With the Roster Shaping up

[RF2044]

So is the roster shaping up or is it done? Seems to be a lot of bemoaning that "I can't believe we didn't..." Its not over and it would be silly to think SU is done with 5 roster spots left to fill. There is no reason one or more of those can't be filled with guys that can contribute next season.

We've got 10 players, by my count.

• 2 returnees [JJ / Freeman]
• 4 recruits
• 4 transfers

10 is an important number, because it means you can at least run a practice against a full group of scholarship players going head to head.

But I'd expect that we add 2 more, for depth / to protect against injuries.

I would expect those 2 to be lower $$$ type of guys, similar to some of the players we landed last year. For example, a Lucas Taylor type who is going to be a relative bargain, and brings some athleticism to the table. An experienced guy who, in a pinch, can play a bigger dose of minutes and contribute. The problem with Taylor is that he ended up starting for 3/4 of the season, and he wasn't suited to do so. Not his problem; Bell being a flake was the problem.

And if there is a stud and we have money to chase them -- say, some starting-caliber center frees up -- then maybe we add a third.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Somebody has to be on the floor.

If we have Kyle, Souare, Saddiq and Donnie sharing time at C, that's maybe 20 minutes, 10 minutes 5 and 5. It could probably work, but Red has to be willing to play lots of guys, or we will get worn down, if our biggest C only weighs 230. I would like to get 1 more big body for depth, but I guess we're probably running out of money.

 

[IthacaMatt]

So is the roster shaping up or is it done? Seems to be a lot of bemoaning that "I can't believe we didn't..." Its not over and it would be silly to think SU is done with 5 roster spots left to fill. There is no reason one or more of those can't be filled with guys that can contribute next season.

Jake said he thinks we'll add Deng, the 6-9 combo forward with the nice 3 point stroke, and then maybe 1 or 2 depth pieces.

 

[RF2044]

If we have Kyle, Souare, Saddiq and Donnie sharing time at C, that's maybe 20 minutes, 10 minutes 5 and 5. It could probably work, but Red has to be willing to play lots of guys, or we will get worn down, if our biggest C only weighs 230. I would like to get 1 more big body for depth, but I guess we're probably running out of money.

I don't see how Saddiq [at ~195 pounds] can be expected to play center in any meaningful capacity. Same with Donnie, who is a bit heavier.

I mean -- in the non-conference portion of the schedule -- maybe. Against small ball, as a situational lineup? Sure. But if that's the plan... probably not a good situation.

 

[Brooky03]

I don't see how Saddiq [at ~195 pounds] can be expected to play center in any meaningful capacity. Same with Donnie, who is a bit heavier.

I mean -- in the non-conference portion of the schedule -- maybe. Against small ball, as a situational lineup? Sure. But if that's the plan... probably not a good situation.

It’s not ideal and I’d like to bring in another Center. That said, most P5 teams nowadays don’t have post players. They don’t have burly guys who catch it in the block and go to work. So, as far as weaknesses go, I’m okay with that being ours (especially if we play the mythical uptempo game we’ve been promised).

The problem is it looks like we’re going to pair that weakness with an inability to consistently hit 3’s. You can’t be bad at both of those things and succeed. We need at least one more guy to address one of these flaws.

 

[RedtheGOB]

It’s not ideal and I’d like to bring in another Center. That said, most P5 teams nowadays don’t have post players. They don’t have burly guys who catch it in the block and go to work. So, as far as weaknesses go, I’m okay with that being ours (especially if we play the mythical uptempo game we’ve been promised).

The problem is it looks like we’re going to pair that weakness with an inability to consistently hit 3’s. You can’t be bad at both of those things and succeed. We need at least one more guy to address one of these flaws.

I don’t know I think we’ve been gaslit the last few years about having guys that are great shooters from 3. I’d like to not be expecting 3 pointers next year and be surprised for once when he gave some shooters.

 

[Niastri]

Carlos? Carlos? Did you say Carlos?

He’d have been great if we had, say, Naithan George to play 35 minutes. Every team needs deep depth.

This year, a Carlos type player to provide insurance in case George or Fennell get injured or in foul trouble would be great.

Not everybody is going to get minutes on a big roster, why not a lower level defensive player of the year to be your bench guy? Maybe he stinks, maybe he helps the team in practice.

 

[IthacaMatt]

It’s not ideal and I’d like to bring in another Center. That said, most P5 teams nowadays don’t have post players. They don’t have burly guys who catch it in the block and go to work. So, as far as weaknesses go, I’m okay with that being ours (especially if we play the mythical uptempo game we’ve been promised).

The problem is it looks like we’re going to pair that weakness with an inability to consistently hit 3’s. You can’t be bad at both of those things and succeed. We need at least one more guy to address one of these flaws.

If you looked at the teams in the Elite 8, pretty much all of them had a big low post scorer, except Houston.

 

[Brooky03]

If you looked at the teams in the Elite 8, pretty much all of them had a big low post scorer, except Houston.

We’re at the stage where we’d be happy to make the tournament with a decent seed, not compete for a title. Again, it’s not ideal but you can win a bunch of games without a wide body post presence; many teams do.

 

[IthacaMatt]

We’re at the stage where we’d be happy to make the tournament with a decent seed, not compete for a title. Again, it’s not ideal but you can win a bunch of games without a wide body post presence; many teams do.

So, let's find a big body as the 3rd center from one of those east coast mid-major leagues.

 

[Cusefan0307]

I think this is interesting. Coaching matters a lot.

 

[syrBossHogg]

The zone trap was so good teams just gave up on a third of the offensive zone… They were significantly more likely to turn it over than do anything useful in any of the four corners.

Sometimes you could see the opponent pass the ball to a corner, the trap was launched, and Rautins was already moving off the ball… it was like a designed play for the pass to go to him.

That team was so good defensively, it was crazy to watch.

And as good as they were defensively, they were even better on offense

KenPom stats
14th in defensive efficiency
6th in offensive efficiency

 

[jdubs30]

I think this is interesting. Coaching matters a lot.

Walter Clayton - Iona
Micah Handlogten - Marshall
Will Richard - Belmont
Ruben Chibyelu - Washington State
Alijah Martin - FAU

Sampson obviously has been around 11 years so his culture and recruiting is well established so he only supplemented with transfers …. Still LJ Cryer, Milos Uzan, Mylik Wilson is an extremely loaded transfer list

Coaching matters but the portal …

 

[longtimefan]

Walter Clayton - Iona
Micah Handlogten - Marshall
Will Richard - Belmont
Ruben Chibyelu - Washington State
Alijah Martin - FAU

Sampson obviously has been around 11 years so his culture and recruiting is well established so he only supplemented with transfers …. Still LJ Cryer, Milos Uzan, Mylik Wilson is an extremely loaded transfer list

Coaching matters but the portal …

Look at that FAU roster. Based upon what those guys did after their FF run, that was not a mid-major squad. I don't know how Dusty May found them all.

 

[walsh2012]

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.

Would you say we're done at the 5?

 

[Cheriehoop]

Walter Clayton - Iona
Micah Handlogten - Marshall
Will Richard - Belmont
Ruben Chibyelu - Washington State
Alijah Martin - FAU

Sampson obviously has been around 11 years so his culture and recruiting is well established so he only supplemented with transfers …. Still LJ Cryer, Milos Uzan, Mylik Wilson is an extremely loaded transfer list

Coaching matters but the portal …

No wonder Pitino was very upset that Clayton didn’t follow him to St John’s.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Walter Clayton - Iona
Micah Handlogten - Marshall
Will Richard - Belmont
Ruben Chibyelu - Washington State
Alijah Martin - FAU

Sampson obviously has been around 11 years so his culture and recruiting is well established so he only supplemented with transfers …. Still LJ Cryer, Milos Uzan, Mylik Wilson is an extremely loaded transfer list

Coaching matters but the portal …

There would have been a lot of complaints here had we signed some of those players because the majority did not come from the P5.

 

[Scooch]

There would have been a lot of complaints here had we signed some of those players because the majority did not come from the P5.

Red got his year of signing mid/low major talent and it was a catastrophe. He's not good at judging that level of talent. Personally I'm happy they went after P5 guys this offseason so far. I don't trust his evaluation of lower tier guys.

That doesn't mean mid/low major players aren't valuable. It means we're not good at picking them. It's not them, it's us.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Red got his year of signing mid/low major talent and it was a catastrophe. He's not good at judging that level of talent. Personally I'm happy they went after P5 guys this offseason so far. I don't trust his evaluation of lower tier guys.

That doesn't mean mid/low major players aren't valuable. It means we're not good at picking them. It's not them, it's us.

Do we trust Kline's? Just take the best players if they're good. If we are going to have that opinion we are cutting down the population of players to choose from.

Not sticking up for Red. It's put up or shut up time for him and I don't think he's a particularly good coach, but I think it's been a lazy opinion here.

 

[Orangezoo]

Do we trust Kline's? Just take the best players if they're good. If we are going to have that opinion we are cutting down the population of players to choose from.

Not sticking up for Red. It's put up or shut up time for him and I don't think he's a particularly good coach, but I think it's been a lazy opinion here.

This. He’s getting a roster with more talent than he’s ever had and more athleticism than he’s ever had. He should add more help to the staff that can get it done and be working hard with existing staff on being more prepared and better equipped from a tactics and game management philosophy. It’s all on him to get things right.

In year 1 I saw signs he could squeeze out more wins than expected from leveraging individual talent. He didn’t get much in the way of team play especially on defense ( Maliq made him look better in this regard on both ends than was reality). That must change this year in a big way.

We add Deng and some depth and this roster is more than enough to be a top 5 ACC team and a tourney team at minimum. It’s on him though to make it happen. I hope he can and he’s learned from a very hard lesson in year 2…

 

[orangejunkie]

Lots of criticism on this board about Red's coaching. Personally I think he did a good job with the flawed roster that he had to work with. I won't bash some of the kids that underperformed or were simply not that good but that was a major issue.

Last year in retrospect the portal was not kind to us and some of that is due to more limited NIL funds and not doing a better job in identifying better players with the money that we had. We learned from that and generous donors stepped up for next year. Also it appears that SU is still active in the portal. That is encouraging and makes me hopeful for next season.

 

[Orangezoo]

Lots of criticism on this board about Red's coaching. Personally I think he did a good job with the flawed roster that he had to work with. I won't bash some of the kids that underperformed or were simply not that good but that was a major issue.

Last year in retrospect the portal was not kind to us and some of that is due to more limited NIL funds and not doing a better job in identifying better players with the money that we had. We learned from that and generous donors stepped up for next year. Also it appears that SU is still active in the portal. That is encouraging and makes me hopeful for next season.

Reds biggest issues are first around having a lack of a philosophy on defense or at least a lack of ability to get kids to execute on.

From there the substitution decisions are puzzling and have been too often more beneficial to opponents and at times resulted in losing leads that lead to losing games.

Offensively he’s been mediocre with the biggest limiting factor the substitution decisions.

Lastly it’s been about roster building and quality which no longer should be such an issue after this off season now that Kline is part of the staff.

 

[007]

We add Deng and some depth and this roster is more than enough to be a top 5 ACC team and a tourney team at minimum. It’s on him though to make it happen. I hope he can and he’s learned from a very hard lesson in year 2…

On paper, we have a more athletic and versatile roster that should be able to play the fast-paced style Red talked about. I think it's reasonable to assume that we will be much more competitive, and I'm optimistic that will be the case.

But "the more than enough" takes are premature, IMO, until we see the complete roster, how they play/mesh together on and off the court, the rosters of the rest of the league (we underestimate this factor), AND improvements in Red's ability to coach them up.

 

[Orangezoo]

On paper, we have a more athletic and versatile roster that should be able to play the fast-paced style Red talked about. I think it's reasonable to assume that we will be much more competitive, and I'm optimistic that will be the case.

But "the more than enough" takes are premature, IMO, until we see the complete roster, how they play/mesh together on and off the court, the rosters of the rest of the league (we underestimate this factor), AND improvements in Red's ability to coach them up.

Let me qualify the more than enough by saying it specific to Red proving his coaching chops. Maybe that’s unfair but in this day and age where money talks across the board now at the collegiate level he needs to make hay with this roster even if there some challenges not yet visible to overcome. That gets more buy in and more willing investors/donors etc.

 

[IthacaMatt]

So, if we add Jerry Deng, that will give us 5 guys who are 6-9 and bouncy. Only 1 of them with much bulk, but that's a lot of size up front, if we can get them to play physically and challenge people at the rim.