2022-2023 Lineup

[CrimsonNBlue]

Or, could we do the same with Yes? and just have him/Jalen/KM bring it up by committee.

Continuing from last night, I'm not a Yesufu fan, but he does seem just a little bit different enough athletically and skill wise from Dajuan and Bobby that I'm not against trying him at the 1. We're hitting our ceiling with Dajuan and Bobby. Yesufu probably isn't the answer, but there's no one else.

[CrimsonNBlue]

Maybe we could just draw names out of a hat and that's who gets to play? Since we are just wanting to do random shit like "throw MJ in for DH and see what happens".

LOL. The 24hrs following a loss are full of stupid ideas.


Here is a good idea that is realistic and proven to work already by this team: take care of the ball and play good defense.

When we play good defense it can make up for our lack of rebounding.

We we take care of the ball it can help make up for our lack of offensive weapons.


We can't turn it over a ton AND give up a high rate of offensive rebounds to the other team.



All the other stuff (DH not being a Ja/Steph hybrid, KJ not being Embiid, only having 2 competent outside shooters) is not easily fixable this year.

The answer isn't always the guy on the bench. Especially not with this team. Our freshman are raw. They are not a net gain for the TEAM when they go in, no matter how much you focus on their individual abilities (or lack thereof). It's a team sport. This team is all about JW and GD. We go as they go offensively. And defensively we have 3 elite defenders in our starting 5.

When we play well I still think we are the best team in the country.

EVERYONE has glaring flaws this year. There are no truly elite teams.

There's some truth to this, except for the hilarity of being the best team in the country.

And, it's because what you are describing is a very thin margin for error. In the seasons where we've struggled like this and there are no other current personnel options and it requires pretty close to perfect ball from our guys (2021 is a great example), those season don't end up being very good teams.

But, again, it's fine because it's a honeymoon season. Looked back on some of the old posts in here and several here including me were expecting around a 3 seed. We might be a 2 on resume but the personnel is closer to a 4.

[CrimsonNBlue]

This is also not some knee jerk reaction in the 24 hours after a loss. We've lost 3 in a row with 2 pretty good beatdowns in a row. Pretty much the halfway point of conference season and we've played 1 good offensive game in league play.

Newton will also argue the defense has been bad statistically, and he's right. I think that's less of an issue because some of those games we've guarded well and had a lot of guarded 3's rained on us and I tend to think we will turn that side of the ball around based on what we've seen from this personnel before this stretch.

[digitalkookie]

Or, could we do the same with Yes? and just have him/Jalen/KM bring it up by committee.

We're hitting our ceiling with Dajuan and Bobby. Yesufu probably isn't the answer, but there's no one else.

If I never see Juan and Bobby on the court at the same time it will be too soon

[pdub]

"and had a lot of guarded 3's rained on us"

Kind of.
Baylor got quite a few open 3's rained on us last night.

[NewtonHawk11]

This is also not some knee jerk reaction in the 24 hours after a loss. We've lost 3 in a row with 2 pretty good beatdowns in a row. Pretty much the halfway point of conference season and we've played 1 good offensive game in league play.

Newton will also argue the defense has been bad statistically, and he's right. I think that's less of an issue because some of those games we've guarded well and had a lot of guarded 3's rained on us and I tend to think we will turn that side of the ball around based on what we've seen from this personnel before this stretch.

I agree it's less of an issue, but man it has not been good considering what Bill's teams are usually like.

In my opinion, this all starts and ends with Juan. He's in a bad funk and has to be a lot better to reach potential.

[NewtonHawk11]

Or, could we do the same with Yes? and just have him/Jalen/KM bring it up by committee.

Continuing from last night, I'm not a Yesufu fan, but he does seem just a little bit different enough athletically and skill wise from Dajuan and Bobby that I'm not against trying him at the 1. We're hitting our ceiling with Dajuan and Bobby. Yesufu probably isn't the answer, but there's no one else.

It seemed like our best run was with Yes on the floor. We went something like Yes, KM, Dick, MJ and Wilson.

[CrimsonNBlue]

Or, could we do the same with Yes? and just have him/Jalen/KM bring it up by committee.

We're hitting our ceiling with Dajuan and Bobby. Yesufu probably isn't the answer, but there's no one else.

If I never see Juan and Bobby on the court at the same time it will be too soon

Absolutely, it's very suboptimal.

Of course, some of that is on Gradey (and Bill), because he always picks up 2 fouls in the first half. How are we supposed to not dig first half holes with a lineup of: Harris, Pettiford, McCullar, Wilson, Adams?

[CrimsonNBlue]

Or, could we do the same with Yes? and just have him/Jalen/KM bring it up by committee.

Continuing from last night, I'm not a Yesufu fan, but he does seem just a little bit different enough athletically and skill wise from Dajuan and Bobby that I'm not against trying him at the 1. We're hitting our ceiling with Dajuan and Bobby. Yesufu probably isn't the answer, but there's no one else.

It seemed like our best run was with Yes on the floor. We went something like Yes, KM, Dick, MJ and Wilson.

I thought Yes and Udeh finally mixed in some good moments last night with their usual bad moments. I actually saw Yesufu's speed last night for the first time in awhile.

And, again, this is more about weathering Dajuan being overloaded and his expected offensive mishaps. Remy ended up being the change of pace and style we needed to fill in those gaps. I don't think Dajuan can handle the position all by himself on a good team and unfortunately, we probably don't have the guy needed to platoon with him.

[ousdahl]

I'd like to get a more solid rotation established either way.

Gradey gets in early foul trouble and who checks in...Bobby? Yes? MJ? Some patchwork combo?

Same thing with KJ. Who's the front court guy off the bench...Ernest? Zuby? Zach?

If, say Gradey checks out, is it maybe worth sliding KJ over and subbing in a big instead?

Or, if say KJ checks out, is it maybe worth sliding over Jalen and subbing in a perimeter guy?

I dunno how we still have such question marks about the rotation by the end of January. Apparently we yielded no development from the first 2.5 months of the season so far, not to mention the off-season.

it's like everyone has been sitting around complacently like it's a honeymoon, or something.

when's the LATEST in the season somebody finally turned a corner? Spring semester Silvio, I guess?

[Mjl]

Problem is Yesufu has zero offensive or defensive awareness.
At least Harris helped us get back into it last night by gluing himself to Cryer.
Harris has been absolutely awful for a few games. Still better than Yesufu has been.

[pdub]

Yes seems to not take the shots he should and take the shots he shouldn't.

[CrimsonNBlue]

Problem is Yesufu has zero offensive or defensive awareness.
At least Harris helped us get back into it last night by gluing himself to Cryer.
Harris has been absolutely awful for a few games. Still better than Yesufu has been.

The whole "at least he's good on defense" is just starting to go in one ear and out the other for me. It's not nearly good enough for the starting PG at Kansas (for 4 seasons no less) to just be a good on the ball defender.

All of what you say is mostly true, though. Yesufu has been disappointingly abysmal, but we haven't yet see him really play the 1. I'm ok if we try it one (last) time and if he sucks, well at least Saturday is just a noncon game.

[ousdahl]

Yes seems to not take the shots he should and take the shots he shouldn't.

a lot of our guys are prone to this

and our guards in particular.

Dajuan passed up a wide open 3 only to miss some awkward running floater instead.

[AlOerter]

This team is not as bad as they've played lately. They look a little tired and have lost some confidence. We've seen them play a lot better against some pretty good teams. Crisply moving the ball and locking in on defense and hitting shots. There is just so much put on this starting five they have no margin for error.

[ousdahl]

can we talk about the whole free throws thing, too?

it was about this time last year Self called out Dajuan about it.

And yet, he's earned 0 attempts in the majority of games this year, including 0 in the last 4 games.

Is that something he might be able to be coached up to do? Or is it just foregone that he's just not strong enough or quick enough or whatever to make it happen?

he's 43/56 for around 77% career, which isn't bad. But maybe the fact he's only been to the line 56 times in almost 3 full seasons as a lead guard is something to be concerned about in itself.

[InfiniteJ]

McCullar was the defacto PG the last couple of years at Tech, right? Why not let him be the primary ballhandler a little more often to take some stress off Dejuan?

[pdub]

Dejuan on his game, and we know his game is limited, I still think is our best bet, because our other options, McCullar included, aren't as good as peak Dejuan.

He is an excellent facilitator and tenacious defender and does have a floater and a 3 point shot when given. He helps dictate tempo ( usually ) well knowing when to run and when to back off.

Yes is just frantic. Bobby is fast but limited and boring.

[CrimsonNBlue]

McCullar was the defacto PG the last couple of years at Tech, right? Why not let him be the primary ballhandler a little more often to take some stress off Dejuan?

That was discussed in the offseason and pretty much everyone agreed that we hoped it wouldn't get to that point. Welp . . .

[ousdahl]

I think Dajuan on his game is still the best thing for this roster, yea.

But, how often is Dajuan on his game at the ends of games? Hasn't load management been a point of discussion about him? And how we really can't expect to play him BIFM minutes? (which is exactly what we're doing now anyway)

Peak Dajuan is prob also with 10-15 or so minutes a game to spell Dajuan. If we can do it with KM running things (augmented with Jalen, and/or Yes, and/or Rice, and/or whoever), or just by a straight sub Dajuan-for-Bobby, then OK.

But those are things we haven't really tried much. Rather, we're getting Dajuan AND Bobby, which does nothing to address load management, and also does nothing to address the fact neither of them can shoot.

I kinda wonder if Bobby might do better, too, in his natural position of lead guard; rather than having to more so play the 2 spot...not to mention maybe it'd would be better defensively to not be switching multiple smalls...I dunno