I've been thinking a little more about next year's lineups, and I'm wondering how many minutes our three point threats will really get? We know that Krut/Frank/Welch will play 40 minutes. Tate and Lucas will play 30+. We'll have Keith and Marquise getting 40+ minutes combined.

There could be some backup PG minutes for Braden Norris, but the obvious spot to sub offense for defense is Aher. Coop vs Aher is great for offense, but bad on the other end.

My question is: How do you get minutes for the shooters without giving up tons of defense and rebounding?

It would be awesome firepower to have Norris, Kennedy, Cooper, Lucas, Krut all out there, but I don't know how well it would really work.

What do you guys think?

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Porter has tried out a lot of different combinations this year, and I’m guessing next year will be much the same, at least in the beginning. Having a bench that can allow you to go small with shooters is a nice problem to have, if the players buy into the idea. That was a huge strength of the 2018 team.

Valentine just Twitter-followed Kevin Osawe, a 6'6" wing from Vincennes JC and a former teammate of Keith Clemmons. He is rated the 10th best JUCO for 2020. Only offer so far is St. Binny's, which is surprising. Averages 16+ ppg and almost 10 rebounds.
Recruiti g him makes so much sense. It would help balance the classes and reduce the logjam at guard.
Go gettum Porter!

St. Binny's had a great sale on Old Style last week.

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Don't know if it was a Spell Check autocorrect or a Freudian slip. I will admit "Binny's" is a frequent search term of mine.


On edit:
I am going to carefully type S t. B o n n y' s and see what comes up.
St. Binny's.

Proved it was autocorrect...

I’ve been thinking this as well. It’s a crowded roster next year (honestly the best problem to have. I mean we’re gaining two sophomores with a proven track record in D1... one with this very team). The way I see it, we may have minutes down across the board. Krut and Tate are probably going to get 30 a game, they’re both just too solid. I could see Aher losing his starting role and becoming more of a defensive specialist substitution for Lucas or Tate. Which is probably best. I could see Lucas down closer to 28, Keith maybe down to 26 splitting time at the point and 2 spot… Norris’ performance is what could really shift things. I think his addition has been underrated, and it’s easy to forget Notre Dame was also recruiting him when he committed.

I love his shooting, but his assist turnover ratio (nearly 3 to 1) and defense (1.4 steals a game… and Porter compared his defense to Ben Richardson in the press release announcing his addition to the team). Point to him playing a lot. And I think at least 2 of the three (Marquise, Keith and Braden) will always be on the floor.

We have never had this type of depth. We may not see anyone averaging more than 30 minutes a game other than Krutwig. Hall and Clemons will be most impacted. I see both of them dropping into the high 20s. I don't see anyone on the roster who can replace the defense and length of Williamson and Uguak. Their minutes may go down, but it will be difficult to replace their defense. Clemons is our best play making guard, but some of his minutes will go to Norris. Hall will lose minutes to Kaifes. I don't see Kennedy losing any minutes.

I don't think there will be a "normal" lineup next year. Since the team next year is going to have so many pieces and most of the guys will already have a year in the system, I think Porter will implement a lot of different sets and mix and match a lot of different players. It's a real luxury to be able to work on more sets since most of the team will have an entire foundation built up this year.

For example, if we play a team like this year's Indiana State, we could see Clemens, Aher, Lucas, Hall, and Krutwig playing a zone and useing their length to defend the perimeter. Playing a team like this year's Drake that has a big man clogging up the lane but struggles defending the 3? That could be Norris, Cooper, Hall, Lucas, and Krutwig to exploit that weakness.

Also, one way that I could see Porter using the depth is to implement a press and make the opponent work for 94 feet to earn a basket. Porter could run subs in and out to keep guys fresh while opponents with less depth wear down like AJ Green did a few weeks ago.

Looks like we're taking a serious look at Williams.

If you look at next year’s roster and try to put together lineups, it really gets you excited for the future. The talent is so abundant that you can plug and play just about everyone but Krutwig in with someone else and still feel like the 5 on the court are built to win.

I think a good lineup to start next year is:

Starters:
Krutwig
Uguak
Williamson
Kaifes
Norris

Subs:
Agunnane
Welch
Hall
Kennedy
Clemons

Sitting:
Wojcik
Hebb

That starting lineup gives you a dominant center, two 40+% three point shooters (and a pg that doesn’t turn the ball over), and two solid defenders in Uguak and Williamson to create turnovers and lead to transition points.

I admit it would be weird to put Tate in off the bench, but he’s prone to start slow anyway, and he may come in and dominate as a “second wave” fresh body who can dominate once the other team’s starters are a bit winded (kind of like Kennedy does now). The ability to yank Kaifes and Williamson (great players already) and plug Kennedy and Hall in would give us no drop off. It’s insane.

Norris’ reputation and stats lead me to believe he should start, but Clemons is no slouch. We’ve seen what not having one point looks like, and Clemons came back from injury and saved our season, in my opinion. Having two capable point guards will be huge next year. Again - very little, if any, drop off.

I’m not sold on Uguak starting but I think he will be more useful and less burdensome offensively next year with the offensive firepower we will add.

Krut is the only player I think will average over 32 minutes next year, but it’s my hope Krut’s minutes drop to 30 and frank sees 5 first half minutes and 5 second half minutes a game to keep Krut fresh for the season and get Frank ready for the following year.


If players are leaving... my guesses would be possibly:
1. Pipkins - I love him as a player and want to see him develop but it just doesn’t feel like he’s in Porter’s master plan;
2. Welch - I want to see him stay but I think he’s a gamer and really wants to be on the court. There are definitely D1 teams he could be starting for next year. That being said, he would have to sit out a year, and while I don’t see him cracking the starting lineup for us next season, he’ll be next man up for 2021-2022. I hope he stays.
3. Paxson Wojcik - I like his enthusiasm but I fear he might get Skokna’d if he stays. Talented player who just keeps getting moved down the bench as more and more talent comes in.


With the exception of the center position, I think we have enough talent coming back next year to sub positions 1 though 4 with little to no drop off in our ability to compete (at least in the MVC). We also should have the ability to play small and fast if we want and the matchups with other teams enable it.

The question is, with our depth, do we try to incorporate a new element next season, and install a full court press after made baskets? We have the horses to run full steam at 100% for 40 minutes straight. I would assume we could build early leads off turnovers with a full court press in first halves of games and run teams with no depth ragged. That’s what I’m hoping to see.


I think lineups are almost impossible to predict because the talent is stacked - It’s all about what specific units play well TOGETHER. everyone but Krutwig is going to have to compete in their position for a lions share of minutes, and even then the minutes will be spread around.

I think if we had a healthy Kaifes and Norris on the team with this years schedule we would have been a 3 or 4 loss team with at-large consideration. The most disappointing thing going into next year is going to be our schedule. I have no idea how Porter is going to get anybody to agree to play us - especially if we get hot and win Arch Madness. I think we are going to see a worse schedule than this year for sure.