2014/15 Recruiting Priorities and Scoring Options

[Buffnik]

I was hoping that with Chris Jenkins leaving and freeing up a scholarship, and the fact that Welsh has already visited CU, that Tad would have reached out immediately to see if if it were possible that Welsh would put us in his top 3. We could really use a 7 footer in next years class. I like Mills, but he isn't really an option for us in the post. Welsh would do wonders for us there.

Looking at next year's probable roster and what the key missing piece could be, I don't think a Center is now Tad's priority.

We replace Ben Mills with Tory Miller. That alone, I believe, is going to upgrade a frontcourt that is already showing that it may be among the best in the country right now. Couple that with the physical and skill development of the bigs we return and I don't see this being the priority.

On the wing, we're expected to get XJ back and he should be even better - maybe becoming our #1 scoring option. This, along with continued development of Fletch and King should have us very strong in that swing role.

The priority has to be guard. Ski will be back as a senior. Talton, J-Hop and Eli should improve - maybe a lot. Dom Collier is an absolute stud coming in. But we lose a lot of scoring and end-game leadership with Mayor expected to turn pro. Our best case scenario would be for Tad to find a graduate transfer at guard. We could absolutely use a veteran ball handler who brings clutch FT shooting and knockdown 3pt shooting. Those guys are usually available. To me, that is the primary target and would keep our minimum scholarships available for the 2015 class at 2 in a class that has to be focused on the heir apparents to XJ and Jam Scott.

 

[tante]

shooting guard or shooting guard or a shooting guard. I would be happy with either of those options.

 

[FtColBuff]

Looking at next year's probable roster and what the key missing piece could be, I don't think a Center is now Tad's priority.

The priority has to be guard. Ski will be back as a senior. Talton, J-Hop and Eli should improve - maybe a lot. Dom Collier is an absolute stud coming in. But we lose a lot of scoring and end-game leadership with Mayor expected to turn pro. Our best case scenario would be for Tad to find a graduate transfer at guard. We could absolutely use a veteran ball handler who brings clutch FT shooting and knockdown 3pt shooting. Those guys are usually available. To me, that is the primary target and would keep our minimum scholarships available for the 2015 class at 2 in a class that has to be focused on the heir apparents to XJ and Jam Scott.

Thanks Buffnik. So what you are saying is that Tad needs to bring in another Spencer Dinwiddie to replace the Spencer Dinwiddie we are losing. That seems hard to me but I believe Tad can do that. He seems to be rolling the right dice.
Thanks again

 

[buffaholic]

Looking at next year's probable roster and what the key missing piece could be, I don't think a Center is now Tad's priority.

We replace Ben Mills with Tory Miller. That alone, I believe, is going to upgrade a frontcourt that is already showing that it may be among the best in the country right now. Couple that with the physical and skill development of the bigs we return and I don't see this being the priority.

On the wing, we're expected to get XJ back and he should be even better - maybe becoming our #1 scoring option. This, along with continued development of Fletch and King should have us very strong in that swing role.

The priority has to be guard. Ski will be back as a senior. Talton, J-Hop and Eli should improve - maybe a lot. Dom Collier is an absolute stud coming in. But we lose a lot of scoring and end-game leadership with Mayor expected to turn pro. Our best case scenario would be for Tad to find a graduate transfer at guard. We could absolutely use a veteran ball handler who brings clutch FT shooting and knockdown 3pt shooting. Those guys are usually available. To me, that is the primary target and would keep our minimum scholarships available for the 2015 class at 2 in a class that has to be focused on the heir apparents to XJ and Jam Scott.

Nik - Shooters has got to be the priority.

And XJ has been dreadful this year and if he doesn't start to piece things together, his PT will be at risk if the young guys get more comfortable. 4 rpg. Only two offensive in 3 games.
20% from 3pt land. 59% from the line. And his D is awful.

I not only don't expect him to be our #1 scoring option, but if he doesn't show strong improvement from last year, I'd expect he may see reduced PT.

 

[tante]

Thanks Buffnik. So what you are saying is that Tad needs to bring in another Spencer Dinwiddie to replace the Spencer Dinwiddie we are losing. That seems hard to me but I believe Tad can do that. He seems to be rolling the right dice.
Thanks again

I see the roster differently. Assuming Jelly and XJ don't blow up by the season end, we will see them back next year. So that means Gordon, Scott and XJ take up 3 of the starting spots. Booker is going to be the starting PG next year with Dom backing him up and we will see them on the court together a lot. So that leaves one starting spot. I think this goes to either Thomas or Hopkins, depending on who improves the most next year. Maybe Talton will improve his outside shot and is a dark horse for that last spot, but I am personally hoping that Thomas wins out. Having a 6-7 shooting guard who can post up, will really stretch a lot of teams defensively. It really would help to get a great shooter in here in case Thomas is having an off night or maybe you want to put them both on the floor to shoot over a zone defense.

I really can't wrap my heard around getting anyone other than a pure SG for that last spot.

 

[buffaholic]

Booker won't be a PG.

JHop and Collier will man the point. JHop is best with the ball in his hands taking it off the dribble. Not an outside shooter. Talton and Stalzer will add too much depth to this position for two years....

 

[tante]

Booker won't be a PG.

JHop and Collier will man the point. JHop is best with the ball in his hands taking it off the dribble. Not an outside shooter. Talton and Stalzer will add too much depth to this position for two years....

JHop looks a lot like Booker did as a freshman right now. He gets himself out of position with the ball and it leads to turnovers. I'm not sure why you don't see Booker as a PG, I think he does a pretty decent job bringing the ball up the court quickly and has good vision of the court. The only he can't do that Spencer does is drive to the basket, get fouled and miss the shot. He usually avoids contact and just misses the shot.

 

[Darth Snow]

Nik - Shooters has got to be the priority.

And XJ has been dreadful this year and if he doesn't start to piece things together, his PT will be at risk if the young guys get more comfortable. 4 rpg. Only two offensive in 3 games.
20% from 3pt land. 59% from the line. And his D is awful.

I not only don't expect him to be our #1 scoring option, but if he doesn't show strong improvement from last year, I'd expect he may see reduced PT.

XJ was dreadful in the Wyo game? He had some issues on the perimeter against their 5'10" guards, but was probably our most efficient and dynamic scorer outside of Jam.

 

[buffaholic]

I think Booker could man the point, and always thought he looked better suited there looking to create but Tad has never seemed to agree.

Booker's worst shooting day is better than JHop's best. Both have the ability to penetrate and kick out. The question is who we kicking out to?

 

[tante]

I think Booker could man the point, and always thought he looked better suited there looking to create but Tad has never seemed to agree.

Booker's worst shooting day is better than JHop's best. Both have the ability to penetrate and kick out. The question is who we kicking out to?

Tad also has never seemed to agree that we should penetrate and kick out the ball. I know we have talked about it for years, but I have never seen our team do it consistently.

 

[buffaholic]

XJ was dreadful in the Wyo game? He had some issues on the perimeter against their 5'10" guards, but was probably our most efficient and dynamic scorer outside of Jam.

Yes. He had 2-3 drives that were key against smaller, slower players that he will never see in the PAC12. One was setup for him and he dunked it. Another time he could have dunked, but instead missed a 2-footer. He went 0-1 from outside. He went 5-9 on free throws. He had 5 rebounds in 31 minutes. 1 steal. And he was consistently awful on D, not able to get out to the 3 point line quick enough and not asserting himself inside.

I was expecting him to be much tougher on the boards, on D, and to be a true scoring threat from deep. He's done none of that so far.

 

[Buffnik]

Over 3 games, XJ has 33 points while taking only 20 shots. He's shooting 55% from the field. He is an incredibly efficient player for a guy who primarily gets the ball on the perimeter.

So I absolutely stand by my earlier statement that he could be our primary scoring option next season.

This season, if we want to see our offensive output increase, other than Mayor finding his groove and also us getting some bench production going -- the single biggest thing that would have a positive impact would be to start getting XJ 10+ shots a game.

 

[Quattro]

Taking out Nelson and Brady, XJ is #4 on the team in TS% behind Gordon (0.671), Scott (0.644), Thomas (0.639), and then XJ comes in at 0.588, and really I would move that up to 3rd because Thomas has only attempted 10 shots compared to XJ's 20. You'd expect the two players who spend 95% of their offensive time with the ball under the rim to have the highest TS%. XJ has also the 4th most FGA's attempted on the team behind Ski, Scott, and Spencer. Last year, XJ had a 0.580 TS%, 57.5 eFG%, and shot 44.6% from 3, he'll be fine and I agree with Nik, he'll be the #1 scoring option for us next year.

Here are the 2013-2014 D1 averages by the way...

TS%: 0.523 (XJ: 0.588)
eFG%: 48.9% (XJ: 57.5%)
3pt%: 33.9% (XJ: 20.0%)

 

[Darth Snow]

Stipulate that he will be the #1 scoring option outside of Scott, and I agree with you two.Before XJ gets 10 shots a game, Scott needs to get 10 shots a game. We need to run our offense through him until teams force us not to.

Offensive options this year: #1 Scott, #2 Mayor, #3 XJ. Ski will just do what he does, but I hope he hovers around #3.
Offensive options next year: #1 Scott, #2 XJ.

Give Jam the goddamn ball.

 

[The Ogre]

I have only been able to watch part one game and have seen plenty of comments on Ski's game, but how have the others performed so far - specifically Talton, J-Hop, and Eli?

 

[Buffnik]

Stipulate that he will be the #1 scoring option outside of Scott, and I agree with you two.Before XJ gets 10 shots a game, Scott needs to get 10 shots a game. We need to run our offense through him until teams force us not to.

Offensive options this year: #1 Scott, #2 Mayor, #3 XJ. Ski will just do what he does, but I hope he hovers around #3.
Offensive options next year: #1 Scott, #2 XJ.

Give Jam the goddamn ball.

We need to see much more of XJ with the ball on the wing playing a 2-man game with Jam on the block in front of him. Clear out and dare teams to double off XJ. He'll rain 3s or drive on a shifting defense.

 

[rolandftw]

Team should be significantly better next year, even if Dinwiddie turns pro

 

[FightCu1414]

Team should be significantly better next year, even if Dinwiddie turns pro

I feel like we said this about the this team compared to last year. Gotta be patient.

 

[MtnBuff]

I haven't seen all of the games this year but seen big chunks of Baylor and Wyo. We are nowhere close to where I had expected us to be and we have some significant issues showing right now that will have to be addressed if we are going to be successful this year.

We absolutely need to develop some outside offense. The way we are right now teams can simply pack the defense in the lane and challenge us to beat them from the outside. We also seem to get frustrated and make a lot of mistakes against teams that get back and prevent us from scoring in transition or in early offense.

There are a couple of things we should keep in mind though before panicking. One is that Tad's teams have normally started slow and peaked near the end of the season or at tourney time. This goes back to his UNC days.

Secondly we should remember that while they aren't a very good team compared to some others we will be playing later in the year Wyoming is a team that because of their style of play makes a lot of teams and a lot of talented players look bad. They are in many ways similar to football teams that play against Air Force or Georgia Tech. They are so different in what they do that you can't effectively simulate it in practice and you see it so rarely that you can't use a lot of prior experience against it. In some ways it runs counter to your instincts and you end up looking lost and confused until you finally get the hang of it and win in the end.

 

[rolandftw]

I feel like we said this about the this team compared to last year. Gotta be patient.

Wasn't giving up on this year or anything. it's just some growing pains were expected early, with so many underclassmen. Will have a lot more experience next season. This year's team should be better then last year's team, but it will take some time

 

[SECOBuffsFan]

As far as the outside shooting goes....I think it will improve. With Boyle being a defensive minded coaches, those kind of coaches emphasize defense so much early that they kind of take shooting for granted and then emphasize it once the defense has been installed. By the time we start conference I think it will be much better.