Holes/weaknesses going into this season?

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GE
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OTHER THAN COACHING. That's been discussed to death and I find it boring.

I'm convinced this is the deepest, most talented and most well-rounded roster we have had since I began following Aggie basketball.

Best C/PF combo in school history, one of the best shooting guards in school history, and highly rated guys staffing and backing up all the other positions.

That being said, what do you guys see as the roster deficiencies heading inro next season?

Here are my potential concerns:

1. Three point shooting - our only reliable and consistent outside shooter last season was Gilder. Hopefully Hogg or one of the new guys steps up and shows some consistency and is actually able to stretch the defense

2. Youth at PG. A&M is the poster child for schools recruiting highly ranked PGs that don't live up to the hype as fish. Especially on defense.

3. Style of play. It looks like we have the athleticism at guard and forward to fast break a ton and push the pace of the game, but one of our best players and team leaders in Davis doesn't really fit that style. Going to take some work to figure out the best style of play for us.

Happy Easter!
zooguy96
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Getting to the basket off the dribble.. We've got to find some guys that can consistently get to the basket and draw fouls. We severely lacked that this year.

Jalen and Danuel House (and even Caruso to an extent) were very good at that.
Method Man
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Great post. Not much to add.
txag72
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Being able to win the close games (shooting FT's a big question still), but more than that is just having the confidence in the last 8-10 minutes to put teams away and keep them kept.
Pumpkinhead
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I expect our defensive efficiency to finish at least Top-25-ish in the country next season. We finished ranked #9 in the country in 2015-2016 but then slipped to #54 nationally last year, which wasn't bad, but wasn't nearly good enough to overcome the issues on the offense end of the court.

But next season, I expect that we'll go back to playing a defensive style that the coaching staff is much more comfortable with (lots more man-to-man), due to the significant increase in available athletes on the perimeter, having one of the best help side rim protectors in the country in Williams, plus we even added a grad transfer from Marquette whom the coaches/players/media up there considered the best on-ball defender last season on their NCAA team.

I think they will be able to earn their way into the NCAA tournament on the defensive play alone, being somewhere from a very good to elite defensive team.

My concerns are, simply put, going to be on the offensive end. How efficient we are in terms of offense efficiency (including not turning over the ball a ton) will be the primary factor IMO that determines how good an NCAA seed we get and how deep a run that we ultimately make.
mallen
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Well, the biggest weakness this past season was turnovers, especially from Hogg, Davis, and Gilder. So that must be cleaned up going into this season. If that does get cleaned up the Aggies will be a nationally ranked basketball team for most of the season.
Wicked Good Ag
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First step. Both offense and defense
Method Man
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mallen said:

Well, the biggest weakness this past season was turnovers, especially from Hogg, Davis, and Gilder. So that must be cleaned up going into this season. If that does get cleaned up the Aggies will be a nationally ranked basketball team for most of the season.


Luckily we have some freshman PGs to come in and take care of the ball.
PatAg
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Youth at PG is the biggest worry for me. Caldwell isnt a true fish, imo, since he has at least been with the program. We'll see how quickly they adjust .,


I think because we all expected/hoped for Hogg to be shooting in the.400's there is this perception that he couldnt shoot last year as evidenced in the OP. Gilder shot .377 and Hogg shot .367. Possibly his horrendous FT shooting adds to that, which he has got to find a way to be more consistent there.
GE
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PatAg said:

Youth at PG is the biggest worry for me. Caldwell isnt a true fish, imo, since he has at least been with the program. We'll see how quickly they adjust .,


I think because we all expected/hoped for Hogg to be shooting in the.400's there is this perception that he couldnt shoot last year as evidenced in the OP. Gilder shot .377 and Hogg shot .367. Possibly his horrendous FT shooting adds to that, which he has got to find a way to be more consistent there.
My issue with Hogg, which may be more perception than reality, is that he seemed to be very streaky. Didn't get that same vibe with Gilder. I may look into that a little more and see if I can put numbers to it
rainag78
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davis better be under the basket starting the fast break. If he never even gets there for a layup it is ok. If they get stopped then they can set up for an interior play. It is not optimal for us to have young PGs but gilder and the transfer can help with the transition. at least caldwell is familiar with everything and has had a year to get up to speed.
rainag78
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hogg needs to be in the gym shooting 500 balls a day and 500 free throws. The rest of his game is not going to work unless he can hit his long shots and free throws.
bobinator
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GE said:

1. Three point shooting - our only reliable and consistent outside shooter last season was Gilder. Hopefully Hogg or one of the new guys steps up and shows some consistency and is actually able to stretch the defense

2. Youth at PG. A&M is the poster child for schools recruiting highly ranked PGs that don't live up to the hype as fish. Especially on defense.

3. Style of play. It looks like we have the athleticism at guard and forward to fast break a ton and push the pace of the game, but one of our best players and team leaders in Davis doesn't really fit that style. Going to take some work to figure out the best style of play for us.
I agree with all of this. We were absolutely horrible at three point shooting this year for a few different reasons, but shooting is something you can't usually really project until guys step on the court. A kid might be a great shooter in high school but has a harder time getting space at the college level or something so this is a big concern going in.

I think youth at PG would worry me more if we didn't play all of last season without one. As in, yeah, I wish we had more experience at this position, but just having actual options is so much better than last year that I'm not too worried about.

But #3 might be my chief concern as far as the difference between us being pretty good and us being really good. Can Kennedy use the two months of non-conference to find a consistent style on both ends of the court. We seem to waste a lot of time experimenting with things that we're never actually going to run in games that matter. Like that 1-3-1 halfcourt experiment this year. It's not a bad idea, but we dedicated too much time to it for it to not be utilized more I think.

I think we're going to be a little bit like some NBA teams have recently where we really have two styles of play, but that's a thing you have to develop deliberately over the offseason and in non-conference games. We're going to have a half-court-at-a-time lineup and a run-and-gun lineup, but actually doing that well is extremely difficult. A lot of times teams end up being not particularly good at either one instead of just sticking with one and being really good at it.

I would add a fourth thing though, even though it sort of ties in with the last one, and it's us not developing the things we need to develop in non-conference play and it coming back to bite us in league play. We're going to be so physically overwhelming to most of our non-conference opponents that I worry we won't have to play disciplined basketball to blow them out, and then that could haunt us later down the line especially if one of our veterans has an injury or something and we have to play a guy more than anticipated and we didn't develop him enough early in the season.

TL;DR version: Agree with the OP, but almost wonder if we're going to be too talented for our own good in the early part of the season
GE
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That last one is a great point. I felt like this past season particularly we were still trying to find the right rotations towards the end of conference play and it never really came together.
Pumpkinhead
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The staff will be able to put out a veteran lineup like this one:

Wilson (5th year senior)
Gilder (junior)
Hogg (junior) or Trocha (senior)
Williams (sophomore)
Davis (junior)

To compensate for growing pains with the fish. though I think the starting lineup to play WVU next season will probably be:

Caldwell (redshirt freshman)
Gilder (junior)
Hogg (junior)
Williams (soph)
Davis (junior)
mdanyc03
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I think our potential weakness is 3 point shooting but that depends a lot on how much Hogg and Tonny and others improve. Doesn't have to be a weakness.

Besides that, rather than weaknesses I think the question is rather "how good." Will Robert Williams be second team all SEC again or will he be an All American? Will JJ be a competent point guard or will he be first team all conference? So on an so on. The range of possible outcomes are, in my mind, all the way from NIT to a two seed and will be dictated by things like that.

I think the style of play and Tyler Davis discussion is an interesting one. He could actually be very, very productive as a "secondary break" guy. What he does best is that quick seal early in the possession. The deeper into the possession we go, the less effective he is usually. He doesn't have to beat everybody down the floor and catch and alley oop. But if we have defenders that have to peel off to pick up three point shooter and penetrators and potential alley oop options to Flagg and Robert, then he can be very effective with a little space, making a quick seal and finishing before the defense gets 100% set. But of course that is a question of execution so we will see.
CapCityAg89
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My greatest concern - and it's really to be great rather than just a tourney team (I think the pieces are there for that): who is "the guy". Two years ago we really had two in Danuel and Jalen. Guys that could take over and get 6-8 in the last "quarter" to win. Creator, scorer, leader. It felt like that was TD last year and I just done know if that can be a post guy in college. A non-point Guilder is probably the best bet. Flagg maybe, but a fish leader would mean he was one and done.
GE
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CapCityAg89 said:

My greatest concern - and it's really to be great rather than just a tourney team (I think the pieces are there for that): who is "the guy". Two years ago we really had two in Danuel and Jalen. Guys that could take over and get 6-8 in the last "quarter" to win. Creator, scorer, leader. It felt like that was TD last year and I just done know if that can be a post guy in college. A non-point Guilder is probably the best bet. Flagg maybe, but a fish leader would mean he was one and done.
I think Williams is that guy for sure.
sleepybeagle
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Point guard - can we fill the lack of floor leadership?

Having a leader on the floor will:
1) improve shooting percentage
2) reduce turn-overs
3) improve communication and overall team play
bobinator
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GE said:

CapCityAg89 said:

My greatest concern - and it's really to be great rather than just a tourney team (I think the pieces are there for that): who is "the guy". Two years ago we really had two in Danuel and Jalen. Guys that could take over and get 6-8 in the last "quarter" to win. Creator, scorer, leader. It felt like that was TD last year and I just done know if that can be a post guy in college. A non-point Guilder is probably the best bet. Flagg maybe, but a fish leader would mean he was one and done.
I think Williams is that guy for sure.
Williams is going to have to improve quite a bit to be "that guy" to me because he's not really a creator on offense. Like... he doesn't create the play, he makes the play. Lobs, putbacks, offensive-boards, etc. He doesn't do a whole lot of "give him the ball and let him work" type stuff.

Also, Caruso's ability to set the stage down the stretch on offense is really underrated. He might not have been the guy that actually hit the shot, but his ability to get everyone into the right spots was crucial.

I think "the guy" thing is overrated anyway though. Obviously if you have an all-world penetrating guard then you use him, but if you don't, then you just run stuff that gives you options and mismatches.
bobinator
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mdanyc03 said:

I think the style of play and Tyler Davis discussion is an interesting one. He could actually be very, very productive as a "secondary break" guy. What he does best is that quick seal early in the possession. The deeper into the possession we go, the less effective he is usually. He doesn't have to beat everybody down the floor and catch and alley oop. But if we have defenders that have to peel off to pick up three point shooter and penetrators and potential alley oop options to Flagg and Robert, then he can be very effective with a little space, making a quick seal and finishing before the defense gets 100% set. But of course that is a question of execution so we will see.

Yeah, I mean part of the conversation on Tyler Davis is clouded because of who he had to be this year. We had zero ability to penetrate and we sucked at three point shooting so teams could use all kinds of defensive schemes to get help on Davis.

If they can't do that, then I honestly think we'll see a Tyler Davis that might be an All-American caliber player. Almost nobody can guard him one on one in the low block but last year we had problems getting him in one-on-one situations, and when he was in them it was usually because he had drifted out away from the lane so he wasn't in a good position. If defenses have to actually guard all five players on the court, then Davis is going to crush people.

I could see us using Davis to pound teams for stretches, then when Davis is out we run them to death to tire them out, and then put Davis back in to keep pounding on them. VERY few teams are going to have the depth to handle that (again... if we're good at it.)
GrayMatter
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Pumpkinhead said:

I expect our defensive efficiency to finish at least Top-25-ish in the country next season. We finished ranked #9 in the country in 2015-2016 but then slipped to #54 nationally last year, which wasn't bad, but wasn't nearly good enough to overcome the issues on the offense end of the court.

But next season, I expect that we'll go back to playing a defensive style that the coaching staff is much more comfortable with (lots more man-to-man), due to the significant increase in available athletes on the perimeter, having one of the best help side rim protectors in the country in Williams, plus we even added a grad transfer from Marquette whom the coaches/players/media up there considered the best on-ball defender last season on their NCAA team.

I think they will be able to earn their way into the NCAA tournament on the defensive play alone, being somewhere from a very good to elite defensive team.

My concerns are, simply put, going to be on the offensive end. How efficient we are in terms of offense efficiency (including not turning over the ball a ton) will be the primary factor IMO that determines how good an NCAA seed we get and how deep a run that we ultimately make.
Two things I thought about when I read your post:

1) I really hope that with our depth we don't play 2-3 zone exclusively. I don't think it really worked and it slowed down the game too much that it hurt us. Also, I hope with our added depth we start applying full court pressure on people. With our personnel and the fact that we can put Williams at the 5, we will have the ability to turn it on and off when we're going through a scoring drought or when we're trying to come back when we're down.

2) Creating turnovers. I think we were good at playing defense but we weren't as good creating turnovers off of steals. We're getting them through blocks, but not so much from playing team ball in between the gaps. I also hope that we can defend screens better; it seems like teams really took advantage of us because our guys were going under the screener or get caught up in the screen that the roll to the basket was open too many times. I'm a big proponent of capitalizing on turnovers and scoring buckets which will effectively helping us in the offensive end.
jeffdjohnson
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Floor spacing could be a problem. Playing Davis and Williams together at the same time might not be a great fit. It would be a good idea to stagger their minutes. 10 with only Williams. 10 with only Davis. 20 together. Always have one on the court. I hope Davis can continue to develop a reliable jump shot. That is a weakness if he can't.

They both play close to the rim which can allow opponents to pack the paint, choking the offense. Hogg, Gilder and Caldwell need to all be in the high 30%, low 40% range from 3 next year to mitigate it. Could be the team's biggest flaw.

I hope we run a lot of Caldwell/Williams pick and roll, with Williams attacking the rim. Unfortunately, Kennedy coaches like it is still 1997 so I am afraid we will see more "inside-out" offense (i.e. everyone stand around and watch).
GrayMatter
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I wouldn't call it a weakness or a hole but a concern of mine is team chemistry. A few of you have alluded to it, but that is probably the biggest question mark for me.

I'm pretty sure all the guys get along pretty well off the court; that seems to be even be one of the key reasons why Williams stayed. However we seemed to be too unselfish at times and that cost us some turnovers. Who's going to take it upon himself to be aggressive and score when we are on a scoring drought? And how is the rest of the team going to react when you have a few guys getting heavy minutes because they're playing well?

With so many new faces it's easy to say that we're talented and we'll overcome anything, but I'm not sure we will go far unless we have an established team where everybody knows their role and are happy with it.

No team is perfect; every team has its flaws. With the amount of talent that we're going to have, how will our staff put the pieces together? I know we're kind of excluding coaching for this discussion, but I'm starting to wonder if that will be our "X factor" next season. And the reason for that line of thinking is because it seems, on paper, that we will field one of the most talented teams that we've ever had.
Hop
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On paper, I don't see any weaknesses other than free throw shooting.

As far as the translation from talent on paper to court performance here's what the team needs to prove they can do:

1) perimeter shooting....primarily DJ Hogg because he has the potential to be that go-to sharpshooter but he needs to be more consistent and get to 40% from 3. We know Gilder can be a high 30's guy, and Starks/Chandler were good outside shots in high school.

2). Caldwell playing within the system...through his high school career Caldwell has received attention and accolades because of his spectacular plays...using his court vision on no-look passes and threading the needle on "how did he do that" type of plays. In college with this talent, he doesn't need to rely on those plays and take those risks. He'll need to use his skills and creativity to execute the offense and not over-extend himself that will cause turnovers.

Those are really my only "concerns". I think everything else will be handled by depth and competition.

bobinator
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Hop said:

competition.
This is an underrated part of why we should be a lot better. I've criticized the staff plenty for getting us into the roster situation we were in last year, so it's their fault that we were in the situation, and that can't be forgotten. But think of it like packing for a camping trip. Once you're actually out in the woods, it doesn't do any good to keep complaining about forgetting something. Yeah, it's still your fault you forgot it, but you have to make do with what you have now.

Getting any sort of work done with perimeter players had to be next to impossible in practice. There's just no way to simulate, with any even remote amount of quality, what defenses were going to try and do to slow us down, so we couldn't really work on it except in games. There's all sorts of coaching gimmicks that you can use, but there's simply no replacing having good competition across the board.

I don't think it's an accident that Gilder and Hampton both starting playing better once Caldwell started practicing.
bobinator
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AggieBaller98 said:


1) I really hope that with our depth we don't play 2-3 zone exclusively. I don't think it really worked and it slowed down the game too much that it hurt us. Also, I hope with our added depth we start applying full court pressure on people. With our personnel and the fact that we can put Williams at the 5, we will have the ability to turn it on and off when we're going through a scoring drought or when we're trying to come back when we're down.
We should only play zone if we're pressing or for maybe a random possession here or three to throw off the other team. We don't need it, and more importantly, based on last year, it looks like we suck at fundamentally coaching it so any time spent in practice working on half-court zones seems like wasted time to me.

When we've had talent, we've been really good defensively under Kennedy almost exclusively in man-to-man, no reason to go away from what you're good at.
---

Like Hop said though, it's hard right not to find many "concerns" because we don't know what the young players are going to struggle with yet.

But on a more "off the court" note, I'm concerned about our home schedule. We might have the best team we've ever had and every marquee non-con game we know about is out-of-state. Hell one of them is halfway around the world.
halfastros81
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Overall guard depth is a concern until proven otherwise imho.
Pumpkinhead
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halfastros81 said:

Overall guard depth is a concern until proven otherwise imho.


The fact that we are going to be significantly deeper and more talented on the perimeter is not even a question IMO. If you go to the Maroon & White pre-season interteam scrimmage, I think it is likely neither Chris Collins or Chase Carlton will be a starter on either the Maroon or White teams. Those guys will probably be primarily third team practice guys on next year's squad.

We started last season with our available guards being Gilder, Hampton, Collins (walk-on who got a 1 year scholly), Carlton (walk-on), and Caleb Smith (unranked freshman recruit).

Caldwell was in school but ineligible to even practice. Kobe Eubanks was still trying to rehab from the leg surgery stuff when the season started.

Next season, assuming no summer injuries, we will have these guys available for Game #1:

Gilder, Wilson, Caldwell, Starks, Chandler, Collins, Carlton.

Nobody in their right mind would prefer last season's guard talent to this seasons.
PatAg
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Really looking forward to use utilizing our full court press more next year too. We'll have more depth and be more athletic, and it was already effective.
I don't want to do it all game like old Mizzou did or west virginia, but we should definitely situationallyrics do it 3-4 times a game imo
bobinator
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PatAg said:

Really looking forward to use utilizing our full court press more next year too. We'll have more depth and be more athletic, and it was already effective.
I don't want to do it all game like old Mizzou did or west virginia, but we should definitely situationallyrics do it 3-4 times a game imo
I'd more or less do it after any made basket when Davis is out of the game.
wacarnolds
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Quote:

Nobody in their right mind would prefer last season's guard talent to this seasons.
You seem to be misrepresenting the poster's statement. Yes, this year's roster is much deeper and more talented, but that doesn't mean anything at this point, as the new guys have not proven how good they are.
wacarnolds
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bobinator said:

PatAg said:

Really looking forward to use utilizing our full court press more next year too. We'll have more depth and be more athletic, and it was already effective.
I don't want to do it all game like old Mizzou did or west virginia, but we should definitely situationallyrics do it 3-4 times a game imo
I'd more or less do it after any made basket when Davis is out of the game.
I think the full court press should be used more, but it's also prone to giving up easy buckets, so I'd caution against over-doing it. And in theory, our half-court defense should be pretty stout, so we shouldn't have to resort to full-court press to generate stops.
bobinator
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I don't anticipate Davis being out of close games for all that long, but frankly, I'm okay with giving up some easy baskets from time to time if it keeps the game fast while Davis is out.

To be 100% honest, I don't have much faith that we're going to be exceptionally well coached at fundamental basketball, so I think one way we could really make up for it is to really out-depth most teams and push the tempo of the game as much as possible when Davis is sitting.

For one, it will make their bigs that much more tired when Davis comes back in, and two, Williams is awesome when the game is wide open. Also our young guards will probably be better in the open court than they are at halfcourt sets.
Pumpkinhead
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wacarnolds said:

Quote:

Nobody in their right mind would prefer last season's guard talent to this seasons.
You seem to be misrepresenting the poster's statement. Yes, this year's roster is much deeper and more talented, but that doesn't mean anything at this point, as the new guys have not proven how good they are.
My post wasn't intended to mean that I thought that poster was saying he preferred last season roster over this season, cause that is not what the poster said. Was throwing out a generalized completely unasked for opinion that if anyone did happen to think that, then they were being nutty.


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