Yeah, no.
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Reece McKneely Rohde Dunn Minor there is not and should not be another option. BB later season but not now. Sorry Taine and Dante shouldnāt start a game unless thereās injury
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And bond and Eli should be first two off the bench.
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Recruiting posts and recruiting intensity are inversely proportional.
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I largely agree (particularly in the implicit message that Taine and Dante shouldnāt start), but I donāt think Minor or Rohde are sure things. And given the quality of his prior competition, Minor is the most questionable to me. Bond and Groves could theoretically start early season, and Blake and Elijah later.
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I think opening day lineup is either Reece McKneely Rohde Dunn Minor or Reece McKneely Dunn Groves Minor.
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Just based on off-season whispers and direct coach quotes, I am not getting much of a āminor is a sure thingā vibe. Still more likely than not, but far from certain
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Iām not gonna lie I forget Groves is on the team on a weekly basis
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Torvik 2024 team pages are up with schedules now (placeholder dates for the conference schedule):
As of now, the non-con is 4 (projected) Q1 games, 6 Q4 games. YMMV on how much stock you want to put on the projections, but itās helpful for me to get a rough approximation of how tough the schedule is.
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how ā¦ how ā¦ could you possibly believe this with such certainty right now.
My main thing is: People go into season with a whole bunch of expectations. Those lead to drawing a lot of missplaced assumptions about who should be playing and when as the season goes on. Then we get narratives. Then we find out later that our original expectations were way off. See: āNeed more Taine and Igorā!! in 2021-2022.
Look, Iām not saying there arenāt line-ups Iām more excited to see. But Iām nowhere near āthese dudes should never startā territory until I see how they look in-game and fit with each other.
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Frontcourt:
I think Minor will be at least as good Jr/Sr version of Mike Tobey or soph Wilkinsā¦ 2016 was basically a rotation of Gill/ Wilkins / Tobey - sprinkling of Nolte and a dash of Salt.
I could definitely see this year as Dunn / Minor / Groves / Buchanan ā¦ dash of Bond - in that order as minutes.
The question is can any of them be anywhere as good as senior year Gill? Iāll say no way. Gill was the most efficient offensive player in both 2015 and 2016. But maybe Dunn will be so good defensively he can make up for that some? This teamās ceiling might be whether Blake can become a 15-20 min a game offensive problem for opponents. Or we play a lot of 4 guard sets - Dunn as the 4th guard, and the 1-3 guard rotation scores 50-55 points a game (Reece, Isaac, Rohde, Gertrude, Taine, Harris)
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Those werenāt off as far as what should have happened ā¦ but of course they were because Statts and Poindexter were so good. For a tremendous unseeded NIT team.
I suspect most people are there with you and just expressing preferences in a message board-y way. But I also think Tony did a poor job picking on-court personnel the last two years, and I know that nobody wants to relitigate that (they didnāt even want to litigate it at the time!), but everyoneās feelings on that (at least mine - so let me switch persons) are shading how I feel about decisions Tony makes about this upcoming year.
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I hate Torvikās projections, and donāt know why anyone should place much confidence in them. A computerās output is only as good as its input, and his inputs are very questionable for us, imo.
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His projection still makes no sense at the five spot. Unless he thinks weāre going to do BVP at the 5 2.0 with Groves
If Dante plays the same amount as bond + Rohde combined I agree we will be very bad
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I think theyāre useful/interesting up to a certain point. What I like about Torvik is you can see his inputs and then quibble with them (like his low RD projection). With KenPom itās all a black box. As a reminder, KenPom thought we were a top 5 team last year, preseason.
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Yeah I think thatās fair. I do agree with his projection that if those end up being the minutes played, we will not be a good team at all
3 of the 4 most athletic players riding the pine, using Dunn or Groces as the main center etc
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Okay, I actually just looked at the new onesā¦ First of all, yeah, thatās kind of a wacky lineup. Second, Torvikās algo is correct that if none of Bond or Elijah or Rhode or Blake (or Minor???) steps up and we play Dante ~30 mpg even though he has a 101 ORtg, then the algo is totally correct, we will miss the tourney and be hoping for more arena construction in Starkville to get an NIT home game. (except they might actually be decent, right? #37 per the same algo)
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Certainly an emotion driven post on my end, but if Taine starts it means someone else didnāt pan out. I think Rohde is more talented by a good deal. Dante I expect will be heavily in the rotation and could be very good, but I see him as a backup PG. McKneely and Reece are starters obviously, and Dante with them is a pretty small back court. I guess if Taine starts a game I think itās because we are in a bad spot, but if Dante starts a game it means heās better than I expected and TB can sacrifice size at guard to start him (I donāt see that happening)
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Iām more open minded towards Murray than Harris. Reece has spent his entire career playing alongside a smaller guard who isnāt a great shooter. Unless Harris became a 40% shooter from 3 in his RS year, I just donāt see the benefit with the shooters we do have.
Iām on the fence about Murray. He showed what he was capable of as a FR against Iowa, but that was 1 game, and he didnāt really stand out when he played more towards the end of last season. Iād settle for somewhere in the middle. Iād just prefer he not play 20+ mins every game, because thatās less time guys like Rohde, Bond & Gertrude play, and become greater transfer risks.
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