Losing
Danuel House 74% minutes played
Alex Caruso 73%
Anthony Collins 63%
Jalen Jones 60%
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Total 108 mpg (out of 200)


Returning
Tyler Davis 55% minutes played
Admon Gilder 50%
DJ Hogg 45%
Tonny Trocha 43%
Tavario Miller 26%
Kobie Eubanks 2%
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Total 92 mpg (out of 200)


Newcomers
JJ Caldwell
Robert Williams
Grad transfer?
HS recruit?


In an ideal world, Tonny and the 3 Fab Fish all get around the 30 minute markso that's 120 mpg

In the front court, we're left with 10mpg at the 4 and 10mpg at the 5. Tavario has been a solid backup, so he should be able to give 10 minutes at either position. And Robert Williams should be able to contribute another 10 minutes. If either fails to meet those goals, we'll need a grad transfer that can provide 10-20 minutes.

30 Tyler
30 Tonny
10 Tavario
10 R. Williams


In the backcourt, best case scenario is Caldwell can handle 20-25 minutes right out the gate at the 1. But I still think we're short a player (or two).

30 Admon
30 Hogg
20 Caldwell
20 Eubanks
20 grad transfer?

Logan's latest and greatest guess on the radio yesterday was:

quote:

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Newcomers
JJ Caldwell
Robert Williams
Eric Vila (Spain HS recruit)
Grad transfer lead guard - someone who could start and/or at least be able to share major minutes with Caldwell.
A normal transfer - post player who has to sit out a year.

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If that is how it plays out, then you would have 11 guys on scholarship, 10 of whom were eligible to play in 2016-2017.

quote:

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Tonny and the 3 Fab Fish is also a decent band that plays 80s covers at your local dive bar on Wednesdays.

Also, my roster thoughts are pretty simple - Caldwell better be pretty damn good, or we better get a grad transfer that can ball, or things could get dicey real quick.

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First things first...Caldwell better qualify...and no I have heard or read nothing to indicate otherwise, just he did have to go the home school route this past year to get his school work in order so obviously I won't feel absolute 100% until he is enrolled in College Station.

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Tonny and the 3 Fab Fish is also a decent band that plays 80s covers at your local dive bar on Wednesdays.

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Saw them once. Good show. Admon's work on the bass for Super Freak is underrated.

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Also, my roster thoughts are pretty simple - Caldwell better be pretty damn good, or we better get a grad transfer that can ball, or things could get dicey real quick.

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Agree. It's the most important position on the court, get it figured out or we're probably an NIT team.

A ball handling guard at the very least is what we need. All of the above mentioned in OP plus a wing would be ideal to add to the roster.

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A ball handling guard at the very least is what we need. All of the above mentioned in OP plus a wing would be ideal to add to the roster.

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Vila may be your HS wing (sort of). From what I've read and brief highlights, he is a perimeter oriented 6'9" type...would need serious work from Darby (like Trocha did) and Logan's take on him was 'intrigued' by his skillset but skeptical how much he might be able to help as a fish because of S&C work needed to build up physically.

30 minutes from Tyler may be a pipe dream between foul trouble and health/stamina issues. He certainly could not have done it this year. Frankly, it's hard to imagine Tony going 30 either. These are big bodies that can only play well if fresh.

We're going from extremely deep and experienced to extremely thin and relatively inexperienced unless something good happens fast.

I'd say we're relatively experienced for an above average team.

Good thread with graphics. I can't wait to get Williams and Caldwell on campus. I look at both of them as every bit of the sure thing that Gilder seemed going into this season.

Bob is right, if Caldwell underperforms it can get dicey unless we land another shooting guard or small forward which would allow Gilder be the primary ball handler.

If everyone performs as expected and we don't have injuries or other attrition, I think this is a tournament team, even without any more additions.

Extremely thin is a massive exaggeration. Everybody in college basketball is going to have a 7, 8 or 9 man rotation. We already have a very solid 8 man rotation. 5 guys that are proven (Tyler, tonny, Hogg, admon and Miller) and three guys who we should feel pretty good about (Eubanks, Caldwell and Williams). If we get a grad transfer that would be a nine man rotation and who knows, we may get villa and he may be ready to contribute.

You can question how good we will be and whether the sophomores this year will be as good as the seniors last year.

But we aren't thin. Nor are we that inexperienced.

Extremely thin isn't accurate, but having Tavario Miller as the only senior and Tonny Trocha as the only junior on the roster is an abomination of program management.

Kennedy has done much better with a limited bench though, so perhaps it's all part of the master do-it-right strategy.

Do need another ball handler though. Gilder can play the 1, but that takes him out of the offense more than we need next year.

Well we will have a grad transfer so that will be two. But who cares how many seniors you have? You can't have a lot of seniors every year in basketball. It just doesn't work that way.

I don't see how any team with one senior and one junior, and the senior won't play over 10 minutes, can be call experienced. Talented yea, experienced, no.

Thin, well, most teams DO have 7, 8 or 9 man rotations. We have 9 PLAYERS right now, period. That will change (quality vs. quantity??), but as of this writing, we are extremely thin, AND relatively inexperienced. As far as roster management, should I mention ARob again? Of course not.

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30 minutes from Tyler may be a pipe dream between foul trouble and health/stamina issues. He certainly could not have done it this year. Frankly, it's hard to imagine Tony going 30 either. These are big bodies that can only play well if fresh.

We're going from extremely deep and experienced to extremely thin and relatively inexperienced unless something good happens fast.

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30 minutes is probably a bit high, but that should be the goal. Sean May was at 29 mpg his SO year, then back down to 27 his JR year. Would like to see Tyler in that same range.

quote:

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Logan's latest and greatest guess on the radio yesterday was:

quote:

---

Newcomers
JJ Caldwell
Robert Williams
Eric Vila (Spain HS recruit)
Grad transfer lead guard - someone who could start and/or at least be able to share major minutes with Caldwell.
A normal transfer - post player who has to sit out a year.

---

If that is how it plays out, then you would have 11 guys on scholarship, 10 of whom were eligible to play in 2016-2017.

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This makes no sense to me, and overall would be a pretty big disappointment from where we thought we were a month ago. Why would we want to take a transfer post player who can't play right away? Unless we believe we won't hold on to Robinson's commitment, by the time the transfer is ready to play, we will have Trocha (sr), Davis (junior), Williams (soph) and Robinson (fresh) as our post guys, along with Hogg who, IMO, can play the stretch four when needed, plus Villa who is a 3/4 player (and is essentially a normal transfer, because he is not going to be ready to play meaningful minutes next year).

Our immediate need for next year is some experience at guard (probably a combo guard that could play either position) and a wide body in the post. We need that RIGHT NOW. We can't survive next year with essentially 2 guys who can play down low (Trocha and Davis), we will get killed.

yeah a post player that has to sit out a year doesn't do much for me when looking at roster needs. We do have a ton of unused scholarships, so stashing a player for the following year isn't a bad thing. But i think this roster needs another front court rotation player ,unless Robert Williams is good to go and Trocha can handle 25-30 minutes per night....And we suffer zero injuries.

Agreed. I'm a bit concerned that we are going to suffer the same fate that teams have suffered at Kennedy's previous stops. That is, work 3-4 years to build a senior-laden team that then has a nice post-season run, but then falls off because the depth isn't there the following year. That might be OK at a small mid-major, but this run to the Sweet 16 shouldn't buy Kennedy immunity for the next couple of years. He needs to keep up the momentum and get us back to the tournament in 2016-2017.

We aren't going to have the heavy dose of at-home non-conference power opponents to boost our resume next year, so we are going to have to win some tough games on the road in OOC, and teams like MSST, Tennessee and Alabama should be improved in year 2 under new coaches, so the SEC schedule gets a little tougher.

I like where we are positioning ourselves as a team for the next 2-3 years, but we need to fill the major holes in next year's roster. Fans and the administration should deem a big step back next year as unacceptable, even if the long-term foundation is there. BK doesn't have the built-up credibility to be a one-time tourney star before falling back to earth.

We need post-grad help immediately.

I don't understand this idea that we will get killed in the post when all we lost is 6'6 jalen.

Right or wrong, I think Kennedy is playing with house money this year.

And I don't think he's intentionally passing on quality players that could help this year because he's focused on the future. Things just aren't going our way right now. If a quality graduate forward/center showed up to campus tomorrow, our staff would probably be more than happy to sign them.

And some/most of this conversation would be irrelevant if Alex and Elijah had even an ounce of patience.

I consider a rob an example of good roster management. You had a chance to upgrade. You did, knowing that you would lose a rob as a result. You won the sec and made the sweet 16. You don't miss a rob. You can pick up a player of that quality any time.

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I don't understand this idea that we will get killed in the post when all we lost is 6'6 jalen.

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Yes he was undersized, but he provided dependable minutes and was one of the best defensive rebounders in the SEC. He also provided low post scoring and generated a ton of FT attempts

Tavario is another good defensive rebounder, but Tonny and Tyler need work in that area. And we don't know how any of those guys will handle increased minutes - and minutes against higher quality players in Tonny's case.

quote:

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I consider a rob an example of good roster management. You had a chance to upgrade. You did, knowing that you would lose a rob as a result. You won the sec and made the sweet 16. You don't miss a rob. You can pick up a player of that quality any time.

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Oh yeah, our history is littered with picking up top 60 point guards left and right...

"Getting killed" was certainly an exaggeration on my part, but what does Jalen's actual height have to do with anything? He was a post player that averaged 15.3 ppg and 7.2 rbs per game. He was also a super aggressive rebounder, playing much more aggressive down low than his height. He also had a lot of issues to his game, but I'll take a player like Jalen on my team all day every day.

We also lose 6-7 House and 6-5 Caruso. Not post players at all, but that is size. So not only do we not really have a replacement for Jones (an aggressive, down low post player who can rebound and score), but we don't really have any size at all replacing House and Caruso, who averaged 4.8 and 3.6 rebounds per game, respectively. That's almost 16 rebounds per game between the three of them that we should be attempting to replace with sophomores and juniors on the roster. Only, we recruited (or couldn't keep) size so badly in the 2014 and 2013 classes that we only have one guy from those two classes combined who can play meaningful minutes for us (Trocha). Having Thomas would have helped too, but that's out the window as well.

I don't see how you can look at our post position - Davis, Trocha, Miller, Williams - and think "yeah, we will be fine there." How so? Are we suddenly going to have these great wing players that are going to score 15+ points per game or a steely-eyed veteran point guard? No. We've got sophomores on the wing and a true fish a point guard.

At least last year, when Jones or Davis picked up two fouls, we were OK. Now, what happens when Davis picks up two early fouls? Tavario Miller plays 14 straight minutes? We go small and move Hogg to the 4? Then who plays the 3?

We need another post player who can play immediately. A grad transfer with one year would be PERFECT. He would bridge the game to 2017-2018, when our post depth/skill will be much, much better.

quote:

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I consider a rob an example of good roster management. You had a chance to upgrade. You did, knowing that you would lose a rob as a result. You won the sec and made the sweet 16. You don't miss a rob. You can pick up a player of that quality any time.

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For the first couple of months last season, I would have agreed with you.

But by the end of the year, Collins had become almost a liability and now we're having trouble landing a guard to stick in the rotation. Very happy with how last year turned out, though.

That was probably unnecessarily snarky, but my point is that ARob was really highly rated and didn't work out (which is sort of the running theme of our point guard position over the last decade or so)

Either our evaluating sucks or we've had some coaches who don't develop points very well.

quote:

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That was probably unnecessarily snarky, but my point is that ARob was really highly rated and didn't work out (which is sort of the running theme of our point guard position over the last decade or so)

Either our evaluating sucks or we've had some coaches who don't develop points very well.

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I think all three of the most recent "misses" could have been good guards here as upperclassmen if they had stayed the course and kept their heads on straight. Hard to develop a guy that much when he's gone after a year or a year and month.

quote:

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I think some of you have a football mentality for roster management. Recruit lots of good players every year so you have consistent depth and a pipeline of talent at each position.

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Ehh. I would say it's more: Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4...each year our underachievement was blamed (in large part) on a lack of depth at position X or position Y. In year 5, everything came together and we experienced great success.

Is year 6 going to be a continuation of Year 5? Or are we back to a thin roster with no room for error?

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My counter would be, what team do you look at around the conference and think they're in a better situation in the front court than we are?

Tyler Davis is probably the best returning big man in the league (though Kingsley might come back) and Trocha was making some big strides by the end of the year.

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I get what you're saying, but the conference sucks. Hopefully we are holding ourselves to higher standards.

Yeah but when that's happened three times (Branch, Reese, Robinson) it's a not great trend. I know it was different coaching staffs doing the evals/development, but still.

I think we might just be cursed at point guard. It's like linebacker on our football team. We can throw all the highly rated bodies we want in there and it seems like in the middle of each season we're hoping a true freshman, walk on or someone playing out of position can give us some snaps.

quote:

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quote:

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I don't see how you can look at our post position (...) and think "yeah, we will be fine there."

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My counter would be, what team do you look at around the conference and think they're in a better situation in the front court than we are?

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Lots of news happening with the other SEC teams, in terms of guys transferring or declaring for NBA and what not.

Mizzou had another guy transfer out this week (Gant) who was the tallest guy on their team and officially Kim Anderson now no longer has any of the 4 guys that he signed before his first season 2 years ago remaining on the roster.

Lots of other comings and goings of players elsewhere in SEC but hard to keep track of them all. We are in the midst of the 'free agency' period right now with hundreds of transfers out there.