It is hard/scary to imagine how this season would have went if Beekman decided to stay in the draft.
I guess maybe better for next year because guys would have played more, but geez. He has been everything this year.
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@haney Thinking about it more, I think Iām more at āhow TB picks lineups is interdependent enough with the other things heās good at that I canāt separate it out as its own skillā
Example: heās good at drilling a defense and playing time is at least partly contingent on how well he thinks youāre picking that up
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The first answer where he talks about the message his dad sent him before the game was very sweet. Especially given the fact that Dick gets very stressed out about Tonyās games to the point where he canāt always watch.
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It wouldāve been so bad that maybe Gertrude would play.
For me itās this.
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Does Gertrude fill an existing acute gap? As a Reece replacement, I donāt think so. Exceptional defender on wings bc of athleticism but thatās offset a bit from his positional breakdowns. Itās happened a few times every game heās played. Heād be great at replacing Reece in some aspects of that regard, but not as a facilitator as people seem to want (Dante v Reece). His three point shot isnāt established yet. He can take it into traffic but that is not what our core offensive challenges have been.
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Have we seen instances of Gertrude lifting the teamās performance up? In UNC he definitely did. But that was also full desperation mode where his psychological orientation was needed - confident and assertive. Other examples? Not really. Of course, heās played mostly with B team in blowouts or against poor comp. So the opportunities have been limited.
Ultimately, the evidence isnāt there that he should be our back up to Reece when he gets rest.
Apart from that, Iām in curious mode. Many others seem to be in āTHIS IS A HUGE MISTAKEā mode. Thereās not really any solid evidence for that in my opinion for the reasons above. So Iāll say again, would be cool to weave him in at times (like Taine) to see what can happen with a bigger sample, but thatās it.
Last thing Iāll say: We won the goddamn game people.
Everyone always wants line up fixes. Itās the default. But itās often the most simple and surface level analysis to what ails us.
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Thatās the āletās win this 3 minute stretch, 2-0ā lineup.
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TLDR - Tony isnāt playing him so we donāt have much evidence. Agree on that
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Correct. Which is why people saying āI AM FLABBERGASTED AS TO HOW HE IS NOT PLAYING. ITS CRIMINALā doesnāt hold water.
But youāre not really responding to those folks.
I also said Iād like to see Eli more to explore. But ya left that part out.
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I think Iād pretty clearly have Gertrude in the Harris role. Would that make a massive difference? Probably not. But I think thatās what Iād do.
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Very interested to see what we do (if anything) at PG in the portal, assuming Reece doesnāt use his extra year.
Itās pretty clear Harris isnāt a 30+ (or even 20+) min-per-game ACC PG. If Harris returns, and we do nothing in the portal, itāll be clear Tony likes Bliss ALOT.
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Look, will retreat from my earlier general theory stuff above and just say, to me, it seems odd to play a guy zero non-garbage minutes for several weeks, EXCEPT for 19 minutes against the best team on our schedule.
If you saw that in a vacuum, youād assume foul trouble or injury. Given what we know, the prevailing āHaney is a dick and Tony is actually good at lineupsā theory seems to be that there was something unique about UNC either in personnel or game scenario, so that you can reconcile those two facts.
But I donāt subscribe to that theory. I subscribe to the 
theory. Aka, the āman shrugging emojiā theory
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Lots of teams do this.
Thereās a high comedy alternate universe where we are all Creighton fans on a Creighton version of Locker Room Access, and āgobluejays1ā is leading a crusade for more Traudt minutes.
āBaylor Scheierman shot 1-10 from 3 against St Johnās because heās playing too many minutes!ā
āWe donāt play Jasen Green for the whole season and pick UConn as the game to throw him out there? Malpractice!ā
āIs Greg McDermott even a Jesuit?ā (Ok that last one probably wouldnāt happen)
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How about a Mallory reclass?
Nice post AQ. I largely concur.
To me, the concern over personnel (Tony as the gm) has a much stronger foundation than the concern over lineups. Since our National championship, we have had fundamentally flawed rosters that have still won a lot. But we didnāt have to have such flawed rosters, and could have won more and more easily if the roster construction was better.
Our hs recruiting has picked up which is a startā¦but even though we have highly rated guys coming in they arenāt all great play style fits, particularly on offense. Maybe we will change the offense further, but that seems unlikely.
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Eli iMac Rohde Dunn/Groves and a big. Rohde for facilitation, iMac for 3 point threat. Thatās workable. But potentially tricky to align with rest/rotations for starters. And thatās kind whatās tough. But Iād like to see that a bit if it was doable.
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That works too.
Again itās flabbergasting and criminal world for two reasons. First, I think there could be a world where Gertrude brings a lot of additional things this team could use if he got more playing time. He has athleticism and explosiveness that is only matched by Dunn, a potential first round draft pick. There are very few college basketball players in the country who are better athletes or more explosive.
Second, I think itās criminal and flabbergasting because his competition are uniquely awful. This is not to say that Elijah doesnāt have downsides. He does. But so do the other options, and you could argue those downsides are substantially worse. Harris got absolutely worked on D last night, and while he bailed us out in that broken play, he also took a couple of shots that essentially had a 10-15% chance of going in.
This is not to say that I think Elijah should get all of Harris and Rodhes minutes. His downsides are clear and difficult. But getting 0% of the minutes between the three is flabbergasting and criminal
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Sure hope so. Thereās no reason for him to play another year of high school basketball, at least not in the prep league.
Is Mallory really a point or a combo in a pg body?
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