Maybe we should introduce the brunette to some of the Creighton bball guys. It would only be fair. Great post, BTW.
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Hmmm…if only we had more than one of them, foul trouble might not be such an issue
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Do they though? If a player is only slated to play 15-20 min a game … for me there is no such thing as foul trouble. The only foul trouble for anyone that isn’t supposed to play starter minutes is when they get their 5th.
As an example - Shedrick fouled out 5 times in his career. All of them wins.
And he combined to shoot 21/25 FG’s (84%) in those games with 5 blocks and 4 steals.
And all against good teams, including 2 post-season games.
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Fouling is still bad, giving up free throws really helps the opposing teams efifciency especially when youre supposed to have a good defense.
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But being so scared to foul that you’re a turnstile on defense is bad too. Yes, ideally, you want a guy who defends hard and effectively without fouling. But absent that, I’d rather a guy who makes mistakes or commits fouls because he’s trying hard rather than a guy who just stands around to avoid drawing whistles.
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All day long. Dude shoots 84% from the field but but … he fouls too much??? Sheesh.
The only dudes I really care about how much they foul are the top 3 dudes on any given team. Like Ty against Auburn in 2019.
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I think I saw someone else sum it up as “Sitting a guy when they have two fouls is effectively doing what you are afraid of”. You are essentially fouling out the player yourself since both fouling out and sitting with two fouls remove you from impacting the game.
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I hope Minor embraces a bench role if that’s what he becomes. He could still have a lot of value for us. I like the idea of us trying to get as many minutes out of higher potential lineups as we can, as it raises our ceiling for this year, but there are going to be times where Blake is overwhelmed or Groves is a bad matchup, or going small isn’t working as we hoped. In those scenarios, it’s nice to have a 5th year veteran to turn to to help settle things down.
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I believe Dunn is our best rebounder since Akil. He has a nose for the ball and his added strength will allow him to win more 1 on 1 battles. I expect we’ll see a huge jump in his RPG. Even when we go “small” I think Dunn can help that lineup be competent on the glass.
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Just from memory, I’d put Key up there in the top rebounder category as well. Seemed to always find the ball when he was in.
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Devon Hall was a great rebounding guard
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Agree. Harm avoidance is a fine background mindset, but not ideal as a top of mind goal, mostly because you will never fully avoid the harms.
You don’t have to go too far down the UVa haunted game annals to see this. Turnover avoidance is fine, but you can’t avoid the eventuality where your 8th year senior PG commits a brain fart turnover in a pivotal moment. 2 foul avoidance is fine, but you can’t avoid the eventuality that both of your heady seniors commit dumb fouls early in the 1H earning them some pine time (a lot of pine time), when you really really could’ve used some vet leadership with your best player banged up.
IMO (but don’t listen because I’m just an idiot), Tony puts way too much emphasis on harm avoidance and way too little emphasis on harm counterbalancing (like, for example, letting your team play with more freedom so those sphincters don’t tighten up yet again in key games).
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Also it is much easier for a guard to avoid harm than a big to avoid harm
This is the way I would tweak it if I were a coach
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Guards get four fouls, bigs get six?!
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I think when you look at the step up in competition, it shouldn’t be too shocking. I was always a little skeptical on how he’d translate. Fully agree that Buchanan is going to be foul prone as all first year bigs are, but the more we get him on the floor early in the season, the better chance he has at figuring out how to stay on the floor by late in the season. I wouldn’t start him though, I think there’s a lot less pressure by using him off the bench.
Having Bond in the game along with the Dunn / Groves front line might help with the rebounding but it’s only viable if Bond has an adequate shot from the arc. Sounds like Dunn is going to have to don a cape with a big S on it for us this season.
I’m eagerly awaiting sketchy and questionable tidbits from our upcoming scrimmage with the twerp trash so I can selectively emphasize what validates my preconceived views of this team, which will turn out to be wrong as we get deep into the season. It’s like a tradition.
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Another good big for the Terps, but probably one who’s a better matchup for Minor:
Fair warning: this is bitter and snarky and dismissive, even by my standards. Here goes:
I mean, why was there difficulty in projecting how the blocks and OR’s of a relatively small, non-bouncy big who has been playing in the worst conference in the country would translate at the ACC level?
If only the staff had spent the last 2 years conducting a natural experiment on playing non-bouncy, relatively small, up-transfer bigs in the post at the ACC level, maybe they could have had a better clue…
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They were hoping. They knew it probably wasn’t likely. But there weren’t any other likely options, so it’s not like it would have changed any roster decisions.
We are a program that’s going to have to hope a bit in this new landscape most likely.
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You are onto something here.
I thought it was a fair statement and a logical statement. In defense of our staff, we weren’t the only P5 team hot after him as a transfer. A limited big is better than no big and that was what our staff was looking at in terms of options.
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