Aloha,
Listening to CEM, it appears Monday’s game will be very challenging resulting in him “shrinking the rotation”. I am assuming whom he plays and when on Monday will be a good indication of the player’s ranking for PT moving forward. Saturday’s second half line-up was a killer shot by CEM. Expect to see more of the same on Monday.
UA…Campus of Champions
Maybe, but CEM changes lineups all throughout the season to motivate certain players to do certain things. The only lineup that really matters is the one that he uses to start the NCAAT. I assume that one will be tweeked year round and those sitting on the bench today may be starting that game.
I would imagine his beginning starters of the season will be: Smith, Davis, Johnson. I’d imagine a lot of experience needs to be on the floor for a while. I could see Council probably be in there for a while.
I think there are 6 that highly likely to be in the rotation all year. The 3 McD’s AA’s and Devo, Brazile and Council.
I also think Ford and Pinion will play very little.
So that leaves 5 guys for spots 7 - 11. Kamani, the Mitchells (2), Graham and Dunning. Dunning and Kamani have played the best of these so far.
But, Muss went and got more size this off-season for a reason. While Kamani is a warrior, he’s 6’-7” at best. Remember the Duke game? Michael Williams (7’0”) had 12 points, 12 rebounds and 3 blocks. I think we need one of the Mitchells or Graham to fill a role inside. But right now they haven’t adjusted to the work required to get minutes from Muss. It’s early, so a long time for that to occur. But that’s an interesting thing for me to watch. What happens with these 3.
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I pretty much agree with this but one guy we’re not getting near as much out of right now as I think we can is Graham all you have to do is go look at his highlights and see that this guy is capable of being very good. I think he has a higher upside than the Mitchell twins. Kimani is going to play because he is a alpha-type player who is not going to back down from anybody and you need that in the SEC. Dunning is also going to play because he is very smart and he has a capability of shooting the 3.
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I have a feeling with this team he may not have a set starting 5. I think he will mix and match based on the opponent and what he wants to exploit that they do and which player best fits that particular game.
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Kamani is a warrior at only 6’7”? How tall was Corliss?
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Corliss was a great player. Johnson not so much.
Agree. Right now, Graham is reminding me of Vance Jackson. Jackson was a very good offensive player, but just couldn’t get many minutes due to his defense. This team will be better if Graham is in the 8 man rotation, but only if he can hold his own on the defensive side.
He played well in the first game, with 9 rebounds. Hopefully, he can get the defense down, and at least maybe “share” the 7th/8th man spot with Kamani, based on who we’re playing and who’s playing best in a particular game.
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I get the sense that Nick, Black, Brazile, Devo, Council have 5 spots locked up.
Walsh, Johnson and Dunning lead for the other 3 spots. Ford, Graham, Makhi have a shot of bumping out one of those 3,
BTW, if Muss is talking about shrinking the rotation for this exhibition game, you know he is not playing more than 8 when conference season comes around.
You need size when you need size, and guards when you need guards, and rebounders when you need rebounders, and leadership when you need leadership, etc. Kamani will find plenty of time on the court. There’s a place for him. The bigger guys will get plenty of time to get ready for that one rare game (DUKE), where we obviously lost from size.
Corliss was a great player inside in spite of not possessing great height. Kamani rebounds well in spite of not possessing great height. Last year we did have a player with great height who failed to take a rebound right off the rim, then immediately following that he failed to put the ball in the hoop while standing right under it. He was pulled and never played as a Razorback again.
the Mitchell brothers and Graham
at least one of those 3 will have to step up and start performing to Muss’ expectations
otherwise none of them will get minutes and we’ll be very small in the frontcourt…again
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I have seen very little mention of Pinion after game one and nothing on Ford. Are they injured?
Just not getting many minutes.
Remember when Baylor blew through the field and won the National Championship with one 6’10" guy (who didn’t score much) and one 6’8" guy. They had 5 or 6 guys who were 6’5" to 6’7" who could all defend and rebound. Blew out a couple teams who were much taller than them.
It looks like we have 6’10" Brazile, 6’8" Jordan and 5 guys that are 6’5" to 6’7" and one 6’4" guard. All can defend and rebound and are very athletic. Very similar to that great Baylor team. Just a little younger with 3 very talented 5* freshmen and 3 proven players.
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I don’t think so. Muss is a NBA coach. NBA has set starters and set rotations and minutes. Muss does not like to disrupt the rhythm of the game with head scratching substitutions like the previous coach did. He will only change starting lineup and rotation when someone is not performing.
Now watch him make me look like I don’t know what I am talking about.
He may still change things around early on, but we know by December, you will be right on point, and we know that those 8 had better place real defense or whatever else they can do will not matter as they will be on the bench.
It seems his history lines up with your thinking.
It seems like we are playing a little more uptempo running game this year with a more athletic and long team. I wonder if we will have a little deeper rotation to play that way? We definitely have length and athleticism up and down the roster if we want to keep legs fresh out there.
We can always find SOMETHING to whine about can’t we? This is a BIG, long, athletic team. Overall, BIG. It’s not like we had no chance against Duke and could have W if we had played better.
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