With the Roster Shaping up

[tptcuse]

wouldn't this be a good year to go on a foreign trip?

Yes it would. Does that mean you've heard rumblings?

 

[RedtheGOB]

wouldn't this be a good year to go on a foreign trip?

Fort Drum! Better than the Bahamas

 

[Niastri]

I get your point, but Donnie Freeman had Jacquan Carlos as his starting PG this year for a long time. And was next to an injured Eddie at the beginning of the year (again, Eddie couldn't walk without a limp).

On the whole, though, I do agree with you. It's tough to rely on frosh.

But we aren't finished rounding out the roster and I think it's a better bet to bank on them coming off the bench vs starting and carrying a big responsibility.

Honestly, my biggest worry is JJ and his 16 FGA/game. I like where we are at the moment against the goal of making the NCAAT.

I agree in principle about Starling needing to shoot less often… But with several points of added context. Syracuse as a team took 59.5 shots last season, ranked around the 100th most shots per game as a team… I was surprised when I looked that up, I felt like our place was way slower watching games. The top three were about 65 shots per game, so even the fastest pace teams aren’t shooting that much more per game. Syracuse was 147th in forcing teams to foul us, not a bad ranking. Where Syracuse wasn’t very good is in turnovers, 259th in the NCAA. All these factors come into team pace, and Starling winds up shooting 27% of all team shots when he wasn’t injured. If we turned it over three fewer times, that’s three extra shots, and Starling shooting 16 seems less like a gunner.

But looking at our roster, there was nobody else you wanted shooting… Davis and Carlos were 5th and 6th on our roster, with 12.4 combined shots per game. Honestly, did you want Starling to shoot, or pass to one of the bricklayers around him?

Looking ahead, on next years roster, I expect an increase in pace with George loving to run. He’s a lead guard who immediately turns to initiate offense in transition after rebounding the ball, either himself, or getting an outlet pass. He also does a really good job of limiting turnovers, only 3 in 36 minutes while having the ball in his hands the whole time.

Considering those things like faster team pace and limiting turnovers, I’m hopeful we’ll be closer to 65 shots per game instead of 59. That would still be Starling taking 24% of our shots if he was at 16. 14 makes more sense for Starling in a balanced team concept taking 65 shots per game. Plus, he’ll be playing next to extremely efficient Kingz, who we want shooting more, as well as strong finishers in Freeman and Kyle.

Maybe Starling shoots better with more selectivity, increases his efficiency, and still can score his 16-18 points on 12-14 shots, instead of 16. Ideally, Kingz increased his average shots from 8 to 12, keeps his efficient scoring, and winds up neck and neck with Starling for the scoring lead in the team.

Starling won’t need to carry the load the way he did last season. Hopefully his season looks more like the Starling that finished his sophomore season playing next to high usage combo guard Mintz. Starling had .573 TS% on .360 Three point shooting in conference play on still heavy usage. That roster, with Mintz and an effective Chris Bell taking a lot of the attention, put Starling in a much better position to succeed than this past season. While George and Mintz are radically different players, Kingz is like a better version of Bell… I think the roster, even without additions, will put Starling in positions to succeed much better than this past season. He was just asked to offensively carry a bunch of mid major players, and everybody else good was injured.

*Sorry to write a thesis in response to your short post.

 

[CardiacCuse]

PLAYER	POS.	HT.	WT.	CLASS	STATUS
JJ Starling	G	6-4	206	Sr.
Donnie Freeman	PF	6-9	205	So.
Kiyan Anthony	G	6-5	185	Fr.
Luke Fennell	G	6-6	190	Fr.
Sadiq White	PF	6-9	200	Fr.
Aaron Womack	SF	6-6	170	Fr.
William Kyle III	C	6-9	230	Sr.	UCLA
Nate Kingz	G/SF	6-5	190	R-Sr.	Oregon St
Naithan George	PG	6-3	185	Jr.	Ga Tech

Right now, it looks like a starting lineup of:

Kyle, Freeman, Kingz, Starling, George.

Bench of Anthony, Fennell, White and Womack.

Other than the lack of a second center, I like this team a lot. If we get a center better than Kyle, I’d think we were nearly a lock for the NCAA Tournament. If we get a lower level warm body, we still have some good players.

I’ve posted a bit in each transfers recruiting thread, but just giving overview thoughts of the lineup as it stands.

Kyle: Extremely athletic and long limbed, I really like him in combination with George. George throws the lob pass with skill that makes it look too easy. Kyle dunks in the same stratosphere as Jeremi Grant and Hakeem Warrick. Kyle runs the floor well, expect him to get some really nice dunks in transition, every game. Kyle is a very plus defender, his agility and long arms allow him to be very switchable in defense without fouling much. I posted a crazy enthusiastic post from an NBA draft board in his thread, seems legit. Not quite the defensive rebounder we would like at center, but boxes out well, and really fights on the offensive glass. Dunks everything from every angle. His UCLA highlights indicate he’ll be catch ball-dunk ball on offense, but his previous year he was his teams go to guy, and demonstrated a decent post game.

Freeman: We all saw him play this year, but he was probably injured and really raw. Lots of improvement quickly as he acclimated to college. Superb defensive rebounder, would have been 3rd in the county in defensive rebounding % if he had qualified. Just the perfect guy to have if you’re going to go with three guards and don’t want to give up on rebounding. Freeman shot .333 from three last year, and .566 on twos, so with Kyle, we’ll have two very good bigs that can finish well around the basket. I think Freeman can shoot significantly better from three than he has shown so far, for what it’s worth.

Kingz: Tremendous offensive player, he does everything on offense, and does it efficiently. Elite shooter, .446 from three on 4.2 attempts per game, .571 on twos. This kid can score, averaging 11.8 on only 7.8 shots. He is probably too selective, we want him shooting more. He also passes well, 1.8 assists to .8 turnovers ratio. Kingz doesn’t rebound much, but at least he’s better than Bell. Still, he’s an average or slightly better defender.

Starling: We all have strong feelings about Starling, even if they’re mixed feelings. He’s really good at some things, really bad at others, but overall he’s a very good offensive player, and scored a lot of points last year for us. If he’s not forced to handle the ball every possession, I think he gets a lot more efficient. We had nobody this past year that was an ACC level point guard. We definitely have one in George next season. One thing I would point out is that Starling, as a sophomore, shot .360 from three in conference play, which was the last time he was able to regularly catch and shoot. Having even another decent combo guard next to him made him much more efficient.

George: George led the ACC in assists per game last season. He has four Points/Assists double doubles and a Points/Rebounds double double. Outside shot he’s going to get our first Syracuse triple double next season. Most of the time he’s on the court, he’ll be the third best defensive reminder, from the point guard position. George is the master of the lob pass. In his highlights, there were a few where it looked lucky it got through, and in the replay you see just how good of a pass it is. He throws it away sometimes, but overall, his turnovers are proactive in trying to create offense, not because he dribbled the ball off his knee or just can’t compete at this level. He’s a legit ball handler. Georgia Tech was a bad offensive team last year. Without George pushing the pace and seeing his teammates up, they would have been terrible. George definitely lost efficiency on his shooting because he was forced to shoot more than he wanted. Nobody else could do anything unless he set them up for a dunk. George assisted on 24.6% off all Georgia Tech’s baskets last year, and scored another 16.7%. His efficiency suffered as a result. George is decent at finishing, he could get better. He’ll appreciate having players who can shoot, drive, and catch the ball and finish next year.

If this turns out to be our starting lineup, I think we’ll be pretty good. Some great athletes, great length at center and power forward. Enough rebounding to effectively use the three guard lineup. We’ll have average to good defense, anchored by Kyle in the middle. The transfers are all even or plus defenders, and I think Freeman gets better with experience. But we’ll be really good on offense, with guys who can hit a three at four positions, and a point guard who can get them the ball when they are open. We’ll have three players who are plus at dribble penetration, and three guards who can pass well enough to get it to the big men who are very good finishing around the basket.

I’m really enthusiastic about the roster at this point. If we get a starter who can push Kyle to being first big off the bench, we look great.

Bigs: Freeman, Kyle, White, Transfer C, Transfer /C

Smalls: Starling, Kingz, George, Anthony, Fennell, Womack, Transfer G/.

Looks like a comfortable Tournament team, especially if the Transfer C is at the top of the depth chart.

Our offense and defense are going to be much better this year than last.

as is the team is pretty good and if this was the final roster, i think theyd have a pretty good season

but obviously need to keep adding players

the defense for me is still a big question mark...most of these guys dont have great defensive metrics individually...


still need 2 more bigs, imo...and some defense...and maybe a sharp shooter or two

im hoing we get a few international surprises...with 15 roster spots, theres littel reason to not take a few shots, imo

 

[Niastri]

as is the team is pretty good and if this was the final roster, i think theyd have a pretty good season

but obviously need to keep adding players

the defense for me is still a big question mark...most of these guys dont have great defensive metrics individually...


still need 2 more bigs, imo...and some defense...and maybe a sharp shooter or two

im hoing we get a few international surprises...with 15 roster spots, theres littel reason to not take a few shots, imo

I think the defense will be improved substantially with the additions and subtractions. Using DBPM since they breakdown offense and defense at Sports Reference:

Lampkin .6 -> Kyle 3.8
Freeman .7 -> Second Year Freeman??
Bell -.3 -> Kingz .4
Starling -.4 -> Senior Year Starling??
Carlos 1.0 -> George 1.2

For what it’s worth, Starling hasn’t been good on defense, but he’s gotten better each year, even though only slightly.

At the start of the season, Freeman looked like he’d never been asked to play help defense in his life before getting to Syracuse. He was rotating to help fairly well before his foot injury, and although he still wasn’t blocking shots, he was challenging on time a lot of the time.

But even if Starling and Freeman don’t get better, our defense gets substantially better with our transfers instead of our departing players. We’ve improved 4.1 DBPM in our starting lineup so far.

We’re not going to be Houston, with eight players of 4+ DBPM and two over 7! But we also won’t be the sieve we were this past season.

 

[kcsu]

The Aussie is going to help. He can play the 1 2 and 3
White will help as well.
I'm on the fence about Melos kid. I see him primarily at the 2. Maybe a little 3.
We need another 5 and 3.

 

[RedtheGOB]

I think the defense will be improved substantially with the additions and subtractions. Using DBPM since they breakdown offense and defense at Sports Reference:

Lampkin .6 -> Kyle 3.8
Freeman .7 -> Second Year Freeman??
Bell -.3 -> Kingz .4
Starling -.4 -> Senior Year Starling??
Carlos 1.0 -> George 1.2

For what it’s worth, Starling hasn’t been good on defense, but he’s gotten better each year, even though only slightly.

At the start of the season, Freeman looked like he’d never been asked to play help defense in his life before getting to Syracuse. He was rotating to help fairly well before his foot injury, and although he still wasn’t blocking shots, he was challenging on time a lot of the time.

But even if Starling and Freeman don’t get better, our defense gets substantially better with our transfers instead of our departing players. We’ve improved 4.1 DBPM in our starting lineup so far.

We’re not going to be Houston, with eight players of 4+ DBPM and two over 7! But we also won’t be the sieve we were this past season.

Just a nitpick but it's worth noting that midyear Bell and Carlos were so bad that they were benched. It's really hard to quantify that with metrics in my opinion when half a season they were starters and the other half they were off the bench. Same with Donnie playing a dozen games as a freshman, prob his last 2-3 with a lingering stress fracture, who knows where he'd be.

 

[RedtheGOB]

The Aussie is going to help. He can play the 1 2 and 3
White will help as well.
I'm on the fence about Melos kid. I see him primarily at the 2. Maybe a little 3.
We need another 5 and 3.

If I just saw correctly he had offers from Florida and Louisville too,

 

[jdubs30]

I think the defense will be improved substantially with the additions and subtractions. Using DBPM since they breakdown offense and defense at Sports Reference:

Lampkin .6 -> Kyle 3.8
Freeman .7 -> Second Year Freeman??
Bell -.3 -> Kingz .4
Starling -.4 -> Senior Year Starling??
Carlos 1.0 -> George 1.2

For what it’s worth, Starling hasn’t been good on defense, but he’s gotten better each year, even though only slightly.

At the start of the season, Freeman looked like he’d never been asked to play help defense in his life before getting to Syracuse. He was rotating to help fairly well before his foot injury, and although he still wasn’t blocking shots, he was challenging on time a lot of the time.

But even if Starling and Freeman don’t get better, our defense gets substantially better with our transfers instead of our departing players. We’ve improved 4.1 DBPM in our starting lineup so far.

We’re not going to be Houston, with eight players of 4+ DBPM and two over 7! But we also won’t be the sieve we were this past season.

Having rim protection with athletic 5 like Kyle makes our defense so much better right away. Eddie was just brutal to watch defensively most of the year, and it was even worse because he was hurt. Nait George is listed as 3 inches taller than Carlos - even if they graded similarly in the metrics I think George being 3 inches taller helps a lot. Teams took advantage of Carlos’ size. Bell was always very Frustrating on D with the exception of the occasional come from behind block on a fast break. I’ve never seen Kingz on D but I can’t imagine him being worse than Bell…

You’re right we aren’t Houston but if there aren’t noticeable improvements on defense this year it’s on Red - the bench could struggle on D …

 

[baggerbob]

I agree in principle about Starling needing to shoot less often… But with several points of added context. Syracuse as a team took 59.5 shots last season, ranked around the 100th most shots per game as a team… I was surprised when I looked that up, I felt like our place was way slower watching games. The top three were about 65 shots per game, so even the fastest pace teams aren’t shooting that much more per game. Syracuse was 147th in forcing teams to foul us, not a bad ranking. Where Syracuse wasn’t very good is in turnovers, 259th in the NCAA. All these factors come into team pace, and Starling winds up shooting 27% of all team shots when he wasn’t injured. If we turned it over three fewer times, that’s three extra shots, and Starling shooting 16 seems less like a gunner.

But looking at our roster, there was nobody else you wanted shooting… Davis and Carlos were 5th and 6th on our roster, with 12.4 combined shots per game. Honestly, did you want Starling to shoot, or pass to one of the bricklayers around him?

Looking ahead, on next years roster, I expect an increase in pace with George loving to run. He’s a lead guard who immediately turns to initiate offense in transition after rebounding the ball, either himself, or getting an outlet pass. He also fits a really good job of limiting turnovers, only 3 in 36 minutes while having the ball in his hands the whole time.

Considering those things like faster team pace and limiting turnovers, I’m hopeful we’ll be closer to 65 shots per game instead of 59. That would still be Starling taking 24% of our shots if he was at 16. 14 makes more sense for Starling in a balanced team concept taking 65 shots per game. Plus, he’ll be playing next to extremely efficient Kingz, who we want shooting more, as well as strong finishers in Freeman and Kyle.

Maybe Starling shoots better with more selectivity, increases his efficiency, and still can score his 16-18 points on 12-14 shots, instead of 16. Ideally, Kingz increased his average shots from 8 to 12, keeps his efficient scoring, and winds up neck and neck with Starling for the scoring lead in the team.

Starling won’t need to carry the load the way he did last season. Hopefully his season looks more like the Starling that finished his sophomore season playing next to high usage combo guard Mintz. Starling had .573 TS% on .360 Three point shooting in conference play on still heavy usage. That roster, with Mintz and an effective Chris Bell taking a lot of the attention, put Starling in a much better position to succeed than this past season. While George and Mintz are radically different players, Kingz is like a better version of Bell… I think the roster, even without additions, will put Starling in positions to succeed much better than this past season. He was just asked to offensively carry a bunch of mid major players, and everybody else good was injured.

*Sorry to write a thesis in response to your short post.

Excellent summary, and if Red can actually teach pressure defense to create more turnovers, and easy buckets, we good be very good.

 

[AngryOtto]

Freeman needs to get up to at least 220 to 230. I know it probably won’t happen. Needs to join the football summer lifting program. Him and white.

 

[Niastri]

Having rim protection with athletic 5 like Kyle makes our defense so much better right away. Eddie was just brutal to watch defensively most of the year, and it was even worse because he was hurt. Nait George is listed as 3 inches taller than Carlos - even if they graded similarly in the metrics I think George being 3 inches taller helps a lot. Teams took advantage of Carlos’ size. Bell was always very Frustrating on D with the exception of the occasional come from behind block on a fast break. I’ve never seen Kingz on D but I can’t imagine him being worse than Bell…

You’re right we aren’t Houston but if there aren’t noticeable improvements on defense this year it’s on Red - the bench could struggle on D …

I haven’t much to say about the defense of three of our recruits.

Anthony only had offensive highlights, so might take after his old man when it comes to defense… Fennell and Womack don’t have much video of them playing defense either.

White on the other hand, is a long, agile, ‘defend effectively at least four positions’ type player. His length makes him a good shotblocker as well. He might get a lot of steals too. He’s the freshman I’m most excited about, enough where I keep shaking my head at people insisting we “need” another small forward. I think Freeman, White and Kingz, with tiny bits of help from Anthony and Fennell will be pretty good at the 3.

I’m actually not sold on Starling and Fennell being the only backup point guards, a Carlos clone would be good on this roster.

We need more players, sure, but in the intended Davis, Lucas Taylor role, experienced, inexpensive depth in case of injuries. Those guys would be great 11 and 12 guys on this exact roster.

We do need a center or two. Freeman will be exposed as too small if he has to play center too much, and even Kyle is a little light to play too many minutes. A starter with really good size would be so much better. Kyle off the bench for 15-20 at center and 5 or so next to the center at PF would be preferable.

Freeman can play beside two big men as well, if the situation calls for a big lineup. I think Transfer Center, Kyle, Freeman, Kingz and George could be a really strong lineup depending on a few things.

 

[Bulldog04]

This new lineup regardless of what happens with another center, will be a complete 180 from last year. Red thought he wanted low post, better rebounding, little slow pace than year before. That plan is gone. For good. He will never go back to that. He’s fine if they lose a few rebounds now to have better athletes and scorers. He won 20 games with a run and gun team. He will get back to that

 

[baggerbob]

This new lineup regardless of what happens with another center, will be a complete 180 from last year. Red thought he wanted low post, better rebounding, little slow pace than year before. That plan is gone. For good. He will never go back to that. He’s fine if they lose a few rebounds now to have better athletes and scorers. He won 20 games with a run and gun team. He will get back to that

That's where you need athletic centers at the back of a press, speed up the game.
Make it a frenetic game where teams have to work to get the ball up the floor.
Take time off the clock and force teams into bad shots at the end of the clock.
Defensive rebound and run.

 

[OrlandoCuse]

This new lineup regardless of what happens with another center, will be a complete 180 from last year. Red thought he wanted low post, better rebounding, little slow pace than year before. That plan is gone. For good. He will never go back to that. He’s fine if they lose a few rebounds now to have better athletes and scorers. He won 20 games with a run and gun team. He will get back to that

This is the first time I’ve read a post stating Red has a desired identity for the program, at least on the offensive end. I hope he establishes a defensive identity as well (like copying Houston).

 

[CardiacCuse]

I think the defense will be improved substantially with the additions and subtractions. Using DBPM since they breakdown offense and defense at Sports Reference:

Lampkin .6 -> Kyle 3.8
Freeman .7 -> Second Year Freeman??
Bell -.3 -> Kingz .4
Starling -.4 -> Senior Year Starling??
Carlos 1.0 -> George 1.2

For what it’s worth, Starling hasn’t been good on defense, but he’s gotten better each year, even though only slightly.

At the start of the season, Freeman looked like he’d never been asked to play help defense in his life before getting to Syracuse. He was rotating to help fairly well before his foot injury, and although he still wasn’t blocking shots, he was challenging on time a lot of the time.

But even if Starling and Freeman don’t get better, our defense gets substantially better with our transfers instead of our departing players. We’ve improved 4.1 DBPM in our starting lineup so far.

We’re not going to be Houston, with eight players of 4+ DBPM and two over 7! But we also won’t be the sieve we were this past season.

its a big leap hoping starling will automatically become a good defender when he never has been. he constantly just loses track of what is happening (and he also struggles to just stay in front of his man when he is driving) and allows his man to score easy buckets...i am hopeful that will change but dont assume it will. a rim protector will help mask that deficiency but it wont magically fix it. I dont know why that happens to starling so often. it looks like effort...but maybe it is simply lack of ability to lock in and focus. if its that, unless he gets some kind of mental focus training, he likely wont improve on defense. i dont think it is a physical issue...its mental with him.

freeman should be improved but he has to get stronger. i think if he is stronger, he will be better on defense because I think most of his problems were just getting outmuscled by older stronger players...but he "gets" it (unlike starling)...so I actually do assume he will be better

not really remembering george very well...but if he has roughly the same dbpm as carlos...yikes! at least he is 6' 3 so he isnt the shrimp that carlos was trying to pretend to play defense out there...and he may be able to at least do something to defend breakaways (unlike carlos)...transition defense was horrifc this year and that starts with the point guard. that will be key.

kingz should be a big upgrade over bell...i read kingz hgh school coach saying kingz was a great defender so that makes me hopeful with him

yeah kyle seems good ...but is he the starter? is he even capable of starting and playing big minutes? ucla opted to play him as their 3rd stringer, no? and they wanted that to continue this year, as well. his highlights look good. rim protection with him should be a lot better...but hes a 30% foul shooter...i dont know how you can play a guy like that heavy minutes

so yeah, overall, upgrades on defense...but the defense was so bad merely upgrading shouldnt be the question - will the defense be good? thats the real question - and its a lot more iffy.

with all this length, i could see red going for zone - but none of these guys have played zone...so it could easily be another year of peaking in March...and looking clueless until then...defense is about scheme and coordination...its about knowing where to be and where your teammates are and coordination of movements...red hasnt shown he can make that happen before feb/march or so (if that) going zone would make it much more likely that the defense doesnt gel until the season is over again. whatever defense they play they need to finally hit the ground running...the portal era is about 1 year cycles...and not slow builds every single season.

and you mentioned houston...well yeah...defense wins championships...and they are in the title game for a reason..."we wont be houston"...ok...well we should try.

 

[007]

That's where you need athletic centers at the back of a press, speed up the game.
Make it a frenetic game where teams have to work to get the ball up the floor.
Take time off the clock and force teams into bad shots at the end of the clock.
Defensive rebound and run.

Good post.

If we are transitioning to being a more athletic team that can get up the court and score, pressure defense needs to be part of the equation.

 

[Cheriehoop]

This new lineup regardless of what happens with another center, will be a complete 180 from last year. Red thought he wanted low post, better rebounding, little slow pace than year before. That plan is gone. For good. He will never go back to that. He’s fine if they lose a few rebounds now to have better athletes and scorers. He won 20 games with a run and gun team. He will get back to that

That’s great to hear but without solid rebounding, it’s difficult to run. Hope some athletic players embrace the rebounding role to get the ball moving and to earn playing time.

 

[RedtheGOB]

That's where you need athletic centers at the back of a press, speed up the game.
Make it a frenetic game where teams have to work to get the ball up the floor.
Take time off the clock and force teams into bad shots at the end of the clock.
Defensive rebound and run.

yup exactly, which means 2-3 bigs that can run and stay fresh for 40. Eddie and McLeod were not that although they had their moments.

 

[walsh2012]

PLAYER	POS.	HT.	WT.	CLASS	STATUS
JJ Starling	G	6-4	206	Sr.
Donnie Freeman	PF	6-9	205	So.
Kiyan Anthony	G	6-5	185	Fr.
Luke Fennell	G	6-6	190	Fr.
Sadiq White	PF	6-9	200	Fr.
Aaron Womack	SF	6-6	170	Fr.
William Kyle III	C	6-9	230	Sr.	UCLA
Nate Kingz	G/SF	6-5	190	R-Sr.	Oregon St
Naithan George	PG	6-3	185	Jr.	Ga Tech

Right now, it looks like a starting lineup of:

Kyle, Freeman, Kingz, Starling, George.

Bench of Anthony, Fennell, White and Womack.

Other than the lack of a second center, I like this team a lot. If we get a center better than Kyle, I’d think we were nearly a lock for the NCAA Tournament. If we get a lower level warm body, we still have some good players.

I’ve posted a bit in each transfers recruiting thread, but just giving overview thoughts of the lineup as it stands.

Kyle: Extremely athletic and long limbed, I really like him in combination with George. George throws the lob pass with skill that makes it look too easy. Kyle dunks in the same stratosphere as Jeremi Grant and Hakeem Warrick. Kyle runs the floor well, expect him to get some really nice dunks in transition, every game. Kyle is a very plus defender, his agility and long arms allow him to be very switchable in defense without fouling much. I posted a crazy enthusiastic post from an NBA draft board in his thread, seems legit. Not quite the defensive rebounder we would like at center, but boxes out well, and really fights on the offensive glass. Dunks everything from every angle. His UCLA highlights indicate he’ll be catch ball-dunk ball on offense, but his previous year he was his teams go to guy, and demonstrated a decent post game.

Freeman: We all saw him play this year, but he was probably injured and really raw. Lots of improvement quickly as he acclimated to college. Superb defensive rebounder, would have been 3rd in the county in defensive rebounding % if he had qualified. Just the perfect guy to have if you’re going to go with three guards and don’t want to give up on rebounding. Freeman shot .333 from three last year, and .566 on twos, so with Kyle, we’ll have two very good bigs that can finish well around the basket. I think Freeman can shoot significantly better from three than he has shown so far, for what it’s worth.

Kingz: Tremendous offensive player, he does everything on offense, and does it efficiently. Elite shooter, .446 from three on 4.2 attempts per game, .571 on twos. This kid can score, averaging 11.8 on only 7.8 shots. He is probably too selective, we want him shooting more. He also passes well, 1.8 assists to .8 turnovers ratio. Kingz doesn’t rebound much, but at least he’s better than Bell. Still, he’s an average or slightly better defender.

Starling: We all have strong feelings about Starling, even if they’re mixed feelings. He’s really good at some things, really bad at others, but overall he’s a very good offensive player, and scored a lot of points last year for us. If he’s not forced to handle the ball every possession, I think he gets a lot more efficient. We had nobody this past year that was an ACC level point guard. We definitely have one in George next season. One thing I would point out is that Starling, as a sophomore, shot .360 from three in conference play, which was the last time he was able to regularly catch and shoot. Having even another decent combo guard next to him made him much more efficient.

George: George led the ACC in assists per game last season. He has four Points/Assists double doubles and a Points/Rebounds double double. Outside shot he’s going to get our first Syracuse triple double next season. Most of the time he’s on the court, he’ll be the third best defensive reminder, from the point guard position. George is the master of the lob pass. In his highlights, there were a few where it looked lucky it got through, and in the replay you see just how good of a pass it is. He throws it away sometimes, but overall, his turnovers are proactive in trying to create offense, not because he dribbled the ball off his knee or just can’t compete at this level. He’s a legit ball handler. Georgia Tech was a bad offensive team last year. Without George pushing the pace and seeing his teammates up, they would have been terrible. George definitely lost efficiency on his shooting because he was forced to shoot more than he wanted. Nobody else could do anything unless he set them up for a dunk. George assisted on 24.6% off all Georgia Tech’s baskets last year, and scored another 16.7%. His efficiency suffered as a result. George is decent at finishing, he could get better. He’ll appreciate having players who can shoot, drive, and catch the ball and finish next year.

If this turns out to be our starting lineup, I think we’ll be pretty good. Some great athletes, great length at center and power forward. Enough rebounding to effectively use the three guard lineup. We’ll have average to good defense, anchored by Kyle in the middle. The transfers are all even or plus defenders, and I think Freeman gets better with experience. But we’ll be really good on offense, with guys who can hit a three at four positions, and a point guard who can get them the ball when they are open. We’ll have three players who are plus at dribble penetration, and three guards who can pass well enough to get it to the big men who are very good finishing around the basket.

I’m really enthusiastic about the roster at this point. If we get a starter who can push Kyle to being first big off the bench, we look great.

Bigs: Freeman, Kyle, White, Transfer C, Transfer /C

Smalls: Starling, Kingz, George, Anthony, Fennell, Womack, Transfer G/.

Looks like a comfortable Tournament team, especially if the Transfer C is at the top of the depth chart.

Our offense and defense are going to be much better this year than last.

Great breakdown, any thoughts on the lack of defenders it seems like we have? Love the idea of scoring a ton from a watchability perspective, but it seems like we may have an issue w getting stops here

 

[tptcuse]

This new lineup regardless of what happens with another center, will be a complete 180 from last year. Red thought he wanted low post, better rebounding, little slow pace than year before. That plan is gone. For good. He will never go back to that. He’s fine if they lose a few rebounds now to have better athletes and scorers. He won 20 games with a run and gun team. He will get back to that

Any plans on how to improve the defense?

 

[Irt4su]

Any plans on how to improve the defense?

I am sure we have plans to not be worse. Because that’s impossible. So there’s that.

 

[Cappy3]

I am sure we have plans to not be worse. Because that’s impossible. So there’s that.

Better athletes across the board has to help. Far better shot blocking.

 

[baggerbob]

Better athletes across the board has to help. Far better shot blocking.

And more speed to come up with steals, while pressing, and size.

 

[Jake]

So I’m expecting…

PG:George/Fennel/JJ
2G: JJ/ Kiyan/Kingz
SF: Kingz/Deng/Womack
PF: Freeman/White
C:Kyle/Soure/Freeman

Don’t be surprised if there’s some depth pieces added here and there.

My biggest takeaway….more options that should limit the overuse of JJ.