If you have a 5 minute drought, you might fall behind by 5-6 points instead of 12 or 15. Defense also keys comebacks- you have to stop the other team from scoring, not just trade baskets. Finally, defense can produce offense through turnovers, defensive rebounds and fast breaks. Offense doesn’t produce defense. The ‘defensive’ teams in this stretch made three NCAA tournaments, (and the 2015 might well have made it four), and won 7 games in those tournaments, going to the Final Four in in 2016 and the Sweet 16 in 2018, where they almost beat Duke. (If Dolezaj hadn’t gotten into foul trouble for the first time all year…). Those miracle comebacks against Gonzaga and Virginia in 2016 were keyed by our use of defensive pressure. So if we have a choice between being an ‘offensive’ team, (in the basketball sense) for a ‘defensive’ team, we should choose the ‘defensive team.
Now:
We wound up a ‘bubble’ team again, only making the tournament with a strong last week of the regular season and in the ACC Tournament. We wound up with 10 losses in a shortened season. We got a #11 seed and were underdogs in every NCAA tournament game. We got a couple of good wins over San Diego State and West Virginia but looked very much like an 11 seed in losing to Houston. But 18-10 was our best winning percentage since 2014 and that was achieved without a center so it wasn’t that bad a season. We were an “offensive” team most of the year but started playing very good defense at the end of it. We ran into a great defensive team in Houston and the lack of production from our forwards was too much to overcome.
Then:
What we will need to return to Top Ten teams with a chance to win it all is to become once again a team capable of dominating on both ends of the court rather than an “offensive” or a “defensive” team. Looking at this year’s roster I think we’ll have little trouble scoring against most teams. The quality of this team will depend on how much improved our defense can be. That is the primary thing to look for this year.
Now:
For most of the season we were an ‘offensive’ team with the up-and-down record of a team that depended on the shots going in tonight. And we had a stretch were we couldn’t seem to shoot it well. We were certainly a better defensive team when Kadary Richmond was in the game and an even better team when Jesse Edwards was in later in the season. But we seemed to improve overall on defense and played well even when those players weren’t in during the final stretch from the last week of the regular season onward. We beat North Carolina, Clemson and North Carolina State and then led Virginia until losing on a buzzer shot, then upset San Diego State and West Virginia in the Big Dance before becoming the bug on Houston’s windshield. We need a big athletic guard at the top of the zone and a long, shot-blocking center to be an elite defensive team. Kadary and Jesse would have been perfect for that.
There’s another factor here: the 2-3 zone is a good defense for college ball when it’s well played because, unlike the NBA, not everybody can shoot. If you can force a team to beat you with long jump shots and stop penetration into the paint, it’s a very effective defense. It’s not ideal for rebounding but allows for traps and aggressive guard play that can produce takeaways and can even out the possessions if you can hang with the other team on the boards. But shooting in college ball has improved, both in terms of range and percentage, and JB has had to adjust the zone to extend it farther out and that had put greater responsibility to cover territory on the center and the forwards. The center has to come out to guard the high post but also has to run to the corner to challenge jumpers. That seems to be the reason why we keep recruiting string bean centers who are mobile but lack physical strength and often offensive skills. The forwards are supposed to run in and guard the basket and the baseline while the centers are absent. I’m not sure Arinze Onuaku or Rick Jackson could play in Boeheim’s current zone. You wonder if the improved shooting and the increased volume of it will make the zone antiquated. And yet, the way we were playing it at the end was fairly impressive.
Then:
Another thing to look for is the complexity of decisions that need to be made about his players. The NCAA allows basketball teams to have 13 players on scholarship. Jim has traditionally not used all those scholarships on recruited players, preferring to limit that to 10-11 players and give the others to deserving walk-ons. (He himself had been a walk-on when he played here.) He normally boils his rotation down to 7-8 players by the end of the season and 10-11 guys gives him enough competition and emergency depth as well as the ability to scrimmage with recruited players vs. recruited players. Anybody beyond those 10-11 players isn’t going to play much and Jim doesn’t like dealing with disgruntled players. Better to give those spots to those who feel lucky to be on the team.
But last season we had 12 recruited players on scholarship. At one time it was 13 but Oshae Brissett jumped to the NBA. I asked Jim Boeheim on his radio show if this represented a change in philosophy: did he want the “next man up” to already be here, learning his program instead of trying to use walk-ons or pick up a late transfer or a late recruit, unfamiliar with his system? His response: “100% correct. You’ve got to protect the program.” The 12 guys came in handy as we redshirted one and two others both opted for surgery, shutting down their year early to preserve a year of eligibility. That got us down to 9 guys. After the season was over, anticipating the new transfer rule when there won’t be a penalty, three guys, (all our reserve guards), hit the transfer portal looking for somewhere they could start. Then our star player, Elijah Hughes, jumped to the NBA.
This year we have a full complement of 13 recruited players. That gives us something approaching football-like overall depth. Football had 22 starters plus three specialists, (placekicker, punter, long snapper) but allows 85 scholarships. That’s a ratio of 3.4 scholarships for every starter. 13 recruited players for 5 positions is 2.6. There may be a drop-off but football doesn’t run out of guys and neither will Jim Boeheim this year.
But the extra players can also create extra problems. Jim likes to boil it down to 7-8 guys for continuity reasons: players who play a lot with each other will work together better, knowing each other’s moves. Also, he’d rather have his best guys in there while the opposing coach shuffles players in and out to give them all playing time and to wear us down. He likes when the best of our players play against the less-than-their-best players. Because college ball is a 40 minute game, of which we play 30 something a year and they are full of TV time outs, Jim doesn’t believe fatigue is a big factor and he prefers quantity to quality. But now he’s got both and deciding how to take advantage of the talents of these players – and how to retain them when they can leave without penalty can provide some headaches.
Now:
Once we got past Covid problems, Jim reverted to his 8 man rotation. Jon Bol Ajak and Woody Newton, who hardly played, decided to transfer out. Newton seemed like a very talented player who could score and help us on defense and on the boards and seeing him lose playing time and then go was frustrating. But it was really frustrating to see Robert Braswell, who had contributed strongly on defense down the stretch and also made some big shots leave and it seemed catastrophic to see Kadary Richmond, who looked like an All-American in the making, leave. We’d better to get used to this kind of thing, (and it may not be over this year). Last year we had 5 guards one day and two the next. There’s an old story about a coach who had recruited a lot of talent being asked how he’s going to keep all those players happy. His response? “I’m not. They are going to keep me happy.” 77 year-old coaches, (which JB will be next year), don’t tend to change their philosophies or their personalities. A yearly exodus is to be expected. As long as we can bring in good players to fill their spots, we can deal with it, although if Kadary winds up with the career I think he might, that comfortable thought will be tested. Maybe after a couple years of mass transfers with few of them resulting in the improvement of the players situation, things will clam down. But if a guy like Kadary prospers, that’s what everybody will think will happen to them.
Then:
For example, let’s look at the question of how Alan Griffin, a transfer from Illinois, (no relation to Jim’s former point guard and current assistant Allen Griffin), might be used this year. He’s a high scoring swing-man who played back-up guard for the Illini, behind a guard who was a better defensive player. People see Griffin as a replacement for Hughes, who was a small forward. Besides Griffin, our 12 scholarship players divide neatly into four groups: 4 centers, 4 forwards and 4 guards. How Griffin is used will impact every one of those players.
If Griffin never came, our starting forwards would be Marek Dolezaj and Quincy Guerrier. Marek will be our best all-around player, a 6-10 guy who can score a little but is the team’s best passer and biggest hustler and who can also rebound and block shots. Casey Stengel was once asked the secret of his success and cryptically replied that “I never play a game without my man”. The questioner didn’t know who that was but realized that Stengel always had Yogi Berra in the game in some capacity, even when he wasn’t catching. Marek will be Jim’s “man” this year because the offense runs so much more smoothly when he’s in there and he can help the team in so many other ways. Guerrier is the team’s strongest player, (and one of our few players in recent years noted for that) and showed late last season that he can drive to the basket to score and rebound well enough to collect double-doubles. Behind them are Robert Braswell, an athletic 6-7 player who put up some amazing numbers in a limited role and is still waiting his chance to show what he can do. Rumor has it that he considered leaving last year but decided to stay. The acquisition of Griffin was probably not good news to him. Then there’s Woody Newton, a 6-8 freshman who proclaimed himself “the nation’s #1 lock down defender” in high school last year. I don’t know if he is or not but I’d like to find out, since we are looking to improve our defense. If Griffin plays small forward, Guerrier will be relegated to a 6th man type role when we hoped he would find his shot and develop into a star. Braswell will play little and may decide, finally, to leave. Newton might be redshirted. Boeheim may, as he has done in this first three years here, play Marek at center against teams that don’t have big, muscular centers. And that would impact the four centers. Bourama Sidibe seems primed for a big senior year and jessie Edwards, John Bol Ajak and Frank Anselem all what to show what they can do and prove that they would be the best replacement for Bourama next year. How do they do that if Dolezaj is playing center to get him on the court?
If Griffin plays guard for us, as he did for Illinois, the biggest impact will be on the coach’s son, Buddy Boeheim, our shooting guard, who averaged 15.3 points a game last year. Can Griffin do more for us than Buddy at that position? Would he share time and the coach would go with the hot hand? The returning point guard is Joe Girard who averaged 12.4. Joe scored 50 points a game in high school and, like the player he’s most compared to, Gerry McNamara, proved he could also be an acceptable point guard at this level. But here comes Kadary Richmond, 4 inches taller than Joe who has wowed people in practice with his point guard skills on both offense and defense. Neither Joe nor Buddy was considered a good defensive player and Kadary could really improve us in that spot. I had thought that we’d sometimes see Kadary and Joe in there together and sometimes with Buddy in a three-man rotation. But if Griffin plays there, he’ll split time with Buddy and Joe and Kadary will split time with each other. The other guard is legacy recruit Chaz Owens., who is not the player his father Billy was but has decent all-around skills and could help us at some point. But with Griffin in the backcourt, he won’t be needed.
What it all comes to is that Alan Griffin is the first domino in a row no matter where you put him. Each decision Jim Boeheim makes about him will impact everyone else. Such is college basketball, circa 2020.
Now:
Jim decided that Griffin would be a small forward. The ‘2’ and the ‘3’ position are similar offensively but in the zone, very different defensively. Defense is not Griffin’s strength, (despite a passion for spectacular blocks), and Jim felt that having him learn two defensive positions was not a good idea. I think I would have preferred to keep Alan at the ‘2’ and have him alternate with Buddy Boeheim, (just go with the hot hand), but Jim put him at the ‘3’, which killed Woody Newton’s season and limited Robert Braswell's until Griffin faded badly at the end of the year. It also mean that Marek became our full-time center to get him on the court with the “G” men- Griffin and Guerrier – playing the forward spots. Marek, who is really more of a ‘stretch 3’ than a stretch 4 in terms of his body type and skills, gave us some capabilities at the center position that most teams don’t have. But he didn’t give us a center. One wonders how things might have been handled if Bourama’s season had lasted longer than 4 minutes.
Then:
Lindy’s asked “How did this program become a perennial NCAA Tournament bubble team?” That’s a good name for this era in SU basketball - the ‘Bubble Team Era’. We haven’t always been on the bubble in this era- we voluntarily excused ourselves from post season play in 2015 in an effort to get the NCAA to lessen sanctions on us, (did it work? – who knows what they were going to do to us?). In 2016 we were a 10 seed and didn’t need to play in a play-in game, (which is for 11 and 16 seeds). In 2017 we were an NIT team. In 2018 we were an 11 seed and won a play-in game. In 2019 we were an 8 seed and didn’t have to win a play-in game. Last year’s team looked as if it were headed for the NIT until that North Carolina game. We probably had to win the ACC Tournament to avoid that fate. But to me a ‘bubble team’ is a team that winds up the regular season in the teens in victories with double figures in losses. At the end of these regular seasons we were: 18-13, 19-12, 18-13, 19-12, 19-12, 17-14. Lather, rinse, repeat.
But those teams were not identical. The 2015 team out-scored its opposition 67.6-63.4 (+4.2). 2016: 70.0-65.1 (+4.9), 2017: 76.3-71.1 (+5.2), 2018: 66.6-63.8 (+2.8), 2019: 69.7-66.1, (+3.6), 2020: 74.3-69.3 (+5.0). It’s interesting that the two highest point differentials belong to the one NIT and the likely NIT team. Being more offensively explosive makes it more likely that you will put some space between you and your opposition. (Last year we won four ACC games by at least 23 points – only Duke had more such wins). But it is defense that keeps control of games, protecting leads or at least giving you a chance to scrape up enough points to win when the offense malfunctions. If you have a 5 minute drought, you might fall behind by 5-6 points instead of 12 or 15. Defense also keys comebacks- you have to stop the other team from scoring, not just trade baskets. Finally, defense can produce offense through turnovers, defensive rebounds and fast breaks. Offense doesn’t produce defense. The ‘defensive’ teams in this stretch made three NCAA tournaments, (and the 2015 might well have made it four), and won 7 games in those tournaments, going to the Final Four in in 2016 and the Sweet 16 in 2018, where they almost beat Duke. (If Dolezaj hadn’t gotten into foul trouble for the first time all year…). Those miracle comebacks against Gonzaga and Virginia in 2016 were keyed by our use of defensive pressure. So if we have a choice between being an ‘offensive’ team, (in the basketball sense) for a ‘defensive’ team, we should choose the ‘defensive team.
Now:
We wound up a ‘bubble’ team again, only making the tournament with a strong last week of the regular season and in the ACC Tournament. We wound up with 10 losses in a shortened season. We got a #11 seed and were underdogs in every NCAA tournament game. We got a couple of good wins over San Diego State and West Virginia but looked very much like an 11 seed in losing to Houston. But 18-10 was our best winning percentage since 2014 and that was achieved without a center so it wasn’t that bad a season. We were an “offensive” team most of the year but started playing very good defense at the end of it. We ran into a great defensive team in Houston and the lack of production from our forwards was too much to overcome.
Then:
What we will need to return to Top Ten teams with a chance to win it all is to become once again a team capable of dominating on both ends of the court rather than an “offensive” or a “defensive” team. Looking at this year’s roster I think we’ll have little trouble scoring against most teams. The quality of this team will depend on how much improved our defense can be. That is the primary thing to look for this year.
Now:
For most of the season we were an ‘offensive’ team with the up-and-down record of a team that depended on the shots going in tonight. And we had a stretch were we couldn’t seem to shoot it well. We were certainly a better defensive team when Kadary Richmond was in the game and an even better team when Jesse Edwards was in later in the season. But we seemed to improve overall on defense and played well even when those players weren’t in during the final stretch from the last week of the regular season onward. We beat North Carolina, Clemson and North Carolina State and then led Virginia until losing on a buzzer shot, then upset San Diego State and West Virginia in the Big Dance before becoming the bug on Houston’s windshield. We need a big athletic guard at the top of the zone and a long, shot-blocking center to be an elite defensive team. Kadary and Jesse would have been perfect for that.
There’s another factor here: the 2-3 zone is a good defense for college ball when it’s well played because, unlike the NBA, not everybody can shoot. If you can force a team to beat you with long jump shots and stop penetration into the paint, it’s a very effective defense. It’s not ideal for rebounding but allows for traps and aggressive guard play that can produce takeaways and can even out the possessions if you can hang with the other team on the boards. But shooting in college ball has improved, both in terms of range and percentage, and JB has had to adjust the zone to extend it farther out and that had put greater responsibility to cover territory on the center and the forwards. The center has to come out to guard the high post but also has to run to the corner to challenge jumpers. That seems to be the reason why we keep recruiting string bean centers who are mobile but lack physical strength and often offensive skills. The forwards are supposed to run in and guard the basket and the baseline while the centers are absent. I’m not sure Arinze Onuaku or Rick Jackson could play in Boeheim’s current zone. You wonder if the improved shooting and the increased volume of it will make the zone antiquated. And yet, the way we were playing it at the end was fairly impressive.
Then:
Another thing to look for is the complexity of decisions that need to be made about his players. The NCAA allows basketball teams to have 13 players on scholarship. Jim has traditionally not used all those scholarships on recruited players, preferring to limit that to 10-11 players and give the others to deserving walk-ons. (He himself had been a walk-on when he played here.) He normally boils his rotation down to 7-8 players by the end of the season and 10-11 guys gives him enough competition and emergency depth as well as the ability to scrimmage with recruited players vs. recruited players. Anybody beyond those 10-11 players isn’t going to play much and Jim doesn’t like dealing with disgruntled players. Better to give those spots to those who feel lucky to be on the team.
But last season we had 12 recruited players on scholarship. At one time it was 13 but Oshae Brissett jumped to the NBA. I asked Jim Boeheim on his radio show if this represented a change in philosophy: did he want the “next man up” to already be here, learning his program instead of trying to use walk-ons or pick up a late transfer or a late recruit, unfamiliar with his system? His response: “100% correct. You’ve got to protect the program.” The 12 guys came in handy as we redshirted one and two others both opted for surgery, shutting down their year early to preserve a year of eligibility. That got us down to 9 guys. After the season was over, anticipating the new transfer rule when there won’t be a penalty, three guys, (all our reserve guards), hit the transfer portal looking for somewhere they could start. Then our star player, Elijah Hughes, jumped to the NBA.
This year we have a full complement of 13 recruited players. That gives us something approaching football-like overall depth. Football had 22 starters plus three specialists, (placekicker, punter, long snapper) but allows 85 scholarships. That’s a ratio of 3.4 scholarships for every starter. 13 recruited players for 5 positions is 2.6. There may be a drop-off but football doesn’t run out of guys and neither will Jim Boeheim this year.
But the extra players can also create extra problems. Jim likes to boil it down to 7-8 guys for continuity reasons: players who play a lot with each other will work together better, knowing each other’s moves. Also, he’d rather have his best guys in there while the opposing coach shuffles players in and out to give them all playing time and to wear us down. He likes when the best of our players play against the less-than-their-best players. Because college ball is a 40 minute game, of which we play 30 something a year and they are full of TV time outs, Jim doesn’t believe fatigue is a big factor and he prefers quantity to quality. But now he’s got both and deciding how to take advantage of the talents of these players – and how to retain them when they can leave without penalty can provide some headaches.
Now:
Once we got past Covid problems, Jim reverted to his 8 man rotation. Jon Bol Ajak and Woody Newton, who hardly played, decided to transfer out. Newton seemed like a very talented player who could score and help us on defense and on the boards and seeing him lose playing time and then go was frustrating. But it was really frustrating to see Robert Braswell, who had contributed strongly on defense down the stretch and also made some big shots leave and it seemed catastrophic to see Kadary Richmond, who looked like an All-American in the making, leave. We’d better to get used to this kind of thing, (and it may not be over this year). Last year we had 5 guards one day and two the next. There’s an old story about a coach who had recruited a lot of talent being asked how he’s going to keep all those players happy. His response? “I’m not. They are going to keep me happy.” 77 year-old coaches, (which JB will be next year), don’t tend to change their philosophies or their personalities. A yearly exodus is to be expected. As long as we can bring in good players to fill their spots, we can deal with it, although if Kadary winds up with the career I think he might, that comfortable thought will be tested. Maybe after a couple years of mass transfers with few of them resulting in the improvement of the players situation, things will clam down. But if a guy like Kadary prospers, that’s what everybody will think will happen to them.
Then:
For example, let’s look at the question of how Alan Griffin, a transfer from Illinois, (no relation to Jim’s former point guard and current assistant Allen Griffin), might be used this year. He’s a high scoring swing-man who played back-up guard for the Illini, behind a guard who was a better defensive player. People see Griffin as a replacement for Hughes, who was a small forward. Besides Griffin, our 12 scholarship players divide neatly into four groups: 4 centers, 4 forwards and 4 guards. How Griffin is used will impact every one of those players.
If Griffin never came, our starting forwards would be Marek Dolezaj and Quincy Guerrier. Marek will be our best all-around player, a 6-10 guy who can score a little but is the team’s best passer and biggest hustler and who can also rebound and block shots. Casey Stengel was once asked the secret of his success and cryptically replied that “I never play a game without my man”. The questioner didn’t know who that was but realized that Stengel always had Yogi Berra in the game in some capacity, even when he wasn’t catching. Marek will be Jim’s “man” this year because the offense runs so much more smoothly when he’s in there and he can help the team in so many other ways. Guerrier is the team’s strongest player, (and one of our few players in recent years noted for that) and showed late last season that he can drive to the basket to score and rebound well enough to collect double-doubles. Behind them are Robert Braswell, an athletic 6-7 player who put up some amazing numbers in a limited role and is still waiting his chance to show what he can do. Rumor has it that he considered leaving last year but decided to stay. The acquisition of Griffin was probably not good news to him. Then there’s Woody Newton, a 6-8 freshman who proclaimed himself “the nation’s #1 lock down defender” in high school last year. I don’t know if he is or not but I’d like to find out, since we are looking to improve our defense. If Griffin plays small forward, Guerrier will be relegated to a 6th man type role when we hoped he would find his shot and develop into a star. Braswell will play little and may decide, finally, to leave. Newton might be redshirted. Boeheim may, as he has done in this first three years here, play Marek at center against teams that don’t have big, muscular centers. And that would impact the four centers. Bourama Sidibe seems primed for a big senior year and jessie Edwards, John Bol Ajak and Frank Anselem all what to show what they can do and prove that they would be the best replacement for Bourama next year. How do they do that if Dolezaj is playing center to get him on the court?
If Griffin plays guard for us, as he did for Illinois, the biggest impact will be on the coach’s son, Buddy Boeheim, our shooting guard, who averaged 15.3 points a game last year. Can Griffin do more for us than Buddy at that position? Would he share time and the coach would go with the hot hand? The returning point guard is Joe Girard who averaged 12.4. Joe scored 50 points a game in high school and, like the player he’s most compared to, Gerry McNamara, proved he could also be an acceptable point guard at this level. But here comes Kadary Richmond, 4 inches taller than Joe who has wowed people in practice with his point guard skills on both offense and defense. Neither Joe nor Buddy was considered a good defensive player and Kadary could really improve us in that spot. I had thought that we’d sometimes see Kadary and Joe in there together and sometimes with Buddy in a three-man rotation. But if Griffin plays there, he’ll split time with Buddy and Joe and Kadary will split time with each other. The other guard is legacy recruit Chaz Owens., who is not the player his father Billy was but has decent all-around skills and could help us at some point. But with Griffin in the backcourt, he won’t be needed.
What it all comes to is that Alan Griffin is the first domino in a row no matter where you put him. Each decision Jim Boeheim makes about him will impact everyone else. Such is college basketball, circa 2020.
Now:
Jim decided that Griffin would be a small forward. The ‘2’ and the ‘3’ position are similar offensively but in the zone, very different defensively. Defense is not Griffin’s strength, (despite a passion for spectacular blocks), and Jim felt that having him learn two defensive positions was not a good idea. I think I would have preferred to keep Alan at the ‘2’ and have him alternate with Buddy Boeheim, (just go with the hot hand), but Jim put him at the ‘3’, which killed Woody Newton’s season and limited Robert Braswell's until Griffin faded badly at the end of the year. It also mean that Marek became our full-time center to get him on the court with the “G” men- Griffin and Guerrier – playing the forward spots. Marek, who is really more of a ‘stretch 3’ than a stretch 4 in terms of his body type and skills, gave us some capabilities at the center position that most teams don’t have. But he didn’t give us a center. One wonders how things might have been handled if Bourama’s season had lasted longer than 4 minutes.
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