Villanova (MSG), Sat., Jan. 11 , 7p, CBSSN
- Thread starter Knight
- Start date
It's really interesting to think coming into the season it seemed like we had tons of depth and could potentially play 11 guys, and now reality has set in and we barely have any depth.
All i know for sure is beating Villanova at home is critical to being an elite team in this league this season. The season won't be over but the other losses are dings. This would be a dent. It's a game a good team should win, and that's taking nothing from Nova.
Really nice to take a big game to a big stage at MSG. Crowd should be lit.
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Ayo tries to do too much when he is on the court. Needs to keep it simple, play hard and good defense, rebound and hit a shot or two when open (which does not mean every time he thinks he is open he should shoot it).
Ayo has been used at both forward spots while Drissa Traore last year basically played at the 4 (with a few minutes at the 5 a couple of times due to both centers being in foul trouble). So Ayo might give you more versatility, but quite frankly I’d rather have Drissa who knew his limitations and did what I outlined in the post above.
Towerofshred
Active member
Did we sell out?
If so thats anazing.
Personally I think the key to winning the game is for us to get Nova to play at our pace and tire them out for the 2d half. IMO.
was thinking that as well... but i dont think that is necessarily a bad thing...
What we do have - are 6 very capable BE Starters. not many teams can say that in our league. after that... there is a bit of a drop. Vince/Prey are more than serviceable for 2-5 min stretches. Ayo brings energy - and Glover i would say is on the cusp of falling into that "rotational" category - providing more than just rest for the Top 6- he can provide scoring.
As long as foul trouble doesn't bite us... i dont mind a smaller rotation
Foul trouble is huge. Kadary's conditioning is also huge. He played 37 minutes but didn't look as gassed as he did against Xavier. Pitino said in the presser yesterday that his work ethic as improved. Huh. (I say this as one of his defenders on this board)
The thing I'm curious about is if Lefty gets more of a shot. Pitino put him in the X game for a few seconds. I didn't watch Butler so I don't know the context, but I see he played there as well. Can he soak in 5-10 minutes? Maybe knock down a jumper or two?
As for our bench, losing Brady was big. He was a very inconsistent shooter but as we see now better than many of our other players and played hard.
Losing Glover didn’t help either as he seems to be able to shoot a little also. The rest of his game needs work but that will only get better by playing.
Prey and Vince are ok backups for short minutes but don’t help our outside shooting.
I agree with who said that Ayo could be useful if he did less.
We don’t know what Lefty can do as he hasn’t played enough.
I think our biggest problem is fouls as Pitino doesn’t want to use players who have two fouls and seems to prefer to use the bench mostly in the first half which is probably a good strategy. This can lead to lineups where Ayo, Vince and Prey are in the game at the same time like the Butler game but at least gives us our best chance to win in the second half.
As for todays game you can say it’s a must win, not a must win or something in between. The reality is as we saw last season the Big East is being devalued and every game is important. Marquette is obviously getting in and UCONN even without McNeely is pretty much a lock as well. Everything else is still up in the air and a team that is a 7 or 8 seat today can be on the bubble with a couple losses and the other way around.
If we can protect our home court we are heading in a positive direction. If not we are not the team we were hoping for.
We're going to need our guys playing some Josh Hart & Mikael Bridges like minutes without Dunlap & Glover.
This is a better rebounding, defending & more physical team than last year and wins this one, but may not cover. Every year fans get caught up on our depth, press and wearing teams out, “40 minutes of hell for example” in realty most good teams play seven, maybe eight guys. We are fortunate, knock on wood, to have suffered no major injuries and have sufficient well conditioned guys to have very good season w a Dance ticket. A number of programs have lost more significant players than us, just ask Providence, Creighton and even UConn for a short period.
Against UConn, Nova played Dixon 40 minutes, Poplar 36 and Longino 35. The two guys who played less was Brickus, who played 32 because he's a liability on defense. And Boakye, because he's terrible.
Looking ahead. Georgetown played only seven guys total against Marquette.
I forget who said it, but I remember someone saying depth is important because of practice/roster building but not important for games. For college basketball, I think that's absolutely true.
I'm very critical of Thibs, but that's because guys are playing double the amount of games in the regular season, not even including playoffs.
That's true but the better the teams get the better their depth gets. If you look at the top 5, Bama & Duke play 9 guys 15 minutes or more, Iowa State 8, Auburn and Tennessee 7 (each with two more playing between 10-14 mpg). We only have 7 guys playing double digit minutes and the 7th is not playing at all for the foreseeable future. Need to get Glover and Prey closer to double digit minutes as the season progresses or it will catch up to us in the tournament.
I'm a little skeptical of some of those numbers though. Since they are so good, those teams are also playing in blow outs often, where guys are inflating their minutes totals (which, the opposite, drives me nuts with Thibs... lol).
I looked briefly at Duke's box scores in competitive games. In those, you're mostly looking at a 8 man rotation.
Duke 84-78 Auburn (Dec 4, 2024) Box Score - ESPN
Box score for the Duke Blue Devils vs. Auburn Tigers NCAAM game from December 4, 2024 on ESPN. Includes all points, rebounds and steals stats.
Kansas 75-72 Duke (Nov 26, 2024) Box Score - ESPN
Box score for the Kansas Jayhawks vs. Duke Blue Devils NCAAM game from November 26, 2024 on ESPN. Includes all points, rebounds and steals stats.
Kentucky 77-72 Duke (Nov 12, 2024) Box Score - ESPN
Box score for the Kentucky Wildcats vs. Duke Blue Devils NCAAM game from November 12, 2024 on ESPN. Includes all points, rebounds and steals stats.
Alabama seems similar. They get in so much foul trouble, its hard to tell by looking strictly at numbers what their rotations are like.
I definitely think 8 is the ideal, and realistic, number. We aren't necessarily in ideal shape with our depth. Nova/Georgetown shouldn't be the bar, we should be striving to be above them. I just don't think it's going to particularly hurt us since our top six are all starting caliber guys.
Actually, they've been playing like "dawgs" or "bullies on the block" defensively for the past couple weeks.
Agree that they were only playing 8 in those three games but all 8 easily made double digit numbers. My point is more that in our last two games, we played 7 in double figures and our 7th men were Ayo & Vince respectively and against Creighton only the six starters played double digit minutes. This speaks to both depth and quality of the depth without Brady & Glover. Hopefully Glover returns very soon and Rick works Prey into more minutes. Don't expect this to hurt us tonight, more of a longer term issue.I'm a little skeptical of some of those numbers though. Since they are so good, those teams are also playing in blow outs often, where guys are inflating their minutes totals (which, the opposite, drives me nuts with Thibs... lol).
I looked briefly at Duke's box scores in competitive games. In those, you're mostly looking at a 8 man rotation.
Duke 84-78 Auburn (Dec 4, 2024) Box Score - ESPN
Box score for the Duke Blue Devils vs. Auburn Tigers NCAAM game from December 4, 2024 on ESPN. Includes all points, rebounds and steals stats.www.espn.com
Kansas 75-72 Duke (Nov 26, 2024) Box Score - ESPN
Box score for the Kansas Jayhawks vs. Duke Blue Devils NCAAM game from November 26, 2024 on ESPN. Includes all points, rebounds and steals stats.Kentucky 77-72 Duke (Nov 12, 2024) Box Score - ESPN
Box score for the Kentucky Wildcats vs. Duke Blue Devils NCAAM game from November 12, 2024 on ESPN. Includes all points, rebounds and steals stats.
Alabama seems similar. They get in so much foul trouble, its hard to tell by looking strictly at numbers what their rotations are like.
I definitely think 8 is the ideal, and realistic, number. We aren't necessarily in ideal shape with our depth. Nova/Georgetown shouldn't be the bar, we should be striving to be above them. I just don't think it's going to particularly hurt us since our top six are all starting caliber guys.