jim wrote:
6-7 Polka played 26 minutes a game and out rebounded both Osborne and O'Leary combined who played a combined 3om7 minutes a game. James pulled down 311 rebounds as a freshman.
While 311 rebounds in a season as a freshman is impressive, James still has none against MVC level competition. For every Cleanthony Early, there are plenty who don't translate their numbers fully.
Plus, you could reasonably assume that (although they might not put up say the rebounding numbers that a 23 year old, 5th year senior would put up), Osborne, O'Leary, Johnson, and King could still
improve* their play with more experience.
I also think the big picture of PM's 4th rebuilding season with young players and the fact that we are becoming IUPUI's farm team is more detrimental to the team than our depth forwards.
Right now, I would say our depth chart looks like this:
PG White / Dokubo / Porter
SG Crisman / Turk / Peterson / Richardson
SF Doyle / Ingram / Kennedy
PF Thomas / Knuth
C James / Rajala
We need 80 minutes from those 4 players. Thomas picked up 33 last year. That's 47 minutes left for James and Rajala. That also doesn't take foul trouble into consideration. If somebody gets in foul trouble, you're stuck with 2 regardless of how well they're playing. If one of them gets hurt, you're stuck with 2. If 2 of them are in foul trouble or get hurt, you have to move Knuth (a swing forward listed generously at 6'6, though some services were listing him at 6'4) to the post, which is not ideal. If you lose 3 to either injury or foul trouble, you are forced to go with 4 guards or it's Cal Kennedy time. $&^! hits the fan for many teams even if they have plenty of depth on paper at the beginning of the year; however, the whole point of recruiting in the off season is to try to make sure your team is ready with as many contingency plans as possible.
*If we had a good coach, this wouldn't be a problem.
There is a long list of big men who have come into this program without any D1 exp and contributed.
We have been in this situation time after time for the last 30 or so years.
Our big men will be better thanlast year. This team will be better. The loss of Jones is big. However, we still will be better.