Do we really need a center?

[quote="IDRAFT" post=288289]We all want everything. Sometimes you don't get it all in life. It would be nice to have Walton backed up by Swen Nater but alas it didn't happen. Last years team struggled rebounding, coming in ninth in the Big East. The team also was the ninth worst three point shooting team and the ninth worst shooting team in total. As much as the rebounding drove many of you nuts, I couldn't believe the shooting. We missed a ton of open threes and lost one of the guys who hit them in Bashir.

The guards we recruited might not help much with the rebounding and it might stay a weakness. They need to move the other numbers enough to make up for it. If not we will be in trouble, but I also think we would be in trouble if we improved our rebounding and didn't move the needle on scorers. Georgetown was second in the Big East in rebounding, DePaul fourth. Both teams stunk anyway. Villanova was seventh in rebounding in the Big East. They also were second in field goal percentage and first in three point percentage. They did pretty good despite their areas of weakness.

We were a bad team for a lot of reasons, not one reason. Expecting everything to improve at once seems very ambitous to me. Improve where we can this year and improve what matters most, wins versus losses. I keep looking at the prospective roster and seeing significant improvement.

I recognize weakneses will remain but do not think optimism is unrealistic.[/quote]

I love when all of our references are 40-50 years old. I'd also lilke to point out that Joe Lapchick was a heck of a center and not 7 feet tall either. Of course back then NBA rosters were filled with 5'8 Jewish guys with 2 handed set shots. Most of their kids got academic and not athletic scholarships.

Ducking as the politically correct police come after me, but little known fact is that Billy Crystal's dad pitched for the SJU baseball team while in law school. His son won a college baseball scholarship to Marshall University, only to find out after he arrived on campus that the school had dropped baseball as a sport.
 
And Stansberry also wins. He won at MS State and W KY had a great year last year.
Kudos to the guy.
 
[quote="Mike Zaun" post=288282]Keita won't be pushed around either. This is one thing that will be a nice change this season...we won't have stick figures anymore. I grew very tired seeing our guys getting out-muscled and guys getting easy buckets at will if the opponent had a big man with a pulse.

Paultz, this would be a great time to update us on Heron's eligibility and have the thread derailed :cheer:[/quote]
Confidence in the mix
 
As I said previously, our lack of an interior presence was directly and indirectly responsible for the poor shooting. It allowed the opposing defense to overplay our guards and certain players in particular - Ponds. When we have an option to pass to inside we'll get both the layups and the kickouts for open shots. When Clark started doing some driving in addition to his 3 pt shooting he became a better player and he got some pretty wide open lanes because of how the defenses were playing us. I think a lot of our success will rest in the "hands" of Keita.
 
[quote="Chicago Days" post=288285][quote="JohnnyFan" post=288283]I do love the optimistic nature of many fans.

To review, we suffered a full season of getting whipped on the boards and identify the issue as a major problem. Then, as we again enter the season with just one BE-ready big man, we have a thread with several posters declaring there is no need for a center.

As mentioned, I do think Heron can mitigate the roster flaw, but the idea that bigs are a "nice to have" and not a need is ludicrous.[/quote]

I’m as frustrated as anybody that, for whatever reasons, we haven’t been able to recruit BEC-quality ‘big’ depth.
But it is ironic that in Keita, we have 1 more ‘center’ than we had last year.
Neither Owens nor Clark played down low.
While I concede it would be ‘ideal’ to have one more ‘big’ on the roster, I posit that with Keita plus the infusion of 2 very talented guard/wings in Figgy and Heron to supplement Ponds, Simon, Dixon, Clark, we have the nucleus of offensive and defensive schemes that will hopefully ‘neutralize’ the need of that one more ‘big’.
Let’s go Johnnies.[/quote]
Chicago did you have a homework assignment where you had to use the word "posit" in a sentence. ;) :)
 
[quote="bamafan" post=288310][quote="Chicago Days" post=288285][quote="JohnnyFan" post=288283]I do love the optimistic nature of many fans.

To review, we suffered a full season of getting whipped on the boards and identify the issue as a major problem. Then, as we again enter the season with just one BE-ready big man, we have a thread with several posters declaring there is no need for a center.

As mentioned, I do think Heron can mitigate the roster flaw, but the idea that bigs are a "nice to have" and not a need is ludicrous.[/quote]

I’m as frustrated as anybody that, for whatever reasons, we haven’t been able to recruit BEC-quality ‘big’ depth.
But it is ironic that in Keita, we have 1 more ‘center’ than we had last year.
Neither Owens nor Clark played down low.
While I concede it would be ‘ideal’ to have one more ‘big’ on the roster, I posit that with Keita plus the infusion of 2 very talented guard/wings in Figgy and Heron to supplement Ponds, Simon, Dixon, Clark, we have the nucleus of offensive and defensive schemes that will hopefully ‘neutralize’ the need of that one more ‘big’.
Let’s go Johnnies.[/quote]
Chicago did you have a homework assignment where you had to use the word "posit" in a sentence. ;) :)[/quote]

Lol.
 
[quote="Paul Massell" post=288309]As I said previously, our lack of an interior presence was directly and indirectly responsible for the poor shooting. It allowed the opposing defense to overplay our guards and certain players in particular - Ponds. When we have an option to pass to inside we'll get both the layups and the kickouts for open shots. When Clark started doing some driving in addition to his 3 pt shooting he became a better player and he got some pretty wide open lanes because of how the defenses were playing us. I think a lot of our success will rest in the "hands" of Keita.[/quote]

+1,000
 
Could not agree more. The short answer to the question posited by this thread is yes and Keita is that guy.
 
[quote="L J S A" post=288292]Western Kentucky just landed a 5-star big man for the second year in a row. Discuss.:lol:[/quote]

And look how the first 5 star commit worked out for them
 
[quote="Paul Massell" post=288309]As I said previously, our lack of an interior presence was directly and indirectly responsible for the poor shooting. It allowed the opposing defense to overplay our guards and certain players in particular - Ponds. When we have an option to pass to inside we'll get both the layups and the kickouts for open shots. When Clark started doing some driving in addition to his 3 pt shooting he became a better player and he got some pretty wide open lanes because of how the defenses were playing us. I think a lot of our success will rest in the "hands" of Keita.[/quote] Your correct. That is why many posters are upset at not having an inside game. W/O an inside game, as you said ,the opponents can really defend the perimeter.
 
[quote="SJU14" post=288314][quote="L J S A" post=288292]Western Kentucky just landed a 5-star big man for the second year in a row. Discuss.:lol:[/quote]

And look how the first 5 star commit worked out for them[/quote]

Maybe they paid more for this one. Plus this kid has a high GPA. I don't think the first one was college material.
 
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