UConn is deep, but without Bouknight, they are not going to be quite the same team. They’re lucky to get Whaley back though and their strength is in the post. Their backcourt will get eaten alive by us like last year and we are better this year than last year. They have very, very few shooters and Hurley is more half-court than he is a transition guy. Who will hit outside shots outside of Cole and Polley? Their guards are weak. SJU, Seton Hall and Xavier should be ahead of them imo.
People are sleeping on Mathis. He’s actually a very talented player. Numbers don’t tell his whole story. He will thrive in our style and maybe become what we hoped Heron would.
This is a first for us as we have never had depth and real talent at all these positions. Obviously a lot remains to be seen, but I don’t think we’ve ever been this deep without major deficiencies of size, shooting or the like.
I expect starting lineup to be:
Posh
Wusu
Mathis
Champagnie
Wheeler
We will start small with Wheeler there, but he’s our stretch 4 and a good one I think. He’s absolutely not a center, but I think the staff will like his experience to start the season in our running style against easily opponents until our bigs get running. He won’t be there longer than a few early games. It will give us time to integrate the other 3/4 guys like Soriano, Stanley, Nywie etc.
I feel more confident in our depth and talent level than I have in a long, long time. Never seen us without a major deficiency. Iron Mike will have these guys on the same page and we won’t be as easily exploitable this year by other teams as we have in the past.
