Jontel, Justin, Akil, and Joe is a pretty good mix of size/athleticism, though. Not sure I see that in this crew
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And only one of those guys was a top 100 HS player.
Ames, McKneely, Warley, Power, Cofie, and Buchanan have a good combination of size and athleticism ā and all were top 100 out of HS.
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The thing is I donāt think weāll actually play many of our lineups that would actually be our best defensive lineups that often butā¦
My best guesses:
Best defensive lineup of lineups weāre likely to see get somewhat regular play:
Warley
McKneely
Saunders
Power
Buchanan
Best defensive lineup we could theoretically see some but probably not that often:
Warley
Rohde*
Saunders
Power
Robinson
Best not-entirely-out-of-question defensive lineup but that very likely wonāt see much run together, if at all, will probably be just a few possessions (probably my bet for best defensive lineup):
Warley
Rohde
Saunders
Cofie
Robinson
*Rhode is probably our best defensive option at SG but I donāt expect him to play SG that often because of McKneely. For the purposes of this (and assuming we can get Saunders out there at the SF), I think Warley on the ball and Rohde defending the SG is better than moving Warley off the ball (with Ames on) or playing Ames off.
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Iām expecting Power to struggle on defense.
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iMac isnāt part of any best defensive lineupā¦.
If you need to include him because everyone thinks he will play 30 min a game - understood.
Best just straight defensive lineup by Dec 1 is probably:
Warley, Ames, Saunders, Roberts, Robinson??
Ok ok - we donāt have any great defensive options at 3 and 4.
Is Sharma also our best wing defender already with his length and strength?
Assuming Warley is guarding the 1 or 2.
Gertrude is probably 2nd best defender on the team by December even at less than full strength.
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True but are any of those three gonna have the impact of Justin, Akil, Joe? Hill Iāve been dying on lately is HS rating of transfers really doesnāt matter
Maybe? Who knows.
We didnāt know what impact Akil and Justin would have prior to the 2013 season, either.
Justin was a TF, and Mitchell was coming off 4.1/4.4 in 22 min/game.
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Can we really include the walk-ons in this discussion? Not only are they not realistically going to play meaningful competition, we also have never seen them against meaningful competition enough to really know what theyāre capable of.
Iād go with Ames, Rohde, Warley, Saunders, and Buchanan as our best realistic defensive lineup as of November. Rohde, as Cuts mentions above, is underrated as a defender, good length and had great steal numbers at St Thomas, even if he was used more conservatively last year while Reece and Dunn were the stock hunters. Rebounding in that lineup might suffer a bit (if you include defensive rebounding in the grading of defensive ability), but frankly which of the guards on our current roster really are good wing rebounders in the way Malc used to be anyways? That would of course be a terrible shooting lineup which is why I hope we donāt ever really see it.
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- need to review Cutsā Dai Dai piece to remember what to think of his defense
- Iām also high (or hopeful) on Cofie, A-Rob, and maybe Sharma / Bliss in the out years, but not this coming year
- Iām not that high on Power. Could he be Nolte- level in a year or two? That would be a very good outcome
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Kinda surprised at the ARob over Blake (as a defender) mini-consensus. Blake had a solid defensive season last season (along with a bad offensive season), especially for a first year. That plus the information implicit in ARob redshirting while Blake played puts Blake ahead for me on defense.
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Blake is a great modern big defender. I worry about him banging in the post against the better old-school Centers out there, but he was just a true frosh last year.
In the absence of evidence, I think thereās hope (including by me) that A-Rob is a bit stronger / tougher down there, w/o losing much quickness. But just hopeā¦
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I miss Reeceā¼ļø
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Yeah Blake got plenty of valuable minutes last year to help with his defense. Heās on the fast track to hopefully be up to speed sometime in season.
Also I kind of hope we donāt play our best defensive lineup much and like how cuts said I donāt expect to see a best defense lineup much eitherā¦ best defense lineup with this group would maybe score 45 a game haha. Weāve got some scorers and have been working a new offense. Letās see that instead.
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Hereās the reason I included McKneely in the first with the caveat that it has to be a lineup that we use regularly.
Ames is a pretty bad off-ball defender and Warley is an incredibly valuable on-ball defender (way more valuable on-ball and just okay off).
Iām convinced that defensive lineups with Ames on the ball and Warley off are just worse options than Warley onā¦ and I think most of our SGs are better off ball defenders because of their size/knowledge of the system.
iMac, a much better rebounder than Ames, for example, and much better at playing in passing lanes.
Itās one of those things where lineup composition is going to matter a lot. I expect weāre going to see a lot of people advocating for Ames at the 1 and Warley at the SF in a lot of our ābestā defensive lineupsā¦ but, to me, those suggestions sleep on how impactful it is to have Warley on the ball vs. how Ames isnāt really a difference maker there and Warley will be better than someone like Rohde at SF but it shouldnāt be worth the trade-off of not having him harass the ball handler.
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I donāt think Saunders will be a great defensive player but I think he will be a very good one from day one and could grow into an All-ACC level defensive player under CTB.
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I havenāt seen ARob enough to know this is true - but if what Iāve seen very briefly and other accounts are correct, I think heāll be better at protecting the rim and will be a stronger presence inside without giving up much mobility.
Another comment I saw - Power isnāt amazing defensively which is why I just included him in the āwe could see this lineup group.ā I donāt want to see him defending SFs or Cs often - but I do think heās mobile enough to defend most PFs and big enough to do the same, especially if heās sandwiched with Saunders and a Center. I expect him in there and Saunders at SF will be considerably better defensively than having Saunders at PF and two of players like McKneely, Rohde, etc on the floor.
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Totally agree - introduced this as a thought experiment to see what our best defensive lineup would be capable of. Ideally you want a perfect balance, but I also wouldnāt mind shading more offensive this year (partially because the best D lineup isnāt even that scary)
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Iām also kind of surprised that no one mentions Christian Bliss in a hypothetical best defense lineupā¦ historically, guards pick up the system faster than the forwards/centers do. And heās had somewhat of a reputation for being a physical player.
I still think everyone is sleeping on him. Bad report over the summer was followed up with news of not being at 100% at that point. Once heās fully healthy watch out.
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Bliss had two surgeries in one off season, not sure id project him to be in a best anything lineup this year unfortunately
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Once upon a time, I bought some prime real estate on āBliss will be a good defenderā island. I got it for cheap! Iām holding the real estate for now, and I hope some day to build a nice house on it and brag to all my LRA friends about it.
We shall see if it was a wise investment.
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