Rotations and minutes at the beginning of the season:

[jwhite17]

How do you guys see Boyle breaking out the minutes?

I don't see anyone playing over 30 minutes/game anymore except Dinwiddie. Our guys will finally be able to play more pressure defense! At least I hope!

I'm thinking our team will be somewhat like Anderson's teams at Missouri, here's the 2009 team:

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/stats/_/id/142/year/2009/missouri-tigers

Here are my projected starters with minutes/game too:

PGinwiddie - 28 to 32min/game
SG: Booker - 23 to 26 min/game
SF: XJ - 24 to 27 min/game
PF: Scott - 26 to 28 min/game
C: Gordon - 18 to 22 min/game

As for backups, that's hard to say because of the freshmen unknowns:

PG: Hopkins 10-15 minutes/game, Talton 5-10 minutes/game, Stalzer 2-5 minutes/game
SG: Jenkins 8-15 minutes/game
SF: Fletcher 10-15 minutes/game
PF: Thomas 10-18 minutes/game
C: Mills - 5 to 10 min/game

We probably need to reshirt King since his position is overloaded with XJ/Fletcher/Jenkins, and I'm not sure how Stalzer will play any minutes except in mop up duty.

Those positions are not set in stone since a lot of those guys can play multiple positions. Hopkins 1 and 2. Jenkins 2 and 3. Fletcher 2,3,4. Thomas 3,4,5. Mills is the only one with just one position.

Thoughts?

 

[tante]

Has Tad ever done a lineup like that or can Scott play from the wing? That is much more of a traditional offense than I would expect from him. I wouldn't be surprised to see a starting 5 like this:

Dinwiddie
Booker
Jenkins
XJ
Scott

and I'm not going to list positions except say that the first four are going to play on the perimeter and Scott will play a hybrid non-strech PF/C position on the floor.

I think when he wants to go heavy on defense the rotation might be:

Spencer
XJ
Fletch
Gordon
??? Scott maybe

 

[RealMatSmith]

The Starting 5 will be (at the beginning of the year):

PG - Dinwiddie 25-30
SG - Booker 22-28 (depends upon how well he plays this year)
SF - Johnson 22-28
PF - Gordon 15-22
C - Scott 24-27

*rotations will change as the season progresses

Dustin Thomas will surprise a lot of people this year and he will add versatility to the offense when Wes is not in the game. It would be hard to see them redshirting George King in my opinion, he's played very well this Summer. The suited up 12:
Dinwiddie, Booker, Johnson, Gordon, Scott, Talton, Jenkins, Hopkins, Fletcher, King, Stalzer, Mills

But I guess you also have Beau Gamble and Kevin Nelson...it'll be interesting to see what happens. Tad could redshirt King, but I think defensively you want him out there. Think a much more athletic version of Jeremy Adams. Remember they will try and play fast a lot this year so having the depth in the backcourt will be key. That was what we so desperately needed last season. To be honest, I find it very difficult to see Stalzer finding his way onto the floor all that much this season other than Non-Conference games. It depends on who Tad thinks is mentally ready. That was a big reason for red-shirting Wesley last season.

 

[rolandftw]

I'd bump Gordon's minutes to around 25. I think Fletcher and Thomas will get the most minutes of our true freshmen.

Other schools wanting King to take a prep year and his comments comparing himself to a steak that needs to take some time to develop, hints to me of a redshirt year. I still don't see Mills getting many minutes unless CU has a lot of foul trouble/injuries to their front line.

 

[CVilleBuff]

Strange if we start some redshirting tradition. It's not a bad thing, it's just not something you typically see. Quite rare, in fact.

Tad could do any number of umpteen rotations. We know some of the basics, but there are bound to be some surprises. Managing talent and minutes is walking a very careful line. It's a great problem to have, but more coaches have failed at it than you think and had what could have been a 25 win season turn into an 18 win season.

And I'm not seeing Mills getting regular minutes outside of injury and serious foul issues.

 

[Buffenuf]

Strange if we start some redshirting tradition. It's not a bad thing, it's just not something you typically see. Quite rare, in fact.

Tad could do any number of umpteen rotations. We know some of the basics, but there are bound to be some surprises. Managing talent and minutes is walking a very careful line. It's a great problem to have, but more coaches have failed at it than you think and had what could have been a 25 win season turn into an 18 win season.

And I'm not seeing Mills getting regular minutes outside of injury and serious foul issues.

Our friends in Lawrence list three RS players on their roster. Nice, if you can work that! Why screw up your overall class balance and player development, to get a kid five mins. of GT? RS-ing was the best thing that could have happened to Gordon and Jenkins. Keep that advantage rolling along!

 

[wyobuff]

I think that there will be a red-shirt this year, though I cant say that I've got a good guess as to who it is.

As far as Stalzer, I really dont see him getting much playing time at all. During Conference games he played last season, He logged ~85 minutes, which is about 6.5 minutes per game played. He sat out 7 games, which is just over 33% of the conf games (unless I cant count). Talton seemed to play better and find his footing more as the season wore on. Talton played 120 minutes over 19 games (~6.3 min) but sat out just 1 one game. I think talton will get put in before stalzer, and Im guessing hopkins may also play time at the 1. Aside from garbage time, I cant figure out when they are going to put him in.

 

[rolandftw]

Our friends in Lawrence list three RS players on their roster. Nice, if you can work that!

1 of those 3 was a walk on, 1 was a partial qualifier, and 1 redshirted because of an injury. It's still not the norm if the player is both healthy, and qualifies academically. While I expect King to be redshirted, don't think it has much to do with class balance or player development

 

[CVilleBuff]

1 of those 3 was a walk on, 1 was a partial qualifier, and 1 redshirted because of an injury. It's still not the norm if the player is both healthy, and qualifies academically. While I expect King to be redshirted, don't think it has much to do with class balance or player development

Yup, you can dig for redshirts, but it's just not the norm to be taking a guy or two in and redshirting them every season. If this is some new awesome strategy CU is the first to ever think of (doubt it), then great, but this is a case of some special circumstances, IMO. Basically either you can play and you're going to get minutes, or you aren't going to get minutes and you use up your eligibility or transfer.

 

[Buffenuf]

Yup, you can dig for redshirts, but it's just not the norm to be taking a guy or two in and redshirting them every season. If this is some new awesome strategy CU is the first to ever think of (doubt it), then great, but this is a case of some special circumstances, IMO. Basically either you can play and you're going to get minutes, or you aren't going to get minutes and you use up your eligibility or transfer.

That's pretty short-sighted! I think coachs at more and more established programs are finding use of RS-ing as a way to develop quality depth, as has happened with Gordon and Jenkins; Gordon for academics, Jenkins for physicality. No coach has a "13 player rotation", so why blow all eligibility on every schollied kid---with some teams that can be as much as a one third of the roster, with an "up or out" mentality? I would have love to have seen Damion Cain take a RS, to get grounded academically and competitively. I wonder if the Cain experience influenced Tad's thinking on RS's?

One, or even two RS's a year would seem to help many kids and many teams, particularly when overall team quality is enhanced by very good, but physically or mentally unready kids practicing every day against great players. Think it helped Jenkins immensely to go against The Mayor or XJ in practice, while building up his size and strength. Same thing should be considered by King for this year, unless he was vastly under-rated and has solidly turned his academics around. Back when BYU had some excellent teams I used to envy their delayed "mission RS", with its attendant regular introduction of good 6'9" 19-20 yr. old "freshmen" players.

No time like the now for some innovative thinking in roster management!

 

[MtnBuff]

I think that there will be a red-shirt this year, though I cant say that I've got a good guess as to who it is.

As far as Stalzer, I really dont see him getting much playing time at all. During Conference games he played last season, He logged ~85 minutes, which is about 6.5 minutes per game played. He sat out 7 games, which is just over 33% of the conf games (unless I cant count). Talton seemed to play better and find his footing more as the season wore on. Talton played 120 minutes over 19 games (~6.3 min) but sat out just 1 one game. I think talton will get put in before stalzer, and Im guessing hopkins may also play time at the 1. Aside from garbage time, I cant figure out when they are going to put him in.

I like Stalzer and think he can contribute but unfortunately he has some liabilities that are hard to overcome. The biggest one is that the PAC is loaded with PGs who are out of his class athletically. When your PG struggles to maintain good position on defense against the opponent it makes it that much harder for the rest of the guys to be effective defensively. Talton may be way behind Stalzer in terms of BB knowledge and court instincts but he is a much better athlete who doesn't create that same liability when he is on the floor.

Potentially they could look to Stalzer as a change of pace guy who with his court leadership could come in a settle things down at times but I don't know how much of that we might even see.

 

[tante]

Stalzer needs to spend the entire off season working on his 3pointers. He can help the team and earn some minutes if he could knock down the long ball.

 

[sockdolager]

Yup, you can dig for redshirts, but it's just not the norm to be taking a guy or two in and redshirting them every season. If this is some new awesome strategy CU is the first to ever think of (doubt it), then great, but this is a case of some special circumstances, IMO. Basically either you can play and you're going to get minutes, or you aren't going to get minutes and you use up your eligibility or transfer.

CVillebuff has probably forgot more about college basketball than I know but I do remember the following quote from Tad during his second season at CU. Based on this quote I would argue that Tad does see value in redshirting as a strategy to build a program. I would agree with others that as you start recruiting higher level players that are ready to play as freshman then redshirting becomes less of a strategy. We are getting close but I’m not sure we're quite at that level yet.


"Wichita State lost four players (from last season), we lost four. Their program is a little more established in terms of their staff has been there longer and they're further along with recruiting and redshirting," Boyle said. "Their pipeline is a little more full than ours is. That's where we'll be, but Wichita State is there."
http://www.dailycamera.com/cu-college-sports/ci_19351027

 

[Buffnik]

Cville is correct in terms of redshirting, though. You just don't see it much in college hoops.

But it does seem that Tad likes finding guys who are young for their grade and getting them into the program to redshirt instead of those guys going off for a prep school year. Gordon and King fit that profile. I like that as part of the overall strategy.

 

[BehindEnemyLines]

I would rather have a player on-campus working during his r/s year; both academically and athletically. Better than having a committed prospect at some academy or prep school where they're fair game for any other coaching staff and/or recruiting coordinator.

 

[rolandftw]

I would rather have a player on-campus working during his r/s year; both academically and athletically. Better than having a committed prospect at some academy or prep school where they're fair game for any other coaching staff and/or recruiting coordinator.

I think most would prefer that. Sometimes though, someone isn't even a partial qualifier, so there's little choice but for them to take a prep year or play at the Junior College ranks