Who's Out / Who's In

austour

austour

Well-known member
2023 $upporter
Just thought I'd throw together an analysis of who left and their replacements. Add to the data below that you would hope that returning players are better than they were. I'd expect slight improvement from Lovett and Ponds, decent improvement from Ahmed and hopefully big improvement from Owens and Yakwe (at least to his frosh level). Then you got Amir being Amir. Agree that with just 9 eligible on scholly any foul trouble, injury or other form of absence will hurt exponentially but in the absence of that there should still be decent improvement. Every team that finished ahead of STJ in conference last year made the dance. Improvement should definitely lead to a post season appearance.

That said I'm just sitting around waiting for the next disaster.


P R A
Federico Mussini 7.9 1.7 0.8
Should be more than replaced by Simon.

Malik Ellison 7.4 3.3 2.5
Trimble Might have trouble replacing some of these numbers but hopefully the number of bonehead plays and bad shots will drop as well.

Darien Williams 3.8 2.6 0.2
I'll miss his positivity but Clark should double his productivity.

Richard Freudenberg 1.3 1.3 0.5
Will this really be missed? Would have been nice to have Sid here, but only if he wanted to be here.
 
You forgot Sima. Who would have provided depth at the 5, although he did not play well last year.
 
You forgot Sima. Who would have provided depth at the 5, although he did not play well last year.
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He didn't play in any conference games last year and therefore didn't impact the conference standings I alluded to. Also didn't play in any close non-conference wins except CSU Northridge (my son's new school by the way) during which he played his worst game so it's safe to say he didn't really impact the record much.
 
I'd forgotten that Ellison's numbers looked like that. I assume we speculated that if he was leaving, it must mean that Simon is the goods. Or at least I hope that's what happens.
 
On the surface none of these losses look bad. But the problem w loosing these players is depth. We can't afford much in injuries. If Yakwe could turn it around that would be very helpful.
 
I think simon and clark will be our 3 & 4th best players. I 'm hoping they can help change the defensive approach of team but perhaps that's too much to ask. Ahmed will probably still be 3rd leading scorer but I don't think hell be as vital to teams success as these two. If clark can be a legitimate 4man for 25 mins a night than we are a tourney team.
 
I'm really looking to Clark and Simon for maturity and leadership as much as anything else. Especially Clark. That is something that was sorely lacking last year.
 
I think simon and clark will be our 3 & 4th best players. I 'm hoping they can help change the defensive approach of team but perhaps that's too much to ask. Ahmed will probably still be 3rd leading scorer but I don't think hell be as vital to teams success as these two. If clark can be a legitimate 4man for 25 mins a night than we are a tourney team.
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I think Owens, Simon, Clark,Bash, Ponds, Lovett are going to be solid BE players. We have the potential for a good year if we can stay healthy. Depth could be our Achilles heal. Yakwe is a question mark. Hope Owens has gained some weight. Also hope staff has been working on Amars inside game. Certainly don't need him standing by the 3 point line. Depth was the problem w Lavins last year . We had 6 good players, but insufficient backups. Although, I think this years team has more depth than that team , they were older and more experienced.
 
Just thought I'd throw together an analysis of who left and their replacements. Add to the data below that you would hope that returning players are better than they were. I'd expect slight improvement from Lovett and Ponds, decent improvement from Ahmed and hopefully big improvement from Owens and Yakwe (at least to his frosh level). Then you got Amir being Amir. Agree that with just 9 eligible on scholly any foul trouble, injury or other form of absence will hurt exponentially but in the absence of that there should still be decent improvement. Every team that finished ahead of STJ in conference last year made the dance. Improvement should definitely lead to a post season appearance.

That said I'm just sitting around waiting for the next disaster.


P R A
Federico Mussini 7.9 1.7 0.8
Should be more than replaced by Simon.

Malik Ellison 7.4 3.3 2.5
Trimble Might have trouble replacing some of these numbers but hopefully the number of bonehead plays and bad shots will drop as well.

Darien Williams 3.8 2.6 0.2
I'll miss his positivity but Clark should double his productivity.

Richard Freudenberg 1.3 1.3 0.5
Will this really be missed? Would have been nice to have Sid here, but only if he wanted to be here.
Click to expand...

Your analysis is spot on. I kind of feel Yawke having very good yr would make us very good If he plays the same as last yr should lose playing time But we will be much better than last yr
Still hoping for an NCAA bid but NIT would be ok at this junction
 
Just thought I'd throw together an analysis of who left and their replacements. Add to the data below that you would hope that returning players are better than they were. I'd expect slight improvement from Lovett and Ponds, decent improvement from Ahmed and hopefully big improvement from Owens and Yakwe (at least to his frosh level). Then you got Amir being Amir. Agree that with just 9 eligible on scholly any foul trouble, injury or other form of absence will hurt exponentially but in the absence of that there should still be decent improvement. Every team that finished ahead of STJ in conference last year made the dance. Improvement should definitely lead to a post season appearance.

That said I'm just sitting around waiting for the next disaster.


P R A
Federico Mussini 7.9 1.7 0.8
Should be more than replaced by Simon.

Malik Ellison 7.4 3.3 2.5
Trimble Might have trouble replacing some of these numbers but hopefully the number of bonehead plays and bad shots will drop as well.

Darien Williams 3.8 2.6 0.2
I'll miss his positivity but Clark should double his productivity.

Richard Freudenberg 1.3 1.3 0.5
Will this really be missed? Would have been nice to have Sid here, but only if he wanted to be here.
Click to expand...

Your analysis is spot on. I kind of feel Yawke having very good yr would make us very good If he plays the same as last yr should lose playing time But we will be much better than last yr
Still hoping for an NCAA bid but NIT would be ok at this junction
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Lose playing time to whom? They don't have anyone else :oops:
 
Great breakdown, Austour. Thanks. While Sid Wilson's departure very disappointing, I don't think that changes the potential for this team to compete in the BE and position itself for the NCAAs.
This is an 'if' team: We need improvement from Owens, Yakwe, Bashir, Ali; maturity from Lovett, the same grit from Ponds and added O, D, and depth from Simon and Clark. Anything from Trimble would be dessert.
 
Trying to be realistic here. We have 6 really solid players. Ponds, Lovett, Ahmed and Owens should all benefit from last year's experience and from a full off-season to get stronger and to work on skills. I expect Owens to make the biggest leap from where he was and to contribute more on offense while staying on the floor. Don't know about Simon and Clark other than their previous pedigrees from HS and college and that the staff seems to think very highly of both of them based on their participation in practices last season. Hope they are both major contributors. Beyond those six we have a freshman guard who may or may not be able to catch up with the speed and physically of the BE, a 6'7" PF/C who logged a lot of minutes last year but produced very few rebounds or points and very little post D other than shot blocks and a 6'9" PF who likes to stand at the 3 pt line and hit about 20% of his shots. Either Yakwe or Amar has to step up as a rebounder and defender or we will be woefully short of low post minutes and fouls. And Trimble will need to be serviceable, especially if any of the other three guards are injured.
So I'm expecting a better team based on an improved top six, but I am also expecting that we will lose games due to lack of viable low post players when someone gets in foul trouble or gets hurt and/or due to lack of experienced guard depth if one of our core three guards is injured. I think that makes us a 6th to 8th place BE team and a likely NIT team and a possible but not likely NCAA team. I hope I am wrong and that the strength of the top six and some improvement from Yakwe and Amar allow us to click on all cylinders and have a great, exciting run to and deep into the NCAA's. But as a STJ, Mets, Giants, Knicks fan who grew up in Houston rooting in vain for the Colts/Astros and Oilers, I will not be holding my breath...
 
Just thought I'd throw together an analysis of who left and their replacements. Add to the data below that you would hope that returning players are better than they were. I'd expect slight improvement from Lovett and Ponds, decent improvement from Ahmed and hopefully big improvement from Owens and Yakwe (at least to his frosh level). Then you got Amir being Amir. Agree that with just 9 eligible on scholly any foul trouble, injury or other form of absence will hurt exponentially but in the absence of that there should still be decent improvement. Every team that finished ahead of STJ in conference last year made the dance. Improvement should definitely lead to a post season appearance.

That said I'm just sitting around waiting for the next disaster.


P R A
Federico Mussini 7.9 1.7 0.8
Should be more than replaced by Simon.

Malik Ellison 7.4 3.3 2.5
Trimble Might have trouble replacing some of these numbers but hopefully the number of bonehead plays and bad shots will drop as well.

Darien Williams 3.8 2.6 0.2
I'll miss his positivity but Clark should double his productivity.

Richard Freudenberg 1.3 1.3 0.5
Will this really be missed? Would have been nice to have Sid here, but only if he wanted to be here.
Click to expand...

Your analysis is spot on. I kind of feel Yawke having very good yr would make us very good If he plays the same as last yr should lose playing time But we will be much better than last yr
Still hoping for an NCAA bid but NIT would be ok at this junction
Click to expand...




Unless Yakwe has improved his shot I can only hope he becomes an offensive rebounder and scores with putbacks.
 
I agree about wanting Yakwe to go much harder after the boards and he could in fact help in that way. Actually I think Yakwe could be a great post player with our style if the rebounding ever comes around. A great post player for us would run the floor well because he is the anchor on both ends. Doesn't have to be a scorer but if he can bang the boards and spark and stop transition, that would be ideal. Yakwe has the physical talent to do that. He could be a great rebounder and a rim runner. We're not going to see that and really didn't see that all last season because of the weak rebounding.

The post play is major concern but it was last year too and that wasn't the biggest factor in competing/winning. We made good adjustments in the post with obvious limitations, but what ended up being a much bigger factor was defense 1-3 and a lot of our failures in the post defensively, were due to our guards not picking up their man and the the "bigs" helping and then getting beat / fouling. Those guys (athletic 2/3) are what killed us not the giants.
 
I agree about wanting Yakwe to go much harder after the boards and he could in fact help in that way. Actually I think Yakwe could be a great post player with our style if the rebounding ever comes around. A great post player for us would run the floor well because he is the anchor on both ends. Doesn't have to be a scorer but if he can bang the boards and spark and stop transition, that would be ideal. Yakwe has the physical talent to do that. He could be a great rebounder and a rim runner. We're not going to see that and really didn't see that all last season because of the weak rebounding.

The post play is major concern but it was last year too and that wasn't the biggest factor in competing/winning. We made good adjustments in the post with obvious limitations, but what ended up being a much bigger factor was defense 1-3 and a lot of our failures in the post defensively, were due to our guards not picking up their man and the the "bigs" helping and then getting beat / fouling. Those guys (athletic 2/3) are what killed us not the giants.
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Great post, PM. Completely agree with you about Yakwe. He has the physical skills to be a very good player for SJU. We all saw that in the Seton Hall game where he did a great job defensively on Delgado. The big question about him is can he become a consistent rebounder? I don't ever envision him being a great college scorer, but there is no reason for him not to be pulling down at least 8 rpg. None at all.

And you're spot on about the defense. This team went through scoring droughts last year, but what will ultimately make or break this season is whether the defense steps up and shows improvement. I think the additions of Simon and Clark will help immensely in that area and Owens proved himself to be very good down low for them. Can Yakwe bring more consistency on the defensive level? And can Ahmed, Ponds, and LoVett really step up their -'mes in that area? That's going to be what determines how far this team goes in 2017-'18.
 
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