11.5mpg is definitely part of the rotation, especially if that’s spread out over 30 or so games.
Illini Basketball 2026-2027
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Like I said, I'm not here to debate the minimum number of minutes to say a guy is in a rotation. I'm just pointing out the quantity of minutes played by the 9th+ guys of these teams
These are from sports-reference, but I had to do some math to convert their minutes-per-game-played (which would inflate these numbers) to minutes-per-team-game (the more conservative approach).
They blew out a lot of teams so badly (even some very good teams), that they could afford to empty the bench often.
Same here. Mirk is a great player but I am not sure if he had a go-to move. I hope he can finish more efficiently like Andrej.
He played in 12 games which is more than 30% of the season and he played in the 2nd half of the season including postseason play(NIT).
Injury hardship waivers have only ever been granted for guys that were injured in the 1st half of the season. Returning in the 2nd half makes him ineligible as does playing more than 30% of games.
Luke Goode just had his waiver denied for the same thing(as had every player that appealed this). He played in 10 games as a sophomore but he played in all of them in the 2nd half including postseason play.
The injury hardship waivers therefore would not apply to Aberdeen and the only way he would be eligible is via a court injunction to grant him a 5th year which would open the door for all 4 year guys to return.
It probably depends how you calculate it and what your source is.
Using sports-reference, Michigan's 9th man in minutes on the season was Cason, and he played 9.8mpg in games decided by 10 or fewer points. That includes 6 of those 15 games that he missed; excluding those, he was the 8th man, and Tschetter was 9th with 13.6mpg).
Last year, in our 17 games decided by 10 or fewer points, our 9th man (Petrovic) played 1.4mpg, and our 9th+ men combined for 1.9mpg. That includes 4 overtime games vs just 1 for Michigan. Excluding 6 of those games where one of our top 8 were out, our 9th+ men combined for 2.4mpg (still includes 2 overtime games). We had an 8 man rotation that tightened up to 7 or 6 due to injury.
Edit: I agree that Ty Rodgers could have changed that for us. My point isn't to complain that we only played 8 guys last year. It's to push back on the idea that depth is overrated, especially when such claims are supported by incorrect assumptions about recent champions.
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People forget this time last year, Tomi was our consensus All-American/best player.
Which publication had him listed as an All American? (agree he was our thought-to-be best player)
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Comparing top end talent on the top teams using the Draft Kings player of the year betting odds (roughly 100 players on the list):
Another way to look at the numbers:
Michigan has the most players on the list with 5, but zero in the top 10. They’ll likely be very good again. Florida is the only team with two players in the top 10. We’re close behind with players at #4 and #11. Duke looks good, but not “best team ever” good. Michigan St has the #1 player (Fears), but only 3 players total (#1, #33, #79).
| School | Players | Player #s on the list |
| Michigan | 5 | 14, 18, 27, 52, 58 |
| Arkansas | 4 | 8, 64, 65, 87 |
| Duke | 4 | 3, 25, 34, 55 |
| Florida | 4 | 2, 9, 22, 59 |
| Houston | 4 | 39, 40, 92, 95 |
| Illinois | 4 | 4, 11, 35, 72 (Mirk, Vaaks, Andrej, Tomi) |
| Kentucky | 4 | 16, 62, 67, 68 |
| North Carolina | 4 | 31, 44, 54, 88 |
| Tennessee | 4 | 12, 36, 82, 97 |
| USC | 4 | 45, 48, 80, 81 |
Another way to look at the numbers:
| School | Players | Best Rank | Top 25 | Top 50 | Avg Rank |
| Michigan | 5 | #14 | 3 | 3 | 33.8 |
| Illinois | 4 | #4 | 2 | 3 | 30.5 |
| Florida | 4 | #2 | 3 | 3 | 23.0 |
| Duke | 4 | #3 | 2 | 4 | 29.3 |
| Arkansas | 4 | #8 | 2 | 2 | 56.0 |
| Kentucky | 4 | #16 | 1 | 1 | 53.3 |
| North Carolina | 4 | #31 | 0 | 2 | 54.3 |
| Tennessee | 4 | #12 | 1 | 2 | 56.8 |
| USC | 4 | #45 | 0 | 1 | 63.5 |
| Houston | 4 | #39 | 0 | 2 | 66.5 |
Michigan has the most players on the list with 5, but zero in the top 10. They’ll likely be very good again. Florida is the only team with two players in the top 10. We’re close behind with players at #4 and #11. Duke looks good, but not “best team ever” good. Michigan St has the #1 player (Fears), but only 3 players total (#1, #33, #79).
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#9thman debate
Not to keep this going, but the 9th man stuff is, ti me, just peak message board silliness for two reasons. First, we're just coming off a Final Four run, and we did not really use a 9th man. Do we think that hurt us? In what way? Do we think that playing Petro more in the regular season leads us to more win? To beating UConn in the FF?
Second, do we really think any team plans ahead for who it's 9th man is going to be and we dropped the ball? 9th is so far down the rotation I have a hard time beliving coaches are out here recruiting guys specifically for the 9th man role. So why are we so worried none of these players can fill those minutes? We don't even know what we have yet. The staff assembled a ton of freshman talent, how can we be so sure none of them can handle 10 mpg or so? 2 of the last 4 champions have had a freshmen as their 9th men, and one of those, Florida's, was a 3 star prospect rated (by 247) lower than Zens, Williams, and Brown and given the same rating as Landon Davis.
Second, do we really think any team plans ahead for who it's 9th man is going to be and we dropped the ball? 9th is so far down the rotation I have a hard time beliving coaches are out here recruiting guys specifically for the 9th man role. So why are we so worried none of these players can fill those minutes? We don't even know what we have yet. The staff assembled a ton of freshman talent, how can we be so sure none of them can handle 10 mpg or so? 2 of the last 4 champions have had a freshmen as their 9th men, and one of those, Florida's, was a 3 star prospect rated (by 247) lower than Zens, Williams, and Brown and given the same rating as Landon Davis.
rankings don’t mean squat
Except I don't think any of the bolded things were said in this thread.
This started on Monday with promising reports about Williams, which got some people excited about hockey lines (which I agree is a stretch, but I took those comments as light hearted). Others just think the possible depth is good, even if just to keep the regulars fresh for the NCAAT without sacrificing some games. Then some people seemed to say that giving more than a few minutes to your 9th+ men is a bad idea or at least rare among top teams, so I showed that the last five champions all did just that.
This is the real question. Good teams play in more blowouts, which creates more “garbage minutes” for guys on the bench. Additionally, analyzing per game averages is problematic, because the average is not affected by games guys never got into. If you add up per game averages it always adds up to more than 100.
If you simply look at MPG, you’d think Jakstys averaged 5 minutes a game last year. We know he didn’t. He only played in 9 of the 37, 48 minutes total.
To get the answer at the crux of this debate, you have to look at the percentage of minutes a guy got in games, while they were still in doubt. Rotations tighten up during tournament time, because there are fewer blowouts. You need your best guys out there for as long as they can handle.
If our starters do what we expect them to do, the bench will get minutes. They just won’t be high leverage minutes.
I accounted for games with zero minutes by dividing total season minutes by team games. For Michigan, I also looked at just games decided by 10pts or less, and they still got 9.8mpg from their "9th" man after accounting for lots of missed games (147 minutes in 9 games played plus 6 missed games). When I get time, I might do that for one of the other recent champs.
We all agree that rotations tighten up for the tournament. The question was whether depth in the regular season (not just garbage time) helps a team in the NCAAT.
Just to be clear, I calculated it a little differently.
I looked at the box score of each game decided by 10 points or less and then averaged all the minutes coming from the 9th man for that game. Which, to be fair, the 7.6 minutes they got from their 9th man in close games was still more than what we got from ours.
But my take away is when it mattered, Michigan shortened their rotation. They relied on depth less. This was most apparent in the tournament where their 9th player off the bench averaged 1.33 minutes per game yet they still won the natty with relative ease. So, I'm not sure I can buy that depth played a sizeable role in Michigan winning a championship.
That's not to disqualify your other examples.
Ah, I see. By that method I even get 7.1mpg for their 9th man in close games (maybe you excluded the NCG?), and never a 10th man. Before Cason's injury it was 11.9mpg, and after that it was 0mpg. And you are right- for us, it was 0.8mpg/0.2mpg for 9th/10th man in all close games, and didn't change much when we were "full" strength (1.2mpg/0.3mpg for 9th/10th).
We never really got to play at full strength due to Rodgers injury, plus my point isn't to criticize our roster last year, but to merely suggest that if Williams or any of the other less heralded freshman are decent, there's a good argument to play them ~10min even during close games in the regular season.
Though I agree that there's no way to know if there's any causation to this or if it's just correlation.
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...and I'm not dying on the hill that we play 9+ in close games. I looked at Michigan's close games only because someone brought it up, and it's interesting that they did. A quick glance at Florida shows ~8mpg from their 9th man in close games at full strength, while 2023-24 UConn hardly got any (but did get 5mpg from their 8th man in close games when they were down a starter). I don't care to look further back right now.
Ok.. this whole 9th man bit is getting really old… it’s been months guys. I’d love to have discussions about other things.
When Jake Davis leaves, very likely he'll depart as one of our biggest legacy guys. 5 for 5 passing means he can return for another year.
Think about how much he will have seen:
-- came in as our #9thMan in 2025 (in the summer was thought to be our 10th or 11th; Booth was a bust and Ty redshirt)
-- played pivotal role on F4 team in 2026
-- 2027; team will start the season ranked top 5, end result TBD
-- 2028; highly respected senior leader if he chooses to stick around
His game is perhaps the least flashiest on the team, but that's a guy that will have made multi millions once his college career is done.... simply by being the most simplistic and trustworthy role player.
Think about how much he will have seen:
-- came in as our #9thMan in 2025 (in the summer was thought to be our 10th or 11th; Booth was a bust and Ty redshirt)
-- played pivotal role on F4 team in 2026
-- 2027; team will start the season ranked top 5, end result TBD
-- 2028; highly respected senior leader if he chooses to stick around
His game is perhaps the least flashiest on the team, but that's a guy that will have made multi millions once his college career is done.... simply by being the most simplistic and trustworthy role player.
What's the requirement to get to a legacy level? I love Jake. He has an important role with his ability to stretch the floor and he is definitely a positive influence/leader.
However, I'd think that being an All Conference player, DPOY...having any sort of accolades, at minimum, would be required to enter legacy status.
You are correct with the fact that he'll be a tenured guy within a winning program. I think there's a huge difference between beloved status and legacy status and Jake will fit the mold of beloved.
Unless he transfers next summer (perhaps not impossible), he'll only be the 4th player to play 4 years at Illinois under Brad Underwood. Coleman Hawkins, DaMonte, Trent the other three.
Regardless of how you define a "legacy" and "beloved," there's absolutely a distinguished value for that, especially in the transfer climate.
.....
Two summers ago our transfer class composed of:
-- Kylan Boswell
-- Tre White
-- Ben Humrichous
-- Carey Booth
-- Jake Davis
Who had thought, two years later, Jake Davis could reasonably end up having the second biggest impact of all those names? The guy came in as a pure stash, but ...
Tre -- transfered after one season.
Ben -- very similar roles last year; but only 2 years compared to 4.
Booth -- Bust with a capital B.
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