BillySee58

Welcome to the offseason. Want to hear some opinions on next season, for those who want a break from COVID-19 talk. What are you hoping to see when the schedule is released? As far as the roster, we have two scholarships left for next season as of now. How would you like them spent? Projected 2020-2021 Roster C - SR Zach Simmons F - SR Thomas Bell G - SR James Reese G - JR Umoja Gibson G - SR Javion Hamlet Bench: G - SO Jalen Jackson G - SO Larry Wise G - FR Rubin Jones F - SR Abdul Mohamed F - SR Jahmiah Simmons C - SO Shakeem Alcindor Looking at the bench we have a glaring lack of proven scorers, or just rotation options in general. Definitely need some quality size, but probably need another quality scoring guard as well.

Agreed

This makes it sound like just breathing any air can make you catch it. Still have to be within infection range of 10-15 feet or so of someone who has it. Which is why mass public gatherings are being cancelled. I agree on most of this. I think the WHO has subscribed to this belief as well as reading between the lines from over a month ago they have been suggesting this would happen for a while now but have been careful about their wording to avoid mass panic. Be smart, do your part, take it seriously without massively panicking, and hopefully we can nip it in the bud societally.

Most of the people upset about this who are calling it an overreaction probably won’t change their minds until it hits close enough to home for them. Or until it has reached high enough confirmed infection/death numbers to where they can’t keep posting the same meme comparing COVID-19 numbers to flu numbers. Hopefully by taking precautions like this these people can still look back in a few months and think they were right about calling these actions overreactionary. But in reality these measures may be the reason we can prevent it from getting to the point it is in over in Italy.

Winner!

Based on what? This move was recommended by an advisory board, not the media.

You consider it an overreaction because why exactly?

Houston was supposed to host the South Region Sweet 16/Elite 8 March 27th and 29th.

Ohio now as well

State of Washington just banned all public gatherings of 250 or more people. San Francisco just announced a ban on gatherings of 1,000 or more people. The coronavirus is almost assuredly going to impact the NCAA tournament in some way.

Bracket is set. Time to go take care of business.

Heading to the state tournament Looks like he finished with 33. Had 31 through 3. Dude is elite

21 points at halftime

Yeah

How is that not comparable? Tikhonenko would still be here if Bell hadn’t committed. But once he was that’s how Mccasland made room. That’s not true at all. It’s much more beneficial for him to transfer as a redshirt sophomore than as a true junior. Again, Alcindor had no other D1 offers. He wouldn’t be going D1 to D1, which is the only scenario where having that redshirt available would still benefit him. If we are to move on from him, redshirting this season allows him the option of going the JUCO route, which he would not be able to do as a true junior, and if he goes the D2/D3/NAIA route he is eligible immediately so this way he gets 3 more years there instead of 2. Plus, again, he was end of the bench and redshirting is a mutual decision. Mccasland was redshirting him the year before but after some injuries he asked Shakeem if he would be interested in burning his redshirt and Shakeem came to the mutual decision that he wanted to do so and try and take some of the available minutes. But he ended up only playing in 5 games despite us being extremely short-handed at times throughout the season. This year, with no one else redshirting on the roster, the decision to redshirt was likely just as much his as it was the coaching staff’s.

He doesn’t need to raise his recruiting in the JUCO ranks. Just keep getting guys like he did last class to add to what he already has. But now he has more recruiting ammo with the success of this season. He absolutely can get better players than when he first got here, or even after his first season here when he took some marginal signees that have really added nothing these past two seasons and were never impressive recruits to begin with. He dumped Tikhonenko once Bell committed and we needed to clear a spot for him. This season is going to make recruiting a whole lot easier and guys who are better than J Simmons, Mohamed, and Alcindor are going to want to come here. Question is do we make room for them. Because he was at the dead end of the bench and still had a redshirt year to take. Yeah, Jones is a better offensive player from day one than both Rose and Draper. But with Jackson and Wise being the only two guards returning from our bench, we need someone else who can score and shoot off the bench.

The post I was responding to seemed to imply that Mccasland learned to rest his starters from past situations. I was just pointing out that he didn’t rest his starters, from a minutes standpoint. Not dispute that Charlotte had an advantage.

But we did play our starters last night. All of our starters played 27 or more minutes including Hamlet playing 30 and Reese playing 34.

If we were to move on from J Simmons, Alcindor, and Mohamed that would bring us up to 5 open roster spots, in addition to Rubin Jones coming in. In previous years Mccasland has not always filled those spots with quality players and has reached on guys just to fill the roster. Coming off of a conference championship we shouldn’t need to reach anymore. The quality of players who will come here now should provide for clear upgrades to the guys currently on our bench, except for Bell. Look at the guys we signed right after the last two times we made the NCAA tournament. Immediately after the 2007 run we signed Josh White and Tristan Thompson, then in the fall after the 2010 tournament appearance we signed Chris Jones, Jordan Williams, Forrest Robinson, and landed Tony Mitchell. We should have similar momentum in recruiting now so we should be able to turn those spots into really good players.

If there is one takeaway from this game, it’s that no matter how great a season we have had, we absolutely have to improve our bench this offseason. Getting 4 starters and Bell back is great, but with Draper and Rose graduating, we will have just 5 guys from our 8-man rotation back and they’ll all likely be starters (assuming Bell starts). Mohamed, J Simmons, and Alcindor are complete non-factors and we need guys on our bench who we can turn to. We really don’t have that right now. Even some of our starters are hot and cold, like Gibson and Reese. It would be great if we had guys off our bench who could step up when they’re off, but we haven’t had that. It’s imperative that we capitalize off of our on-court success and turn that into recruiting momentum. And raise our standard for players we sign going forward. If Mccasland is only going to play guys who can shoot, we have to stop offering guys who can’t.

What do you believe? That Rose is about to snap out of his two-year-long funk as soon as he gets more minutes? Or that Draper needs more volume to get in a rhythm? He had six looks tonight. Opportunity is there for both of them. They aren’t going to get starter minutes because they shouldn’t.

Draper is 2-13 from deep over his last 6 games. Playing time isn’t the issue. He just isn’t hitting his shots. Same for Smart. He’s been a sub 30% shooter from three for two straight seasons. This isn’t a playing time issue.

He had 19 points yesterday, including some smooth-looking threes and a huge put-back dunk. Really excited about him. His offensive skills will be a huge boost to our bench.