Corks isn’t afraid to let it fly. At the very least, he’ll push the guys ahead of him to make shots in the early going next year… if they can’t put it in the hole then he will be seeing time on the floor.
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“Corks” I really like that. That’s my new name for him.
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Tape is a 6-10 big man who’s sitting out this season. I get why UVA would reach out. But if he’s moving forward now it’s not happening. Would be only an if we lost someone scenario here.
Columbia grad transfer Patrick Tape has scheduled a visit to Syracuse for Feb. 28 and is also looking at visiting Maryland on Feb. 15, he told ESPN.
— Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) January 16, 2020
USC, Georgetown, Ohio State, UCLA, Gonzaga, Arizona, Virginia, Notre Dame also in contact.
11.3 PPG, 5.9 RPG last season.
They have had some contact with prized Harvard grad transfer SF/PF Seth Towns. The line for him is LONG though. Most people expect him to choose a school close to home in the midwest.
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So we are still in the game for possibly one more 2020 addition? I know we have one more scholarship we could offer with Francesco Badocchi leaving. If we were to pick up another player, what do you guys think the coaches mindset is? Take the best player we can get? or target a particular position where there is the most need? Also, Im guessing we have to be careful that an extra 2020 recruit doesnt add competition for a 2021 target. One thing Im slowly learning is recruiting is more complex than I originally thought.
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I think the Spring is going to be much more active than it appeared a few months ago. Look, we now know what we have in Kody and Tomas and it wouldn’t surprise me if they look haaaaard at a grand transfer wing (See Seth Towns). We really need a ‘3’ 6’5-6’7 that can shoot, drive and defend. Yes, JAR is that guy but he is a first year. A lot of unknows. We don’t know what Caseys progression curve is going to look like, we don’t know how ready Carson and Reece will be (see Casey). We know CTB likes to play 3 (high level) guard/wing types combos. Ty, Kyle, Devon or Ty Kyle Dre or Ty Kyle Kihei etc. As of this writing our roster includes exactly one of those, Kihei. We all assume Casey will get there, I assume Kody and Tomas will not, and the 3 incomings will get there, but WHEN? Next year? So despite the crowed roster a case can certainly be made and your rotation could look like:
1-3: Kihei, Casey, Grad Trans, JAR, Reece OR Carson. ideally you want 5 guys for those 3 spots of mins.
4-5. Sam, Justin, Jay, Papi OR Kadin. Really 3 guys for those mins
And there is your 8 man rotation CTB prefers
So yes it would mildly surprise we if we didn’t hunt a big guard/wing very hard. . Then again it surprised me that we didn’t bring in another 1-2 this year……..Transfer only, not another recruit. We need the 21 class to be close to par with the 20 class.
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Is there any chance that, similar to Dre last year, Sam will be able to play some 3 / wing minutes despite being preferably used as a 4? I wouldn’t expect his athletic ability to compare to Dre, but if his shooting and lateral movement is playable as a 3 for 6-10 mpg then it may alleviate some of the guard or wing concerns.
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Tony seems to be in a pickle. We obviously need another proven guard but Efton possibly reclassifying to 2020 seems to be throwing things off. Efton is the top priority so it would be hard not for Tony to take him in 2020. Theres a chance of a transfer at the end of the year but it seems it would be a bit late for grad transfers. So I wonder if Tony is not recruiting Grad transfers hard right now because of Efton not announcing about him coming to 2020. It will be interesting to see how Tony plays his cards.
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That’s not a pickle. It’s a dream scenario.
Efton Reid joins in 2020, and you’ve got a rockstar class Reid, Beekman, Abdur-Rahim, and McCorkle. That’s not a Kentucky or Duke-level class, but it’s close. And the huge difference between them and a Duke class? They don’t all have to start immediately, and they’ll all stay for more than a year (or at least until they win another NC). And they’ll have a year with the steadying influence of Clark, Huff, and Hauser, et al, while they ease into things.
I can’t imagine a better result.
And then 2021 recruiting is all about selecting the very best players, not filling holes.
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Still wonder how advanced the 2020 talk is with Efton, wonder if he’d want to come in with a RS plan? I find it hard to believe we’d have/want 4 5’s on the roster. Jay, Papi, Kadin and him, none of which could slid down to the 4. Maybe one moves on in the Spring making it plausible but the best thing for us is Kadin blows up next year and Efton comes in 21.
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Efton won’t redshirt. It does create a logjam at the five in 2020, but it’s a nice problem to have.
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Obviously it would be nice to get Efton in 2020 but that would not be a dream scenario. A dream scenario would be Seth towns committing and then a spot opens up and we take Efton in the 2020 class. lol But I would honestly prefer Seth towns (who we have contacted as did many others) over Efton in 2020. Guard/wing play is a lot more important plus Seth could play the 4 if need be even Hauser could steal some minutes. But the buzz around him is possibly ending up at Ohio State since he’s from Columbus.
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Your both wrong, the dream scenario is we get Towns or someone similar for a year and Efton waits til 21 and comes with Holmes and Keels/Watson 
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Wait… you’d take Seth Towns over Efton Freakin’ Reid?
Look, Towns is good, and he’s the hottest commodity in the transfer portal because he’s a former Ivy League player-of-the-year who scored 16 per game as a three-point-shooting slashing forward, but don’t forget he’s missed the last season-and-a-half to knee injuries. And, don’t get me wrong – he’s good, he scored 25 on Kentucky – but averaging 16 points in the Ivy League is NOT THE SAME as averaging 16 in the ACC.
I’d love to land Towns (especially as a grad transfer with two years of eligibility remaining). If the knee is healthy, pencil him in as a starter. Imagine Clark, Towns, Hauser, Abdur-Rahim, and Huff. That’s just nasty.
But I still wouldn’t take him over Reid.
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Kadin will play more at the 4 than the 5 IMO.
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It was a dream scenario where we land both. Grad transfers tend to decided quicker and thats why I said him first. Obviously if we could only take one we would take Efton and take our chances with the guard play. But honestly who would be more beneficial for the 20-21 team Seth but in the long run Efton would be more beneficial.
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“Dude read”?
The “dream scenario” premise was Efton Reid reclassifying into 2020 (from Wahoowa12’s post). There’s only one scholarship currently available in 2020. So it is either/or in 2020.
Now, maybe you meant to speculate that we’ll lose someone who transfers out, and therefore have two scholarships available. In that case, “Dude, write”. 'Cuz you didn’t say that.
If, however, you’re just ignoring the premise, then my new dream scenario is that DeAndre Hunter is granted a waiver to come back and play the second half of the season for us this year.
Definitely possible. It’s what they originally recruited him as back in '16 and he was essentially the starting 3 at Marquette last year, although most of his minutes were really as a 4.
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This could turn out to be true. It all depends on how the roster ends up built around him. I have real concerns about the recruiting path they’re on, in terms of roster construction. Anyone that talks to me privately already knows where I’m going, I’ve voiced it a lot. So I might as well do it here too.
I think they’ve battled a little bit with how to adapt to the small ball era. They’ve seemed to settle on an all of the above approach. We talk a lot about big vs small lineups, but really there are 3 variations. Jumbo, normal, and small. Other teams go one direction, either only jumbo and normal, or normal and small.
Bennett is trying to collect all these various pieces that he can then match up with any lineup. At the 4 for example Shedrick is the jumbo, McKoy the normal, and Jabri the small. With Shed playing some 5, and Jabri mostly used as a guard. I think the hope is they can find special “normal” 4s like Holmes that could theoretically punish teams who go either jumbo or small.
I have two worries with that. First I just think you’re better off today with 4 guys that are a threat to do something off the bounce, like Hunter or Key at the 4. They have forward size but were guards coming up and defended guards unlike McKoy and Holmes. Along the same line, I worry they’re using too much roster space on what’s not even 2 spots on the floor. It’s bound to result in unhappy players.
Personally I’d rather see them space out the bigs more. In '21 get only one of a center (Efton) or a normal 4 (Holmes) and use the other spot on another 6’6+ guard who can occasionally slide down to the 4. Then come back for another big in '22.
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Agree and simply put we don’t have enough (high level) I’ll call them guard wings on the roster or in the pipeline. Think Justin, Devin, Dre, Brax,JAR. Big guards that can shoot drive and defend 2-4. Tomas and Kody fall into that slotting but are nowhere near what we need. With Brax leaving JAR will be the only high level player in this slot. I’d argue we need 2, every year. Which is why I mentioned pushing for a grad trans one of these next year.
I think HNG has it right that ideally in 21 we’d get a big then two of those hybrid type players.
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I agree with @Foresthoo. We are losing 2 players after this season. Who is going to replace them is the first question, and honestly JAR, Beekman, and McCorkle does not fully replace either Graduating senior. Im going to really miss Mamadi, but we already have an experience player in Hauser lined up as his replacement…But who takes the place of Brax? Plus with our outside shooting issues being our biggest worry this year, we could really use a good shooter who is an experienced small forward or large shooting guard. We do have JAR, a inexperience 1st year. Also he’s 6’5" vs. Brax who is 6’8" and likely a more versatile defender. So it seems like a 6’6" to 6"8" who can knock down the 3 ball should be our top target. Basically Im repeating what @Foresthoo said. I assume our couching staff was not expecting us to have the 5th worst 3 point shooting % in the NCAA. As you said earlier @Foresthoo, perhaps this spring might be more active than it appeared a few month ago since none of our new players have came close to filling the shoes of the Ty Guy, and Dre, .