Menu
What's new
By:
Filters
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

Starting Five

Shldr2Shldr said:
Chen starting means one of a few things. 1) His leadership has improved drastically and they need him on the court, 2) His shooting has improved to the point where we need him on the court often, or 3) The freshman do not understand how to play defense yet and would be a a liability at this point.
Click to expand...
1) I agree on the leadership front. That's probably 95% of the reason he is starting.
2) I simply do not buy that his shot has improved that much. With Levi, it was a matter of him getting healthy (near-constant hip issues early in career). Chen had no such issues last season, yet still couldn't hit water falling out of a boat. Same in Europe (0-for-the trip). Prove me wrong, Sabatino.
3) Sure, I guess. It's not like the freshmen are tackling dummies out there, though. XJ can be 'Dre-like in his attacking off ball, even Stalzer looked good in man-man if you want to go small. I just don't see Chen as demonstrably better than them defensively.

Chen's biggest asset has always been his intangibles. Coach Boyle is probably just using them to hedge his bets until a 5th starter emerges. If Sabatino is still starting come January, I'll be shocked.
 
RumblinBuff said:
3) Sure, I guess. It's not like the freshmen are tackling dummies out there, though. XJ can be 'Dre-like in his attacking off ball, even Stalzer looked good in man-man if you want to go small. I just don't see Chen as demonstrably better than them defensively.
QUOTE]

i agree w/ all points so far except that chen is an exceptional and versatile defender... as first witnessed in puerto rico where I thought Tad had lost his mind and chen was guarding 4's and 5's....he's got now 4 years at playing D1 under his belt... and XJ coming off the bench gives the second squad the same crazy punch as when Dre and Ski came off their freshman years. Not sure how to say this, as i totally respect and agree w/ 99% of what Rumblin has to say, since you dont see him "demonstrably better than them defensively" yet I'm betting the coaching staff does.... just my opinion...
Click to expand...
 
It'll be interesting to presumably see how Ski holds up in the starting role. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for him starting and think it's our best option, but some guys are made for the 6th man role and simply don't do as well as a starter. I'll be curious to see if he proves to be in that mold or not. There's apparently rumors of Chen starting. Vastly improved or not, that's a bit puzzling.
 
Last edited:
Good God, this is fun!


Can't wait til Friday. Anyone know if there are plans to unveil a banner or present rings before the game?
 
shang said:
Not sure how to say this, as i totally respect and agree w/ 99% of what Rumblin has to say, since you dont see him "demonstrably better than them defensively" yet I'm betting the coaching staff does.... just my opinion...
Click to expand...

It's OK, you can disagree with me. If someone wasn't being proven wrong, there'd be no point to playing the games.
 
I am not buying the Chen being a leader argument that is the reason he is starting. A guy who played limited minutes and wasn't overly effective doesn't suddenly provide Sr leadership. I could see him being the leader of the second unit, a guy who will get the team to settle down and it the right places. If he is the vocal leader of this team Dre and the Mayor need to step up.

Listening to Tad's post game comments the other day it sounds like XJ is really struggling on D and I would expect that is more the reason than anything.
 
jgisland said:
I am not buying the Chen being a leader argument that is the reason he is starting. A guy who played limited minutes and wasn't overly effective doesn't suddenly provide Sr leadership. I could see him being the leader of the second unit, a guy who will get the team to settle down and it the right places. If he is the vocal leader of this team Dre and the Mayor need to step up.

Listening to Tad's post game comments the other day it sounds like XJ is really struggling on D and I would expect that is more the reason than anything.
Click to expand...


You just hate Chen.
 
No problem at all with Chen starting. Between the rest of the starters, we should have plenty of offensive firepower. Chen gets offensive rebounds, loose balls, frustrates opponents, and can get some garbage buckets. I see no reason that five won't be able to get us off to a good start that Tad wants so he can control the game from there.

I think we will have 9 or 10 guys in rotation this year, so we don't need to put our "best" five in to start.

This is coming from a guy who doesn't really like Chen very much at all.
 
CVilleBuff said:
It'll be interesting to presumably see how Ski holds up in the starting role. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for him starting and think it's our best option, but some guys are made for the 6th man role and simply don't do as well as a starter. I'll be curious to see if he proves to be in that mold or not. There's apparently rumors of Chen starting. Vastly improved or not, that's a bit puzzling.
Click to expand...

Ski will be perfectly fine as a starter. I think he'll excel with other offensive threats on the court with him. He had to force a lot of **** last year because of no help. He's a beast scorer.
 
jgisland said:
I am not buying the Chen being a leader argument that is the reason he is starting. A guy who played limited minutes and wasn't overly effective doesn't suddenly provide Sr leadership.
Click to expand...

Jg, ur a stat guy, just relooked at last season, of the guys in regular rotation, chen had the highest fg%. Following your logic above, could we not deduce that the coaching staff has seen a big improvement in his game(and as i stated in a previous post, i hope that all the returning players have worked on their most dreaded weaknesses this offseason) and is deserving of the start, only based on coaches judgement based on... this past offseason.

jgisland said:
Listening to Tad's post game comments the other day it sounds like XJ is really struggling on D and I would expect that is more the reason than anything.
Click to expand...

and add the fact the frosh don't have 4 yrs of D1 experience, especially defensively as chen does, your 2 points clearly refute absinthe's claim that you hate chen...

And we all agree that they are not starting him just cuz he's a senior... that would be totally.... ridiculous...

personally I think we all get so caught up(and i'm guilty too) as to the season opener is coming (WHOOO HOOO!!!) and who is starting... when I realize buffnik has the correct slant on things... in a close game down to the last 5 minutes... who's on the court? After giving this waaay too much thought, I personally think or if i were the HC, I would have 2-3 variations of who starts over the course of the season depending on how simba, jeremy and the key frosh players develop. Come conference play, I think we will see a diff starting lineup.... I still think that a crushing substituion would be to have ski, chen and xj all come out 7-9 minutes into the game... just an opinion...
 
Rugged said:
No problem at all with Chen starting. Between the rest of the starters, we should have plenty of offensive firepower. Chen gets offensive rebounds, loose balls, frustrates opponents, and can get some garbage buckets. I see no reason that five won't be able to get us off to a good start that Tad wants so he can control the game from there.

I think we will have 9 or 10 guys in rotation this year, so we don't need to put our "best" five in to start.

This is coming from a guy who doesn't really like Chen very much at all.
Click to expand...

what rugged said.. exactly
 
shang said:
your 2 points clearly refute absinthe's claim that you hate chen...
Click to expand...

I believe JG's quote last year was something on the order of "I dont get why this guy is on our roster, he couldnt even get on the court at freaking DU." He's warming to Chen, but he had no where to go but up.
 
Aren't we kind of beating a dead horse? starting 5 is.. whatever, how about the substitution rotation? any thoughts, strategies? As I stated earlier, I would like to see Ski, chen and XJ come in at the same time and just continue the domination of the other team's 2nd squad....
 
shang said:
Aren't we kind of beating a dead horse? starting 5 is.. whatever, how about the substitution rotation? any thoughts, strategies? As I stated earlier, I would like to see Ski, chen and XJ come in at the same time and just continue the domination of the other team's 2nd squad....
Click to expand...

Beating this dead-horse is more fun that watching the dead rotting carcass of our football program.
 
I am perfectly luke warm on Chen (as Abs said, last year was a diff story) and I actually don't have a problem with him starting, I just wish if he was starting it was for Ski b/c that second unit doesn't have much firepower. I did just hear yung say tonight on Buff Stampede radio that Ski is basically the backup PG and will still play with the second unit.

And the only reason Chen had the highest FG% was because he took the least amount of shots of rotation players last year. Ski was out their driving and trying to create something while the rest of the second unit was standing around.
 
jgisland said:
And the only reason Chen had the highest FG% was because he took the least amount of shots of rotation players last year. Ski was out their driving and trying to create something while the rest of the second unit was standing around.
Click to expand...

Jg's i can't resist... going w/ that logic, he also took the least amount of 3's... so shouldn't he had the highest 3pt FG%??
 
shang said:
Jg's i can't resist... going w/ that logic, he also took the least amount of 3's... so shouldn't he had the highest 3pt FG%??
Click to expand...

My point is that his sample size is small, when you don't shoot much you should shoot a higher % because you take high quality shots. And this was the case for Chen especially, because he couldn't shoot last year so he didn't. He took only 41% of his shots away from the rim shooting 33% on 2pt jumpers and 0% from 3. On the high quality shots at the rim where he took 59% of his shots he shot 81%. He at least realized he couldn't shoot jumpers last year so he didn't. And this is our new 3 pt specialist?
 
First, we were guessing like a bunch of teen girls.

Now, we're haggling like a group of old spinsters.



Geez, is it Friday yet?
 
Goose said:
#IsItFridayYet?
Click to expand...

almost.

Another one JG and i were discussing was Dre at the 2, just to piss off other teams and create matchup issues. Tad has already said he's comfortable with Dre gaurding any position on the court so in theory you could on go with:

Mayor
Dre
XJ
Gordon
Scott

Everyone 6'6" or bigger, all athletic....
 
I mean that lineup is not really an option, XJ and Dre cannot guard 2's no matter how much Tad says they can. Our rotation will probably look like...

Mayor
Ski
Chen
Dre
Scott

Mayor
Ski
XJ
Dre
Gordon

Mayor
Stalzer
Chen
XJ
Gordon

Ski
Chen
Dre
Scott
SHT?

Mayor
Ski
XJ
Dre
Scott

Something that winds up with those five in at the end of games
 
Black&Yella said:
I mean that lineup is not really an option, XJ and Dre cannot guard 2's no matter how much Tad says they can. Our rotation will probably look like...



Something that winds up with those five in at the end of games
Click to expand...
Agreed on your rotations being far far more likely although i think there is one where Stalzer sees some time at thee point with XJ at the 3.
 
I think the big question is who is the 3rd guard (first one off the bench)? Stalzer? or Adams, once he comes back?
How will SHT work his way into the rotation? Theres no way he could play ahead of Gordon right?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top