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2007-2008 Starting 5


VTIME

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It's really hard to make even a guess before we know the roster for next season or, better still, see the guys practice. Do we get a beefy big would can start up front? That's the biggest question on my mind. Next week should be interesting.

.... hope springs eternal in the heart of a Billiken fan. Here we are closing in on May yet again with gaping holes in our roster. UB could still pull a rabbit out of his rear end but experience tells me not to hold my breadth. Some of these rabbits later turn out to be chipmunks (see Obi and Dixon).

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I think the main difference between the guys we are recruiting now and guys like Obi and Dixon is that this is legitimate Juco recruiting season right now. Obi and Horace were signed after every other player in the country was picked through. That's not a recipe for success. V, I don't think your poll can be answered for another couple of weeks. The answer probably isn't known yet.

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And i dont think you need a beefy big. A lot of NBA teams dont even have a beefy big at pf. Guys like Shawn Marion, Gerald Wallace, Josh Smith, Antwan Jamison, Darius Miles, Andre Iguodala, Travis Outlaw, and many other guys who are not bangers. At that's at the NBA level. In college you can have a 6'5 190 kid play pf and not only succeed, but excel. We just need guys that can score. Just give me a 6'5 plus athlete that can score. He can even be 6'4 like the kid Demario Smith that led Forest Park in scoring and rebounding this year with 16ppg and 8 rpg. He's another one of Tommie's former teammates.

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>>I think the main difference between the guys we are recruiting now and guys like Obi and Dixon is that this is legitimate Juco recruiting season right now.<<

True but the window of opportunity on legit prospects will close quickly and, if we come up empty this coming week, we'll be left sorting through the refuse trying to distinguish an Izik Ohanon from a Horace Dixon.

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>>And i dont think you need a beefy big.<<

True (see SIU) but I'd very much like to have one more on the roster with some modicum of skill and mobility. Knollmeyer and Bryce are not small men but they lack mobility and a post game. Teams like Texas A&M and North Carolina would physically punish our current roster (and I admit that the majority of D1 teams are in the same boat).

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i believe that next year's lineup provided no injuries is lisch, liddell and tbd. dwayne and luke obviously have tight holds on spots, and no one will just walk in and play over them without just practices and i would bet that both arent going to just hand anything over.

my real hope is that two of the starters arent even billikens yet. if that happens, we have had a super recruiting season.

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If we start Tommie, Kevin, Luke, JUCO, and JUCO we should be in pretty good shape. I would even take Jeff Peterson, KL, TL, JUCO, JUCO.

However, if we wind up starting the majority of our games with TL, KL< DP, LM, and BH or AK, I honestly feel we will have a tough time staying above .500

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drew said,

"if we wind up starting the majority of our games with TL, KL< DP, LM, and BH or AK, I honestly feel we will have a tough time staying above .500"

drew, you obviously liked ian's senior year alot to make that kind of statement.

i personally believe that a combination of bryce and adam can come close to replicating ian's numbers. and that would not equate to "a tough time staying above .500"

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I agree that his numbers fell well below his our expectations and his ability, but I will bet you that between them BH and AK will not match Ian's output from last year. I wasn't referring to just replacing his numbers either. Ian garnered a huge amount of attention from our opponents' defenses. Do you honestly think any coach in his right mind is going to double or triple team Bryce Husak????????????? Of course not. Coaches would be able to focus their defenses on Tommie and Kevin and the rest of the lineup wouldn't have NEAR enough scoring punch to keep the opposition honest.

Hence, if we go TL, KL, LM, DP, and BH we will have trouble staying above .500.

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Drew, I think you are really selling BH short. In fact along with KL and TL, I think BH is the only sure starter. Hopefully the guys we sign will at least push and hopefully beat DP and LM for starting spots. I like both guy and think they can contribute to a tournament team. I have a hard time believing either of them could ever be starters on a non-bubble at large tournament.

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I feel about Husak like you do about LM and DP. Husak seems to have slow reaction times, he has trouble catching the basketball, and gets gassed very wuickly. THose aren't exactly the qualities you are looking for in a center of a tournament bound team. He just isn't that talented. Period

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i didnt see near the attention on vouyoukas this year as we did conference last year. we have to agree to disagree.

plus i rarely see double teams 25 feet from the basket. i.e. teams can sag to help on a center, but they arent going to send the center or power forward out to chase lisch and liddell. so to assume they will get "extra" attention this year over the past year doesnt make sense to me.

lisch and liddell will garner the top outside defenders next year just like they did this year. no more. no less.

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drew there were two different husak's. the one we saw for three years and through about feb of 2007 and the one that emerged in the first umass game and forward. you have to admit those were two different players. i am not ready to call husak kareem yet, but when he got that chance to start, he really seemed to step up.

now personally, i am not thinking husak is a starter. i think husak would do fine vs other center like players, but i have a hard time visualizing him chasing 6'5" power forwardlike inside guys.

the point is, husak gave us reason to think "well maybe......" with his play down the stretch. now it is up to him.

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Of course guards sagging down to double team the post has an impact on how they are able to defend the perimeter. You act like it makes no difference. No one will have to sag off Tommie or Kevin or anyone else for that matter to defend the post if Bryce is said post player.

By the way go back and re-watch the games form this past season. Ian was CONSTANTLY being double and sometimes triple-teamed. His kick-outs from those situations created a lot of open opportunities for our guards.

That will not happen will Bryce in the middle.

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I hope you are wrong about that. If we want to be a solid tournament team Luke Meyer would not be an ideal starter. Some of the names being mentioned in the recruiting battles right now are better players than him, IMO.

I like Luke and he is one hell of a gusty player. That doesn't mean he should be an automatic starter for a team that hasn't been to the tournament in over a half decade. This team needs an immediate talent upgrade.

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