Baylor won the national championship with a 6’5 power forward in the starting lineup. Now Leon is more of true combo forward range because his value is on the defensive end, he’ll often be called upon to shut down guards. But in today’s game, a guy like Leon can defend the four spot the majority of the time. There aren’t many two big lineups out there anymore.
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People really do forget that we had Devon Hall play 4 at times during his career. TB isn’t afraid to go ridiculously small.
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Haha, fair. When I was watching his high school games, the three point shot definitely wasn’t there yet, but of course he’s been putting in work since then and we haven’t seen him play. I’d personally be surprised if he’s already a 35+% shooter at the college level, but obviously we’ll have to see. If he does already have the three point shot to a decent place, then he’ll be a monster.
Also reading through here this thread should come with a trigger warning to Fresh…the lack of Gertrude mentions! haha I’m in his camp…he’ll be hard to keep off the floor as the year goes on.
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Trust me. Fresh is keeping score here HGN
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Curious whose minutes you see him taking? Four guards with significant D-1 experience (Reece, Harris, iMac, and Rohde), to say nothing of a pair of former four stars at the 3 (Bond and Murray) with a year or two in the program already. Then you add the potential for missed-year rust. Only so many minutes to go around, and a lot of talented perimeter options chasing them.
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You will just have to wait and see. Only 2 guys mentioned there have secure minutes
Edit: the year of rust will work in Elijahs developmental favor
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I think the rotation will take a bit to get sorted out, always has with Bennett when he has lots of new players. In the end, I expect one of Gertrude or Harris to play a big role…and the other to get spot minutes. Harris better establish himself early because if there’s a window of opportunity for Gertrude as the year goes, he could end up the 4th guard playing heavy minutes.
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As of now Harris should be last among guards for minutes …it’s not just experience … it’s about fit with the guys who come first, second etc.
Reece is 1st and Isaac is 2nd. No ifs ands buts about that for me.
Harris does not fit with Reece on the floor. And Reece is likely to get 30 min or more.
Isaac can fit with any other guard. Gertrude fits nicely with Isaac and Rohde as well.
And no … being MVP of the Big East Tourney doesn’t mean anything when this is what he actually did in those 4 games:
less than 12 pts per game, 3.25 assists per game on 41% shooting and 25% 3 point shooting and then went 3/12 with 1 assist and 2 turnovers in the madness game.
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Hoo is your 3rd guard?
Which is kind of wild as he’ll be the starting pg next year…
This is not necessarily true…
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Oh I have little doubt Rohde plays a lot. Lock for the top 7, likely starter in the end. And to me that’s the reason Harris isn’t guaranteed to have a big role. In recent years, the other guards haven’t been reliable secondary ball handlers, Armaan hardly touched the ball these past two years. McKneely and Rohde are a lot more reliable.
I spelled out my prediction way on up
Top 7
Reece
McKneely
Rohde
Dunn
Minor
Groves
Harris/Gertrude
Situational
Harris/Gertrude
Buchanan
Wildcards
Murray
Bond
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I’m sure this will change by the end of the season. But I wouldn’t be shocked to see Murray play a bigger role than we expect AT FIRST. TB loves to throw little wrinkles we don’t expect in game 1. Could totally see us playing Texas Southern at 9PM on Tuesday, November 11th and the starting lineup is: Beekman, Mckneely, Murray, Dunn, Minor. And all of us are like “wtf??”
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That would be my guess at game 1 starters, yep. It’s going to be interesting for all the returners. They’ll get opportunities early. If they run with it, they’ll lock themselves in. Creates lots of uncertainty.
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Well of course we could land a transfer, but he’s the likely successor currently on the roster…and I know you are dying to say Rhode
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I agree that the game is changing, and a team can get away with a shorter 4 in today’s game. But most of the dudes who play the 4 in the 6’5" - 6’7" range weigh about 230 or more. So Leon being lighter is where I’m wondering if he can handle minutes at the 4.
Maybe he’s got a tenacity/athleticism that makes up for being a smaller 4. I don’t know; it’s going to be fun to find out. It’s one of the more intriguing questions about roster: where exactly does Leon fit? Because he’s definitely a guy that needs to see the court this season.
It’s also interesting that people on the board have complained about Virginia being undersized the last few years, and there seems to be no curiosity/questioning about Bond’s ability to play the 4.
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I sort of figure we see Bond work his way into a consistent rotational guy. I just think he specifically will offer so much of the defensive stuff Bennett has been craving for awhile. I’m team “let all 11 play a decent amount in early season low stake action”. I mean hell, why not experiment @ Memphis and play all of them some. I’d love to see us implement some Izzo philosophy of sort of experimenting for awhile and being ready to peak at the end.
I honestly sort of want us to be a lower seed that peaks at the right time and is dangerous/overachieves in the tournament. Tired of the 4 seed team that wins a weak ACC, runs out of steam and has the target of “this team isn’t actually good, upset alert.”
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There’s been a lot of curiosity and questioning about Bond’s ability to play the 4. I think there’s reasonable evidence on either side. I’ve been both a skeptic of and a supporter of the notion. Bringing in Groves has kind of pushed me more to “not a 4” currently, but 
.
One way to figure out what a staff thinks of a guy, is for them to play him actual minutes on a basketball court where contractual obligations force Tony to allow cameras to be present. But Tony didn’t deem that to be an acceptable outcome, so instead we have this fun mystery to debate where nobody is right and nobody is wrong.
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Putting it out there now that I am still a bond skeptic and am a newly minted Gertrude skeptic