We might lose to Rutgers, guys.
Well, Rutgers is still bad and they have lost 3 big men to injury, so we have that going for us. They have 2 guys that play that are over 6'6" and neither is very good.
We might lose to Rutgers, guys.
EDIT: I forgot DJ Williams. Fixed
Someone earlier said we'd be missing 5 of our top 8-9 guys. I wrote out my rankings (IMHO - feel free to disagree with me). I am also including Darius Paul who I saw play 0 minutes ever.
1) Hill - Active
2) Nunn - GTD
3) Coleman-Lands - Active
4) Thorne Jr. - Out :tsk:
5) Black - Out :tsk:
6) Abrams - Out :tsk:
7) Paul - Wasted opportunity / off team
8) Finke - GTD
9) Williams - Active
10) Morgan - Active
11) Jordan - Active
12) Tate - Active
13) Lewis - Active
14) Austin - Active
15) Liss - Active
By my count that would be 6 of the top 8 guys. Starters would be #1, 3, 9, 10, and 11 best players on the team with only #12, 13, 14 and 15 on the bench to give you any minutes.
We might lose to Rutgers, guys.
So the line-up could be...
PG: Tate
SG: JCL
SF: Jordan
PF: Hill
C: Morgan
Think we lose this one...just running out of players--but would be soon much better to get a win, a loss would be a new low.
Hope Groce bubblewraps the players we have left.
Or we could take the advice so often given to Groce on these boards and bench both point guards in favor of someone who poses a greater scoring threat. Our lineup would then be:
DJW
JCL
AJ
MH
MM.
That would leave AA on the bench to backup all five positions.
Does that work for you?
EDIT: I forgot DJ Williams. Fixed
Someone earlier said we'd be missing 5 of our top 8-9 guys. I wrote out my rankings (IMHO - feel free to disagree with me). I am also including Darius Paul who I saw play 0 minutes ever.
1) Hill - Active
2) Nunn - GTD
3) Coleman-Lands - Active
4) Thorne Jr. - Out :tsk:
5) Black - Out :tsk:
6) Abrams - Out :tsk:
7) Paul - Wasted opportunity / off team
8) Finke - GTD
9) Williams - Active
10) Morgan - Active
11) Jordan - Active
12) Tate - Active
13) Lewis - Active
14) Austin - Active
15) Liss - Active
By my count that would be 6 of the top 8 guys. Starters would be #1, 3, 9, 10, and 11 best players on the team with only #12, 13, 14 and 15 on the bench to give you any minutes.
We might lose to Rutgers, guys.
7) Paul - Wasted opportunity / off team
EDIT: I forgot DJ Williams. Fixed
Someone earlier said we'd be missing 5 of our top 8-9 guys. I wrote out my rankings (IMHO - feel free to disagree with me). I am also including Darius Paul who I saw play 0 minutes ever.
1) Hill - Active
2) Nunn - GTD
3) Coleman-Lands - Active
4) Thorne Jr. - Out :tsk:
5) Black - Out :tsk:
6) Abrams - Out :tsk:
7) Paul - Wasted opportunity / off team
8) Finke - GTD
9) Williams - Active
10) Morgan - Active
11) Jordan - Active
12) Tate - Active
13) Lewis - Active
14) Austin - Active
15) Liss - Active
By my count that would be 6 of the top 8 guys. Starters would be #1, 3, 9, 10, and 11 best players on the team with only #12, 13, 14 and 15 on the bench to give you any minutes.
We might lose to Rutgers, guys.
Who could tell?What if both teams want to forfeit?
That lineup would work for me unless/until Rutgers shows a sufficiently effective press or pressure defense that would require using a PG. Just have whoever has the weakest defender matchup bring the ball up (except Mav). Sub in KL and JT and AA for rest purposes otherwise. Use TOs strictly for rest rather than strategic reasons if necessary.
We're not having a postseason. It was disheartening to me last game to watch AJ drive in nicely and put in his own miss, then a few possessions later have the ball stripped from him and get benched for most of the rest of the game. And DJ hardly played at all. It is time to play these guys and take your lumps with their mistakes as they work through them. Nothing against AA or the others, but AJ and DJ have to start getting more significant tick now. Frankly, we need more guys who can make plays by putting the ball on the floor and we might as well practice it in games with our younguns. Rutgers stinks. Use Mav down low, inside/out the ball, and drive constantly against Rutgers, all with the above as the principal lineup, and let's see how things go with 5 guys who can score out there. Go Illini.
Edit: I see much of these same thoughts have been made over in the last game thread, by HOC et al, so just make this a ditto to those.
Fyi, DJW is shooting 25% from the field and 0% from 3 point land.
Fyi, DJW is shooting 25% from the field and 0% from 3 point land.
What if both teams want to forfeit?
And he'll probably continue at that pace when he plays 5 minutes one game, zero minutes the next, 2 minutes the next, etc., and gets yanked every time he makes a mistake. So I don't care what those percentages are now. They are no worse than Tate's, are they not (I didn't look)? Tate's ceiling has been discovered; let's start finding DJW's.
And he'll probably continue at that pace when he plays 5 minutes one game, zero minutes the next, 2 minutes the next, etc., and gets yanked every time he makes a mistake. So I don't care what those percentages are now. They are no worse than Tate's, are they not (I didn't look)? Tate's ceiling has been discovered; let's start finding DJW's.
Dan is our shrink, and Loyalty is our couch .
And he'll probably continue at that pace when he plays 5 minutes one game, zero minutes the next, 2 minutes the next, etc., and gets yanked every time he makes a mistake. So I don't care what those percentages are now. They are no worse than Tate's, are they not (I didn't look)? Tate's ceiling has been discovered; let's start finding DJW's.
Amen. Tate has hit three 3 pointers in his college career. One each season so far. He isn't anything special handling the ball. I would much rather see something different than the same thing over and over again when it continues to fail...I hope some of the freshman start getting more minutes starting with this game. Best case scenario for this season is NIT so why not realize that and get some guys experience?