The problem is he is going to be TCUs 6th/7th best player while he was our second or third. Going to be hard against Dixon
2019-20 Schedule Thread
- Thread starter Washingtonian
- Start date
Wasn't sure where to put this, but Kevin Sweeney of CBB Central has DP on his podcast this week. I haven't listened yet, but I will this afternoon. In case anybody doesn't follow Kevin on twitter @CBB_Central he is an excellent College Basketball follow.
https://twitter.com/CBB_Central/status/1155847976029511681?s=20
https://twitter.com/CBB_Central/status/1155847976029511681?s=20
P
PoorManProfit
Spectator
Grayer will be lucky to see the floor.
Did he say AJ would be 1st team all conf ?
Is this a sick joke? We are an incomplete team at best!
FreeGunston12
All-American
He also said we have size (interjected into a list of attributes of this team) at one point. Not sure I agree, but maybe he is hoping for addition by subtraction like the rest of us.
Dawgs99
Starter
I can definitely see us being a better team next year. Obviously losing Otis hurts, but he fell victim to Mark Davis/Sherrod Wright Senioritis. This is no doubt a controversial statement but at times last season he was almost a determent.....trying to hard, making bonehead turnovers. Can Hartwell carry the load?
Grayer and Rueter are addition by subtraction if you ask me. Grayer had some great moments at Mason but his lack of ball handling and the drama that I'm sure was present with him all last season will not be missed. Rueter....well this one is obvious.
If Mar finds his game, Miller avoids what ever Mar had last season and Kier avoids senioritis we could be a better team. Will the results be better? Not sure, the league appears to be really tough next season. I get there are a lot of if's next season but its not like we lost a ton of talent off last years team.
Grayer and Rueter are addition by subtraction if you ask me. Grayer had some great moments at Mason but his lack of ball handling and the drama that I'm sure was present with him all last season will not be missed. Rueter....well this one is obvious.
If Mar finds his game, Miller avoids what ever Mar had last season and Kier avoids senioritis we could be a better team. Will the results be better? Not sure, the league appears to be really tough next season. I get there are a lot of if's next season but its not like we lost a ton of talent off last years team.
Agreed, there's potential if everyone actually improves (or even in the case of Mar if we can even get his freshman self back).
For the size comment, it may seem strange, but we lost a 5'10 PG, a 6'7 center, and a 6'5 SF and brought in a 6'2 PG, a 6'9 center, and a 6'6 SF...so we did get bigger (Grayer was pretty strong, though, so we will miss that). It remains to be seen how much the freshmen will actually contribute, but I actually like Paulsen being forced to start Calixte and probably play him the majority of minutes.
At the very least: Kier, Greene, Miller, Calixte, and Boyd can all play solid defense. Mar was no slouch on the defensive end, If AJ can be disciplined, he's also a shot-stopping gamechanger. So this team has the potential to be a really good defensive team. I have no idea how the shooting is going to go, but as we saw with SLU last season, defense can win championships, especially if your guards happen to get hot for a few games late in the season.
For the size comment, it may seem strange, but we lost a 5'10 PG, a 6'7 center, and a 6'5 SF and brought in a 6'2 PG, a 6'9 center, and a 6'6 SF...so we did get bigger (Grayer was pretty strong, though, so we will miss that). It remains to be seen how much the freshmen will actually contribute, but I actually like Paulsen being forced to start Calixte and probably play him the majority of minutes.
At the very least: Kier, Greene, Miller, Calixte, and Boyd can all play solid defense. Mar was no slouch on the defensive end, If AJ can be disciplined, he's also a shot-stopping gamechanger. So this team has the potential to be a really good defensive team. I have no idea how the shooting is going to go, but as we saw with SLU last season, defense can win championships, especially if your guards happen to get hot for a few games late in the season.
Reasons (according to Paulsen):
1) Better balance (will miss Otis, but will not have to rely on him as a bucket getter).
2) Good depth (every guy on roster is a legit A-10 player)
3) Better length and physicality
4) Work ethic, team spirit, player mindset.
Still a lot of work to do.
trying very hard to stay positive but some of this is just not accurate..
1) fair if Kier takes over as the true #1, if Mar does not turn over the ball every time he touches it, if we stay relatively healthy, if Oduro can come in and play right away (...), if Miller improves and doesn't face sophomore slump, if Greene takes off as number 2 option and if AJ can play a good 4 and backup 5. (I have confidence in Hartwell filling in just fine as PG so I didn't even state that)
2)we lose our best player, the dude Paulsen told everyone was our best player, and the dude Paulsen ran off that was better than many of us give him credit for. We get a highly touted freshman that can score (XJ), a freshman that is large but by all means raw (being nice to Oduro) and a freshman nobody has any clue about that had the weakest offers (Daddy). I don't see it. And this means Mar is back to himself and improved, Boyd stays healthy and can shoot and not foul constantly and AJ can play the 4 and the backup 5 since we have no other big men.
3) technically correct but we seriously undervalued Grayer and I don't like it
4) Otis seemed like a damn good leader to me and members of the team (not trying to get anyone in trouble) like a ton of tweets that negatively portray Paulsen (including my own tweets)
I pray he is right but will not count on it.
The thing about Grayer is we was already gone. So, yeah, he could have been a really important part of last season, but he didn't play a game after 11/24 so we know what this team is going to look like without him on the floor already.
Otis had a really up and down year, but we deferred to him a lot even when he wasn't at his best. Maybe being forced to share that load, share the ball, not defer to much to a single player will help with ball movement and stagnation (two things pretty much everyone on this board complained about last year).
Yes, lots of question marks. The hope is they all get answered in the positive. We can probably expect those answers to be uneven or inconclusive. But our top 8 should still be able to compete: Kier, Greene, Miller, Mar, Calixte, AJ, Hartwell, Boyd (some combination of those 8 as your starting 5 and playing the majority of minutes).
You also forgot to mention JDS as a possible X-factor -- like I said in a previous post, player development is rarely linear. He was a big-time shooter in high school and showed good mechanics even if he didn't see the ball down down that often. He could turn into a solid contributor off the bench and give us some range and shooting.
So, that's 8, possibly 9, players (at least 1 at every position) who we know have the potential to play. We shouldn't "need' any freshmen to be heroes to save this roster. Other than the 5, I'm not really worried that much about how much the freshmen contribute (think we're going to need to see Oduro at parts come on and not look like he has two left feet out there, even if it's just for 7 or 8 minutes -- I think even if AJ plays 8-10 mpg at the 5 as a backup, we're probably going to need Oduro to play some stretches of minutes because of foul trouble).
Expectations at the very least: no dumb turnovers, play some damn defense for 40 minutes, let the chips fall where they may.
Otis had a really up and down year, but we deferred to him a lot even when he wasn't at his best. Maybe being forced to share that load, share the ball, not defer to much to a single player will help with ball movement and stagnation (two things pretty much everyone on this board complained about last year).
Yes, lots of question marks. The hope is they all get answered in the positive. We can probably expect those answers to be uneven or inconclusive. But our top 8 should still be able to compete: Kier, Greene, Miller, Mar, Calixte, AJ, Hartwell, Boyd (some combination of those 8 as your starting 5 and playing the majority of minutes).
You also forgot to mention JDS as a possible X-factor -- like I said in a previous post, player development is rarely linear. He was a big-time shooter in high school and showed good mechanics even if he didn't see the ball down down that often. He could turn into a solid contributor off the bench and give us some range and shooting.
So, that's 8, possibly 9, players (at least 1 at every position) who we know have the potential to play. We shouldn't "need' any freshmen to be heroes to save this roster. Other than the 5, I'm not really worried that much about how much the freshmen contribute (think we're going to need to see Oduro at parts come on and not look like he has two left feet out there, even if it's just for 7 or 8 minutes -- I think even if AJ plays 8-10 mpg at the 5 as a backup, we're probably going to need Oduro to play some stretches of minutes because of foul trouble).
Expectations at the very least: no dumb turnovers, play some damn defense for 40 minutes, let the chips fall where they may.
Copes4Three
Specialist
Nah. He's gonna remember how to dribble against us, shoot the lights out and then proceed to take his spot on the bench. Hartwell was the only player on the roster who shot a better 3% than a hobbled grayer.
Copes4Three
Specialist
Disagree. What people fail to realize is that even though otis struggled to shoot, he still managed to bring the ball up every time, fought through contact in order to make plays. That's why kier was so successful this year because he could just post up and work in the low post, with reuter feeding miller and greene off back cuts. What I am worried about is, will Hartwell make enough of a jump in his Fresh->Soph year to become a primary ball-handler. He demonstrated it off the bench last year but looked lost defensively at times because of his size.
Depth, I am not positive about. AJ can't seem to stay on the court because of foul trouble and Oduro is unknown at this point. Mar is coming off a bad injury. At least we knew last year we had calixte as another big body, but with the quality of big men that will be in the A10 this year makes me concerned
3. Debatable, we lost otis, grayer and retuer. Replaced someone similar in length to reuter but josh is 185, not 250+ like reuter was, Got a lot taller with daddy and xavier in comparison to otis and grayer but we lose that leadership. How many minutes realistically are they going to get. We don't have another big body on the roster besides calixte who can't even be relied on late in the game because he is inconsistent at the FT line.
4. How do we know that the work ethic, spirit and mindset is up from last year?
What will be announcing Tuesday at 5 pm on Twitter?
Non-Conference Schedule 67%
Coach P Switches To Fanta 12%
AJ Retiring From Dunking 9%
G Machine ➡️ Rugby s 12%
Is this an official acknowledgement that the Green Machine's uniforms are horrendous?
Non-Conference Schedule 67%
Coach P Switches To Fanta 12%
AJ Retiring From Dunking 9%
G Machine ➡️ Rugby s 12%
Is this an official acknowledgement that the Green Machine's uniforms are horrendous?
Kier brought the ball up and initiated a lot of offense last season, probably close to 50%. Otis struggles to shoot and struggled to finish through contact the way he did his sophomore and junior seasons.
As for four, Paulsen said they just finished their four week summer sessions and he really liked their mindset, team spirit etc. I mean, you could listen to the podcast.
Dawgs99
Starter
What ever drama there was with Grayer last season is gone with his transfer ( no matter who you blame here) and that has to be a positive. Will we miss Grayer's shooting and rebounding......of course, but as Gemini mentioned above we saw this team without him almost all of last season. If he played all last season and was averaging like 18 and 8 and then he left I'd be more concerned about it. This team played better ball once he stopped playing.
His best roster was in 2015-2016 season.
Otis, Moore, Jenkins, Shevon, Marko.
That's a pretty good starting 5. I understand DP didn’t want to go down the grad-transfer route, but the team could have benefited from a PG grad transfer.
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