Silver lining

[aphilso1]

Something has been bothering me for a while about the number of talented youngsters on the roster.  Transfers are a part of the game (obviously, given recent bad news) and odds are we won't get to keep the core of young kids all on-board.  Well with AWIII off to browner pastures, that leaves 30-35 minutes per game up for grabs.  Are there enough minutes to go around and keep everyone happy?

 

With White on the roster, I expected the minutes distribution would've looked about like so:

 

1: Watson 25; Webster 15

2: Gill 25; Webster; 10; Roby 5

3: White 32; Roby 5; McVeigh 3

4: Morrow 18; McVeigh 12; Horne 7; Fuller 3

5: Jacobson 25; Morrow 5; Tshimanga 10

 

Obviously you can make an argument that any number of young guys might've earned more minutes, but odds are those minutes wouldn't have come at the expense of the experienced players.  Fuller will still get some time, while White, Webster, and Gill all were expected to be tough to take off the floor.  So if you want to argue that Roby would get more than 10, then that means someone like Jack would have to get less than 15.  Under this minutes distribution, there's 4 or 5 guys that are unhappy with their playing time.  How many stick around for another year?

 

Now let's take a look at the White-less roster:

 

1: Watson 30; Webster 10

2: Gill 25; Webster; 15

3: McVeigh 20; Roby 20

4: Morrow 20; Horne 15; Fuller 5

5: Jacobson 25; Tshimanga 15

 

All of a sudden the only guy yelling "Put me in, Coach!" is Nick.  The freshmen can all realistically get at least 15 MPG, sophs all at least 20 MPG.  To me, those are about the milestones where players can feel like they're getting significant minutes relative to their class.  So now we've dropped from 4 or 5 disappointed players down to 1. 

 

So long story short, AWIII leaving us high and dry may actually help keep the band together for the following year, and that was the year that many of us thought could be "the one."  Thank you AWIII for helping us win our first NCAA game in '17-'18!  Maybe you can do the radio broadcast with Kent.  Ya know, if you're not busy doing anything else at that point.

[kleitus]

I think you're going to see a lot of 3 guard looks considering our 3 best players are probably guards... so webster might be a bit low -- but overall i don't think that's all that far off.

[aphilso1]

It would surprise me if we see Gill, Watson, and Webster on the court at the same time, except for maybe in the final minute of a close game.  We really have no natural guards on the roster other than those three, and I think the negative of wearing them out outranks the positive of having them all on the court.  Definitely need to be cautious with how they're used this year, as an injury to any one of them probably throws our season down the drain.

[aphilso1]

That being said, my point in this thread wasn't really to debate minutes.  It was more to point out that there should be plenty of PT to keep the youngsters happy.  Which  is a good thing, if you've circled March 2018 as the month we get the NCAA monkey off our back.

[Norm Peterson]

That being said, my point in this thread wasn't really to debate minutes.  It was more to point out that there should be plenty of PT to keep the youngsters happy.  Which  is a good thing, if you've circled March 2018 as the month we get the NCAA monkey off our back.

 

I circled March 2017.  That was while White was still here, but I haven't decided to change my mind yet.

[Norm Peterson]

Something has been bothering me for a while about the number of talented youngsters on the roster.  Transfers are a part of the game (obviously, given recent bad news) and odds are we won't get to keep the core of young kids all on-board.  Well with AWIII off to browner pastures, that leaves 30-35 minutes per game up for grabs.  Are there enough minutes to go around and keep everyone happy?

 

With White on the roster, I expected the minutes distribution would've looked about like so:

 

1: Watson 25; Webster 15

2: Gill 25; Webster; 10; Roby 5

3: White 32; Roby 5; McVeigh 3

4: Morrow 18; McVeigh 12; Horne 7; Fuller 3

5: Jacobson 25; Morrow 5; Tshimanga 10

 

Obviously you can make an argument that any number of young guys might've earned more minutes, but odds are those minutes wouldn't have come at the expense of the experienced players.  Fuller will still get some time, while White, Webster, and Gill all were expected to be tough to take off the floor.  So if you want to argue that Roby would get more than 10, then that means someone like Jack would have to get less than 15.  Under this minutes distribution, there's 4 or 5 guys that are unhappy with their playing time.  How many stick around for another year?

 

Now let's take a look at the White-less roster:

 

1: Watson 30; Webster 10

2: Gill 25; Webster; 15

3: McVeigh 20; Roby 20

4: Morrow 20; Horne 15; Fuller 5

5: Jacobson 25; Tshimanga 15

 

All of a sudden the only guy yelling "Put me in, Coach!" is Nick.  The freshmen can all realistically get at least 15 MPG, sophs all at least 20 MPG.  To me, those are about the milestones where players can feel like they're getting significant minutes relative to their class.  So now we've dropped from 4 or 5 disappointed players down to 1. 

 

So long story short, AWIII leaving us high and dry may actually help keep the band together for the following year, and that was the year that many of us thought could be "the one."  Thank you AWIII for helping us win our first NCAA game in '17-'18!  Maybe you can do the radio broadcast with Kent.  Ya know, if you're not busy doing anything else at that point.

 

Aphilso, that was an excellent post and you deserve a lot more than my up-arrow for it.

 

Frankly, I'd been thinking the same kind of thing, that there would be limited minutes for some of the guys and that, without White, it'll really open things up for some guys who I think will be worthy of minutes. 

 

Your point about, in a roster with White, Roby's minutes coming at the expense of McVeigh I think is spot on.  It's a zero-sum game.  There are only 200 total minutes and 40 at each spot.  And White would have gotten his.  But throw those 30 minutes back in the pool and someone gets them.

[Norm Peterson]

Another thing that I'll add to this whole discussion of who benefits from White's departure:  I think Isaiah Roby is tremendously more versatile than White.  He might not be as good of a shooter, but he has a better and wider overall variety of weapons.  Will he be able to defend the 3?  Yeah, actually, I think he has better lateral quicks and so maybe better suited to defend the three than White, who spent a lot of time guarding 4s last year.  At 215# and beefy, White could hold his own against bigger players but I'm not sure he was guite as good against smaller, quicker guys. 

 

With the 4s and 5s we have this year, White might not have been called on to defend the opposing 4 as much.  So ... maybe that will work out OK for us.

[AuroranHusker]

I think the 2016-17 roster is the most complete roster of the Miles era, with or without AW-III. Now, how they gel together and compete for minutes as a unit will be intriguing, to say the least....

[royalfan]

Another thing that I'll add to this whole discussion of who benefits from White's departure:  I think Isaiah Roby is tremendously more versatile than White.  He might not be as good of a shooter, but he has a better and wider overall variety of weapons.  Will he be able to defend the 3?  Yeah, actually, I think he has better lateral quicks and so maybe better suited to defend the three than White, who spent a lot of time guarding 4s last year.  At 215# and beefy, White could hold his own against bigger players but I'm not sure he was guite as good against smaller, quicker guys. 

 

With the 4s and 5s we have this year, White might not have been called on to defend the opposing 4 as much.  So ... maybe that will work out OK for us.

 

White was a perfect college stretch 4 in my opinion if you have a paint protector at the 5, because of what you described here.  But there is little doubt in my mind that our defense should be better if he is playing man against your typical wing. 

[royalfan]

We have the depth to handle this.  We lose one less guy to develop the hot hand, and more importantly our best "spacer."   As I mentioned in another thread, we should be a bit better the following season as a result of this unexpected situation. 

[busticket]

While disappointing, White leaving is at a position we are pretty deep at.  Miles has always seemed to have plenty of capable forwards (IMO, Shields, White and Petteway were all natural 3's, with White being a bit of a tweener between the 3 and 4. They didn't have the handles and passing ability to be full time 2's), but we have struggled recruiting at the point, scoring guard and in the post pretty much all of Miles' time here.  This year we finally will have those 3 spots lined up: Watson at PG, Gill at SG and Jordy at the 5 (granted Jordy will be a true freshman).  

 

With White leaving (and Shields graduated), we need Roby, Horne or McVeigh to step up in a big way.  With those three along with Morrow and Jacobsen I am comfortable with our forward rotation.  Throw in Tai as our swing guard and we have our rotation.  If Jordy can do a decent Derrick Pardon impersonation, and Gill is as advertised, we will have a chance to make some noise.

IMO, Shields, White and Petteway were all natural 3's, with White being a bit of a tweener between the 3 and 4. They didn't have the handles and passing ability to be full time 2's.