2018 Recruiting

[Cedric Dempsey]

Lack of depth is what it's called when you are being forced to rely on freshman to play big minutes and contribute like veterans every night.

You'll have plenty of young talented depth. Relax and enjoy watching your future develop. Eight man rotation minimally. Thin for practice only.

 

[GMUgemini]

You'll have plenty of young talented depth. Relax and enjoy watching your future develop. Eight man rotation minimally. Thin for practice only.

I get that, but after losing Newman and Temara on top of DeAndre and Dixon, my expectations for the season have gone down. I'll be happy to be wrong and I'm excited to see all the newcomers get their chance.

 

[Jack Strop]

There's no hard rule that says a walk-on cannot be thrown into the regular mix. A few strategically placed minutes per game could be helpful to keep certain players fresh. Plus, you never know who could blow up when given an opportunity.

I know, highly unlikely, but it's been known to happen.

 

[GMUgemini]

There's no hard rule that says a walk-on cannot be thrown into the regular mix. A few strategically placed minutes per game could be helpful to keep certain players fresh. Plus, you never know who could blow up when given an opportunity.

I know, highly unlikely, but it's been known to happen.

Timmy Burns was known to hit a shot or two from time to time with the game still competitive...

 

[Cedric Dempsey]

I get that, but after losing Newman and Temara on top of DeAndre and Dixon, my expectations for the season have gone down. I'll be happy to be wrong and I'm excited to see all the newcomers get their chance.

Newman may be missed.

 

[gmujim92]

I get that, but after losing Newman and Temara on top of DeAndre and Dixon, my expectations for the season have gone down. I'll be happy to be wrong and I'm excited to see all the newcomers get their chance.

Why would your expectations go down after losing a bunch of guys who weren't going to play much, if at all?

The only rotation player to leave is Newman and we have three other guys who play his position.

No offense to the other guys, but the reality is their presence or absence isn't going to have any effect on the outcome of our 2017-18 season.

 

[GMUgemini]

Why would your expectations go down after losing a bunch of guys who weren't going to play much, if at all?

The only rotation player to leave is Newman and we have three other guys who play his position.

No offense to the other guys, but the reality is their presence or absence isn't going to have any effect on the outcome of our 2017-18 season.

I think I made my point pretty clear. The margin for error is razor thin when you have to rely on people who haven't played a minute of the game to contribute on a consistent basis at a high level -- AJ, Mar, Calixte specifically, but even Greene . If those guys aren't ready (how many of you wish Temara red-shirted last year) we are not 8 deep, we are 6 with no big man to speak of (how confident are you Relvao can give us 35 minutes a game).

At least with Newman, and even Temara (who I think showed at least potential last year even if he was spasmodic at times) we had some leeway.

 

[GMUSig03]

I think I made my point pretty clear. The margin for error is razor thin when you have to rely on people who haven't played a minute of the game to contribute on a consistent basis at a high level -- AJ, Mar, Calixte specifically, but even Greene . If those guys aren't ready (how many of you wish Temara red-shirted last year) we are not 8 deep, we are 6 with no big man to speak of (how confident are you Relvao can give us 35 minutes a game).

At least with Newman, and even Temara (who I think showed at least potential last year even if he was spasmodic at times) we had some leeway.

I'm a little more with gemini on this - Newman and Temara leaving make us so thin that we will quickly be in trouble if there is an injury or freshmen who are expected to contribute are not ready.

I think our ceiling for the upcoming season is still as high as it was, since we have other players at Newman's spot and we hope that Relvao/Calixte/AJ/Mar will give us what we need at the 4 and 5 - but the margin of error was made infinitesimally small with the last 2 transfers.

 

[GMUgemini]

I agree with Joe...but granted, I don't think anyone expected Newman or Kier to be as influential last season as they were, so here is hoping that whoever starts at the 4 and 5 fits right in and we have a really solid 8-man rotation that exceeds everyone's expectations.

And I also said I'm pretty excited to see all four of the newcomers play...and I'm still really high on AJ and Mar specifically (which means Calixte is going to be the one to set some kind of freshman record).

 

[gmujim92]

I think I made my point pretty clear. The margin for error is razor thin when you have to rely on people who haven't played a minute of the game to contribute on a consistent basis at a high level -- AJ, Mar, Calixte specifically, but even Greene . If those guys aren't ready (how many of you wish Temara red-shirted last year) we are not 8 deep, we are 6 with no big man to speak of (how confident are you Relvao can give us 35 minutes a game).

At least with Newman, and even Temara (who I think showed at least potential last year even if he was spasmodic at times) we had some leeway.

My point is we all knew all along we were going to be counting on several young guys this season.

The only transfer who was expected to be a significant contributor was Newman, and he averaged less than 5 ppg as a freshman.

Bottom line, we're going as far as Otis, Jaire, Boyd, Kier, Mar, Wilson and Greene take us.

No offense to the guys who left, but I think perhaps your expectations were out of whack to begin with.

 

[gmujim92]

Don't forget, Dayton won 27 games and made the Round of 32 in 2015 with a 6-man rotation and 6-6 Kendall Pollard at center.

They only had one senior who played (Jordan Sibert), their best player (Dyshawn Pierre) was a junior and half of their rotation players (Scoochie Smith, Pollard and Kyle Davis) were sophomores.

They also had a coach who emphasized physical defense, sharing the ball on offense and making no excuses for their lack of size/depth/whatever.

With that as an example, I'd say our team has a chance to be very good even with so many young players and a 9-man rotation.

 

[GMUgemini]

My point is we all knew all along we were going to be counting on several young guys this season.

The only transfer who was expected to be a significant contributor was Newman, and he averaged less than 5 ppg as a freshman.

Bottom line, we're going as far as Otis, Jaire, Boyd, Kier, Mar, Wilson and Greene take us.

No offense to the guys who left, but I think perhaps your expectations were out of whack to begin with.

My point is only that we thought we had two more players who had potential who already had a year in the system and would/should be better this season than last. With Newman, particularly, we had what we thought was a solid rotation player and potential starter who is now gone. But even Temara, I'd argue, showed a few things last year to make one hope that he could step on the court and play (I know some have argued he's basically incompetent, but I didn't see that). And now we're going to be relying on players who haven't stepped foot on a D1 court.

The front court is already going to be a giant question mark, and if anyone of our freshmen look as lost in a zone (both playing against on offense and defending in one) as Temara did, we're in some serious trouble.

 

[Falco]

Why would your expectations go down after losing a bunch of guys who weren't going to play much, if at all?

The only rotation player to leave is Newman and we have three other guys who play his position.

No offense to the other guys, but the reality is their presence or absence isn't going to have any effect on the outcome of our 2017-18 season.

I'm pretty high on the team. It seems really balanced. I actually like a short rotation. But it's going to be hard to replace Jenkins and Moore.

 

[JPgmuswim]

My optimism has not gone down for the this season after losing Newman and Temera. It may give some extra minutes to our Freshmen class, which can only make them stronger players down the road. The turn around that Paulsen has made with our program is ahead of where I thought we would be. I'm excited about this year but I still look at it as a growing year for the team, I think most people can agree that with no seniors this year and the squad Paulsen is building, the 18-19 season could be really special.

Following the 18-19 season my hope would be that we have become a top team in the A-10 and can sustain being a top A-10 team. To do that we will need kids to step into the shoes of guys like Otis and Jaire. I liked Newman but I am also excited to see what Paulsen can bring in this year with 3 scholarships to help balance out the classes and hopefully improve our future teams more than the players we lost would have.

 

[mkaufman1]

Generally speaking, freshman have a significant jump in performance from freshman to sophomore year, and while Newman and Temara didn't score much, sometimes just having the in game experience and being able to adjust a little better after a year of D1 ball helps the team perform that much better on both ends.

To that point, there are plenty of guards who play Newman's position and can take his minutes. The front court is a question mark, but we all knew that coming in, and that will improve itself over the next year and solidify once Reuter is playing.

It might be a half a step back (maybe 1 win, if that), but I can see this being a big step forward, especially if the talent that replaces Newman and Temara is that much better. I think also everyone can agree that 2018-2019 was going to be the big jump. The rebuild is on the back end at this point in my view.

 

[Patriot8]

I am struggling to imagine us not missing Newman at some point this year. He was the spark plug off the bench and BY FAR our best returning on ball defender. For a team that lost a significant amount of offense, losing our best pure scoring guard off the bench will absolutely hurt. Sure we have other guys who play the same position, but none of them; aside from Grayer, can light it up like Mari...

 

[GSII]

Winter is Coming.

 

[Mason Addict]

If I were to pick from the 2016 recruiting class for a pickup game, this would be the order.

1. Boyd, give him the ball and clear out, he will get most guards in foul trouble
2. AJ, haven't seen him play in person, purely based on what I read and heard
3. Kier, willing passer who makes the team better
4. Newman, must have great deep threat
5. Temara, Gotta have a big man over 6-7

All things considered, I think Im pretty happy with what we have in retention out of this class.

 

[GSII]

Was Temara over 6'7? Looked rather midgety out there.

 

[Patriot8]

Adams has set official visits with Wyoming and Rhode Island.. to go along with Georgia and I believe Georgia Tech.