Tough to imagine Morez Johnson playing as little as Hansberry has this year though. And Sincere won't be redshirting again.
It's a good line of coachspeak, but keeping 13 scholarship players happy and engaged is more difficult than its ever been.
Anyway, I would like us to look more developmental in the portal, and trust guys like Hansberry and Dainja and Rodgers to develop and shoulder more of the load.
We're in the market for one big scorer for sure, but maybe not so much the Harmon and Guerrier types.
And yet this is my expectation, just because that's what we've done the past two years.
They either will or they won't. BU isn't going to wait around to find out. He will make sure there is competition for playing time. The program is gaining momentum as far as consistency is concerned. Maintaining that momentum has to be the priority.
We all know the guys you mentioned have the talent to play, but they also represent considerable liability if they don't improve.
Ty is going to play at least as much next year, regardless of who we bring in. I don't see any scenario in which he doesn't average north of 20 minutes next year. He brings too much to the table. His role will expand to the extent that his offensive game expands beyond the paint area, and he becomes an average FT shooter. If he wants to play 30 minutes, those things have to happen.
Dain needs to continue to work on his body to get a bit more quickness and show consistent effort on the defensive side. If BU is willing to throw some more zone looks into his bag (like he did yesterday...would allow him to share the court more readily with Morez and Amani), he can certainly carve out a more consistent role.
Amani needs to avoid a sophomore setback and get healthy. With his back issues, I'm not sure we want to end up in a position where we have to rely on him. I assume our S&C wonder twins will work some magic on him this off-season, but we will need frontcourt depth as a contingency at minimum.
It will be interesting to see what happens with DGL, Nico, and Buck, too. These are all guys who could get guaranteed playing time in lesser programs but will have to improve to play a lot here. Nico and DGL kind of went back and forth on who the 4th guy off the bench was. I assume Buck would have been in that mix too had he decided to play this year. I doubt we rest on our laurels regarding guard play. If a guy like Javon Small comes in, they are going to have their work cut out for them.
Goode is the ultimate mystery to me. He's not likely to ever start for Illinois. Will he be satisfied with being a bench player his entire career? Selfishly, I hope he stays, because he is a max effort guy with a beautiful jump shot. Unlike a lot of guys, I will root for him no matter what he decides.