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Guards vs Bigs is the new Star Rating Debate

BuffinCali

Club Member
Club Member
LOL... Tad being Tad! He has a roster full of 6' 4" guys. He needs a legitimate big, that should be his number 1 and number 2 priority. Nope, why not sign another 6' 4" guy, who needs rebounds and an interior presence.
 
LOL... Tad being Tad! He has a roster full of 6' 4" guys. He needs a legitimate big, that should be his number 1 and number 2 priority. Nope, why not sign another 6' 4" guy, who needs rebounds and an interior presence.

I'm much more worried about our guard play next season. We lost 2 starting guards (White & Fortune) and it looks like attrition will be coming from the guard position for another spot or 2.

We did sign 3 forwards and are looking at another PF/C type in Ondigo.
 
Bigs are wildly overrated in college ball. Give me guards. Bigs are limited if they don't have anyone getting them the ball.

That is what I heard a lot on here last off-season. However, during the season when rebounding was a problem, it was a major issue with the team and of conversation on this board. Every team needs rebounding along with a player who can box out bigs and prevent other teams from dominating the paint. Derrick White had an exceptional year, it did not do the team much good - there were to many holes to include the lack of presence in the paint. If CU wants to contend for a PAC12 Championship, they will need an interior presence, particularly against Zona, UCLA and the Quacks.
 
I'm much more worried about our guard play next season. We lost 2 starting guards (White & Fortune) and it looks like attrition will be coming from the guard position for another spot or 2.

We did sign 3 forwards and are looking at another PF/C type in Ondigo.

Schwartz is a perimeter, but I think if we really want to call him a G or F, he'd probably be a G imo. But splitting hairs, sorry to be "that guy."

Main reason for quote - assuming Namon doesn't suck, and if he's anywhere close to some of our hopes, he more than fills in for Fortune. White is a huge loss, but we deal with it...just have to. AK transferring won't register in the team's games. Peters would suck to lose, but again, not sure if that's a huge blow from last year to next, as opposed to just a big blow for the general future. If Dom leaves too, which I have no reason to assume he will nor do I want him to, that would be huge. We definitely can't stand to lose both Peters and Dom imo, but unless you have insider info, there doesn't seem anything to indicate that would occur, aside from pure board speculation by us general idiots. So, I guess I'm just saying while I don't see guard play as a huge positive going into next season, I'm not worried about it due to losing players; unless the scenario I laid out occurs.

Bigs are wildly overrated in college ball. Give me guards. Bigs are limited if they don't have anyone getting them the ball.

"wildly overrated"? Sure, it's a guard's game in college, but let's face it, we need some bigs. If Butler had bigs to compete with UNC, completely different ball game. Kevin McHale had a good statement in one of those Open Court sessions on NBA TV. He said something like, small skill beats bad big any day, but big skill beats small skill. Bigs are needed, bc guards can't control the paint. Guards can win games for you, but not consistently when there are no bigs. For example, Kemba may have been the star, but without Oriakhi, UConn doesn't win it all.
 
On the "guard" thing, technically Andre Roberson was a guard and George King is a guard, based on the CU roster. I do expect Schwartz to be listed as a guard. I think it's up in the air whether he's a wing or one heck of a long off-guard. Depends on how his handle develops, I think.

Regarding the rest:
1. Agree we need Dom to be back as a senior guard. He can play lead and off, which means he can give a lot of productive minutes.
2. Agree that Namon is likely an upgrade from Fortune, especially in consideration of Fortune's year-long shooting slump as a senior.
3. I believe Copeland would be an upgrade from Tommy or Bryce. Could actually replace a lot of White's production.
4. I acknowledge what you're saying about bigs, but I'd be happy to become Butler and have to worry about getting over on the North Carolinas of the world. First thing's first, and that's building a Sweet 16 team. The best path to that is through excellent guard play.
 
On the "guard" thing, technically Andre Roberson was a guard and George King is a guard, based on the CU roster. I do expect Schwartz to be listed as a guard. I think it's up in the air whether he's a wing or one heck of a long off-guard. Depends on how his handle develops, I think.

Regarding the rest:
1. Agree we need Dom to be back as a senior guard. He can play lead and off, which means he can give a lot of productive minutes.
2. Agree that Namon is likely an upgrade from Fortune, especially in consideration of Fortune's year-long shooting slump as a senior.
3. I believe Copeland would be an upgrade from Tommy or Bryce. Could actually replace a lot of White's production.
4. I acknowledge what you're saying about bigs, but I'd be happy to become Butler and have to worry about getting over on the North Carolinas of the world. First thing's first, and that's building a Sweet 16 team. The best path to that is through excellent guard play.

Hope you are right, but upgrade from Tommy/Bryce to replacing White's production are not quite the same.
Is there a concern about rim protection? The bulk of shot blocks graduated.
 
Hope you are right, but upgrade from Tommy/Bryce to replacing White's production are not quite the same.
Is there a concern about rim protection? The bulk of shot blocks graduated.

Separate issues, but yes. Interior defense was a problem this past season. Wes was a heck of a weakside help defender, but struggled badly on denying post position and we got worked there. So, that's job #1 on the interior defense imo. Miller should have the bulk and attitude to force post ups farther from the basket instead of allowing entry on the low block/ circle area.

In terms of weakside help to alter or block shots, I guess we're looking at Dallas Walton a bit, looking toward our athletic wings like King and Bey a bit, and maybe hoping to fill a hole here by signing Ondigo.

That interior defense may be the biggest question mark in 2017-18. If it's there, then opponent shooting percentages go way down and, if it can happen by manning up on posts like J40 did then our defensive rebounding is much better since guys aren't out of position. Huge keys to making Tad's system work.

If I had to try to look into my crystal ball today, I'd say that we've got enough to match up with 2/3 of the schedule and even have an advantage. But there will be teams we face within the league who will overwhelm us with their size and our only chance against them will be to shoot them out of the gym from 3pt range.
 
What 'Nik and Goose say. Without stellar guard play, you will be uncompetitive.
We go into next year with:

Collier - SR
Wright - JR
Brown - SO

And with almost certainty that one or both of Aykazili and Peters are gone.

We have a lot of needs right now with no guards currently coming in.
 
Hoping Copeland decides to come to CU and that he can ball. CU needs some ballers, because when you look at the roster CU doesn't have many... In fact, I only count one...

Baller
Bryce Peters

Serviceable college game:
Deleon Brown
Namon Wright (But lets be real he did ok in year 2 at MO but if his game regressed at all he would fall into the big stiff category)
George King (Again lets be real, if he plays like his Jr year then he is a big stiff, if he plays like his Soph year then he is very serviceable and borderline baller)

Unknown:
Alexander Strating
Dallas Walton
Evan Battey
Tyler Bey
D'Shawn Schwartz

Big Stiff:
Dom Collier (No reason to expect anything different than his first three years)
Lucas Siewert (He had moments as a freshman, so if he improves as much as a Soph should improve then he will be plenty serviceable).

How the heck did he get a D1 scholarship?
Thomas Akyazili
 
fwiw, King's sophomore vs junior stats:

Points​
Attempts/Gm​
FG%​
3pt%​
FT%​
Reb​
Assist​
TO​
Steal​
Block​
Sophomore​
13.6​
10.0​
44.6​
45.6​
74.8​
4.7​
0.7​
1.9​
0.4​
0.2​
Junior​
11.1​
8.9​
46.0​
37.6​
67.1​
6.8​
0.7​
1.7​
0.5​
0.2​
[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Where he slid was with his offense. That 3pt% came way up after an awful stretch from CSU thru ASU (6/36 or something) and shot over 45% in other games. He never seemed to find his role and it hurt his aggressiveness. Fewer shot attempts and fewer trips to the FT line despite playing 2 minutes more per game.

What did encourage me is that his rebounding numbers had a huge increase, his turnovers improved a bit, and his defense was markedly better (at least if we're talking about the final third of the season).

My concern for next season is consistency. King and Wright give us 2 guys who are likely to average double figures. But they're both the types of players who have shown that they'll get to double figures by scoring 20+ some games and 0-5 in others. Those types of fluctuations drive us crazy as fans because when we have the nights when both guys like that are clicking, the team looks like it can beat anybody. On nights both guys like that disappear, the team will look like a hot mess. And on those nights when 1 guys is on while the other is off, it's a mediocre team. I think that good teams have 2 guys they can consistently count on every night (i.e., Spencer and J40) and then there can be other guys who will give you a 3rd scorer from somewhere.

Buffs need to find those 2 consistent guys from whom we can pencil in reliable production every single game. I think Copeland would be 1 of those guys if we can land him. Then, we need King or Wright to be than 2nd guy. One of them can fluctuate, but not both. And if Copeland doesn't pick the Buffs, we need both King and Wright to be consistent if we want to have a good team.
 
That is what I heard a lot on here last off-season. However, during the season when rebounding was a problem, it was a major issue with the team and of conversation on this board. Every team needs rebounding along with a player who can box out bigs and prevent other teams from dominating the paint.

The Buffs had a 33% Offensive Rebounding percentage this year. That's 59th in the nation. They kept opponents to only 28.3% of Offensive Rebounds (134th). Rebounding wasn't a problem. In fact, ranking wise, it was Tad's 2nd best offensive rebounding team from his tenure here at CU. Opponent's ranking was a little higher than normal, but not really out of the ordinary. Rebounding wasn't our problem.

"wildly overrated"? Sure, it's a guard's game in college, but let's face it, we need some bigs. If Butler had bigs to compete with UNC, completely different ball game. Kevin McHale had a good statement in one of those Open Court sessions on NBA TV. He said something like, small skill beats bad big any day, but big skill beats small skill. Bigs are needed, bc guards can't control the paint. Guards can win games for you, but not consistently when there are no bigs. For example, Kemba may have been the star, but without Oriakhi, UConn doesn't win it all.

Alex Oriakhi was a 5*. Yeah, if we can get a 5*/4* big - sign me up. But in the meantime, the main way to win and win consistently is through guard play. Yeah, you may have a ceiling of Sweet 16 or so, but the same people who are bitching about how we need a big are the same ones who are putting the pressure on Tad for not making a S16. Stop wasting time with ****ty bigs.

Dom and Lucas are not stiffs. Siewart showed solid potential.

This. 100% this. Anyone writing Siewart off after last year is just plain wrong. He started slow but put up an ORtg of 110.7 in conference play (which would have been fourth best on the team behind DWhite, XJ and Wes). I don't ever think he'll be a defensive plus, but he's a good offensive player who should be a positive overall. Let's see what he does after a summer of training, but at the least we have a rotation player. And the Dom thing has been beaten to death, so agreed.
 
Alex Oriakhi was a 5*. Yeah, if we can get a 5*/4* big - sign me up. But in the meantime, the main way to win and win consistently is through guard play. Yeah, you may have a ceiling of Sweet 16 or so, but the same people who are bitching about how we need a big are the same ones who are putting the pressure on Tad for not making a S16. Stop wasting time with ****ty bigs.

Come on, the example was that you need serviceable bigs; not talking about how great of HS prospects they were. The vast majority of solid teams aren't rolling out teams with no inside presence. I'm not saying you want to do this, but your fervor and language for guards over bigs would infer that you want to play small ball to the extreme, being fine with someone like Roberson manning the middle as our base group. People here may disparage him, but Gordon was a serviceable big. Miller is serviceable big (serviceable big to me - defend the other's big and grab rebounds, and set picks). We need a few of those. We have Seiwart and Tory as our bigs, and that may work. I like Seiwart, but there are questions/unknowns with his defense, so why not take another guy as insurance inside for the future? I'm assuming that Walton is still a year or two away, and Battey, despite people's love for him, is an unknown freshman. I don't get why you're so against taking another big. Yes, we need more impact players ALL AROUND, but there's nothing wrong if the staff adds another big. Even though I'm a critic of Tad's recruiting, especially with hindsight in play, I still trust him, and if he goes after Ondigo, great. If he goes after a perimeter guy, fine. I get why you're disappointed with Wes this past year, but he was still worth a roster spot. Outside of what is an obvious project in Walton, not sure what you mean by "stop wasting time with ****ty bigs." Would you rather we not had Miller and Gordon last year, but instead, their equivalent as perimeter players?

And yes, I do think there should be pressure on Tad for eventually getting to a S16. I think that's a completely fair expectation in the next 3 years, and in order to do that, we're going to need some form of an inside presence.
 
Dom and Lucas are not stiffs. Siewart showed solid potential.

OK, perhaps Siewert belongs in the unknown category for right now, but how on earth can we not say that Dom is a big stiff? I mean we are talking about a guy who has done the following:

14-15 4.7 pts/g 2.4 asst/g 1.5 TO/g 1.3 Steals/g
15-16 7.5 pts/g 2.9 asst/g 2.7 TO/g 2 Steals/g
16-17 6.0 pts/g 1.8 asst/g 1.6 TO/g 1.1 Steals/g
Career Avg: 6.1 pts/G 2.4 Asst/g 1.9 TO/g 1.5 Steals/game

Those numbers can't be interpreted as anything but poor. Do they by themselves make him a big stiff? Nope, if we only looked at those numbers we would say he would be a serviceable back up guard. Problem is he is putting up those kinds of numbers while getting more minutes than you would typically give to a back up (Career average of 20.3 minutes a game). Then comes the worst part. Dom's inability to play good defense. Most of Dom's defensive liabilities come because he just isn't as quick as most of his competition (Including players on teams like Fort Hayes State). So he has to play off or get burned...but he also will be entirely too casual at times, which exacerbates his physical liabilities. Put Dom's offensive numbers with his defense and you have....a big stiff.
 
Come on, the example was that you need serviceable bigs; not talking about how great of HS prospects they were. The vast majority of solid teams aren't rolling out teams with no inside presence. I'm not saying you want to do this, but your fervor and language for guards over bigs would infer that you want to play small ball to the extreme, being fine with someone like Roberson manning the middle as our base group. People here may disparage him, but Gordon was a serviceable big. Miller is serviceable big (serviceable big to me - defend the other's big and grab rebounds, and set picks). We need a few of those. We have Seiwart and Tory as our bigs, and that may work. I like Seiwart, but there are questions/unknowns with his defense, so why not take another guy as insurance inside for the future? I'm assuming that Walton is still a year or two away, and Battey, despite people's love for him, is an unknown freshman. I don't get why you're so against taking another big. Yes, we need more impact players ALL AROUND, but there's nothing wrong if the staff adds another big. Even though I'm a critic of Tad's recruiting, especially with hindsight in play, I still trust him, and if he goes after Ondigo, great. If he goes after a perimeter guy, fine. I get why you're disappointed with Wes this past year, but he was still worth a roster spot. Outside of what is an obvious project in Walton, not sure what you mean by "stop wasting time with ****ty bigs." Would you rather we not had Miller and Gordon last year, but instead, their equivalent as perimeter players?

Honestly, my technique to roster building in the current situation we have (bubble team most years, working on building a program up) is to take 1 big, 1 PG and fill the rest of every class with wings with talent. Great bigs are always in demand, and are a lot harder to project down the line. We're not at the point where quality bigs will search us out either unless we get lucky and they're in our back yard (Jelly, Wes) or something weird happens with their recruitment and they come free late (Siewart).

As for Wes, man, I'm not sure where you're getting that I was down on him. I think I was the only person on this board defending him for most of this season. He was the only reason our team wasn't a defensive disaster out there. I totally get the value of it. And I'm not against Ondigo in general - he seems fine. I just constantly see people bitching about how we need bigs and how bigs are the reason that games are won and it's just not true. Mark Titus has a theory that every national champion for the last 20+ years (I can't remember the exact number) has had a "Top 20 KenPom defense and an NBA guard".

2017 Final Four:
* Gonzaga - #1 KenPom D; Nigel Williams-Goss (DraftExpress - 2nd rd pick in 2018 mock)
* South Carolina - #2 KenPom D; Sindarius Thornwell (DraftExpress - 2nd rd pick in 2017 mock), PJ Dozier (DraftExpress - 2nd rd pick in 2018 mock)
* North Carolina - #17 KenPom D; Justin Jackson (DraftExpress - 1st rd pick in 2017 mock), Theo Pinson (DraftExpress - 2nd rd pick in 2018 mock)
* Oregon - #18 KenPom D; Dillon Brooks (DraftExpress - 2nd rd pick in 2017 mock)

All four of those teams get contributions from big men, but all of them are reliant upon guards. Not listed up there are guys like Joel Barry for UNC, Josh Perkins and Jordan Matthews for Gonzaga, Duane Notice of SC and Tyler Dorsey and Dylan Ennis of Oregon. Guards and defense drive college basketball. Hell, our best teams in the last few years have all been guard driven (Dinwiddie & Booker in '13, Burks & Higgins in '11).

Also, you talk about how you think Battey is an "unknown freshman" - so how does bringing in another unknown frosh solve the problem? Don't get me wrong, if we're talking transfers, hell yes, sign me up. But man, HS bigs are so damn hard to judge (and you can legitimately question this staff's ability to judge them going off of the performance of our big recruits so far) that why risk potentially striking out twice in the hope that just one lands? That's how you end up with Ben Mills on scholarship for 4 years (and I love Ben, but...). Go the Villanova route. Go 2005 Illinois. Go heavy on guards. Yeah, there's the potential that a team with giants up front may be able to cause chaos on our defense, but they have to then have one of the bigs guard someone quicker than them so it's a two way street. And honestly, how many teams in college hoops can throw legit quality bigs out there? UCLA is the only one that comes to mind immediately. There are other teams that have potential, but usually after the first two it gets a little sketchy.

(and God I hope you and @Buffnik are right about Miller and I'm wrong. I'm still not fully convinced he's a quality starting P12 big).

Then comes the worst part. Dom's inability to play good defense. Most of Dom's defensive liabilities come because he just isn't as quick as most of his competition (Including players on teams like Fort Hayes State). So he has to play off or get burned...but he also will be entirely too casual at times, which exacerbates his physical liabilities. Put Dom's offensive numbers with his defense and you have....a big stiff.

Had Adam at Pachoops look up Dom's numbers on Synergy on D and he grades out as "Average" on D. 48th percentile in the nation while allowing .864 points per possession. Better in zone than he is in man defense. Good against spot up shooters, sucks when there's less than 4 seconds on the shot clock. Add in his offensive numbers (99.1 ORtg, 43.9% eFG%, 15.5 ARate, 18.4 TORate). Put his offensive numbers with his defensive numbers and you have...an average player by every definition.

(BTW, George King's Synergy D numbers are horrible. 19th percentile in the nation, .969 ppp)
 
Honestly, my technique to roster building in the current situation we have (bubble team most years, working on building a program up) is to take 1 big, 1 PG and fill the rest of every class with wings with talent. Great bigs are always in demand, and are a lot harder to project down the line. We're not at the point where quality bigs will search us out either unless we get lucky and they're in our back yard (Jelly, Wes) or something weird happens with their recruitment and they come free late (Siewart).

As for Wes, man, I'm not sure where you're getting that I was down on him. I think I was the only person on this board defending him for most of this season. He was the only reason our team wasn't a defensive disaster out there. I totally get the value of it. And I'm not against Ondigo in general - he seems fine. I just constantly see people bitching about how we need bigs and how bigs are the reason that games are won and it's just not true. Mark Titus has a theory that every national champion for the last 20+ years (I can't remember the exact number) has had a "Top 20 KenPom defense and an NBA guard".

2017 Final Four:
* Gonzaga - #1 KenPom D; Nigel Williams-Goss (DraftExpress - 2nd rd pick in 2018 mock)
* South Carolina - #2 KenPom D; Sindarius Thornwell (DraftExpress - 2nd rd pick in 2017 mock), PJ Dozier (DraftExpress - 2nd rd pick in 2018 mock)
* North Carolina - #17 KenPom D; Justin Jackson (DraftExpress - 1st rd pick in 2017 mock), Theo Pinson (DraftExpress - 2nd rd pick in 2018 mock)
* Oregon - #18 KenPom D; Dillon Brooks (DraftExpress - 2nd rd pick in 2017 mock)

All four of those teams get contributions from big men, but all of them are reliant upon guards. Not listed up there are guys like Joel Barry for UNC, Josh Perkins and Jordan Matthews for Gonzaga, Duane Notice of SC and Tyler Dorsey and Dylan Ennis of Oregon. Guards and defense drive college basketball. Hell, our best teams in the last few years have all been guard driven (Dinwiddie & Booker in '13, Burks & Higgins in '11).

Also, you talk about how you think Battey is an "unknown freshman" - so how does bringing in another unknown frosh solve the problem? Don't get me wrong, if we're talking transfers, hell yes, sign me up. But man, HS bigs are so damn hard to judge (and you can legitimately question this staff's ability to judge them going off of the performance of our big recruits so far) that why risk potentially striking out twice in the hope that just one lands? That's how you end up with Ben Mills on scholarship for 4 years (and I love Ben, but...). Go the Villanova route. Go 2005 Illinois. Go heavy on guards. Yeah, there's the potential that a team with giants up front may be able to cause chaos on our defense, but they have to then have one of the bigs guard someone quicker than them so it's a two way street. And honestly, how many teams in college hoops can throw legit quality bigs out there? UCLA is the only one that comes to mind immediately. There are other teams that have potential, but usually after the first two it gets a little sketchy.

(and God I hope you and @Buffnik are right about Miller and I'm wrong. I'm still not fully convinced he's a quality starting P12 big).

My bad - I had sort of lumped you into those bitching about Wes when I read your "stop messing with ****ty bigs" comment. From the language of it all, I was inferring that you wanted to go extreme small ball, so thanks for clearing that up.

In general, I think you and I share a lot of thought on roster development; I agree, and not sure how people can disagree, that college is won with guards. I'm just saying that you must have a serviceable big, which I thought you were disagreeing with; again, my bad on misinterpreting. As for Battey and Ondigo - yes, I completely agree that HS bigs are hard to predict, but Battey and Ondigo are better than Mills ever was on tape. Mills and Walton are the same cloth to me, and I completely understand why Tad wants to take a chance on Walton (NOT Mills though...never understood him or Eli). However, due to bigs in general being hard to gauge, you should, like you said, take the average of a big a year. One of them is likely to not live up to expectations, so yes, I think you take more to cover yourself. I'm fine with going heavy on guards, but like Nova and Illinois, they had serviceable bigs, if not quality big(s).

Your point isn't lost - teams that can throw out multiple bigs is rare. In addition to UCLA, there is Kentucky, UNC, etc. But I'm not saying we need to have a Welsh and Leaf or Meeks and Hicks. I wouldn't MIND it of course, but I'm scared about next year's inside. We have Tory...and that's it. I think he's decent, but you have your reservations for a reason. Seiwart showed us promise, and I'm hopeful for Battey but not as high as most on these boards are. If Tory gets in foul trouble or gets injured, and Seiwart doesn't progress as want, we're left with one freshman as an option. I'd just like it to be TWO freshmen to battle it out and win the playing time. I'd like to have four options that I can plug in as my big at any one time, even if only 2-3 get the majority of minutes. The rest, sure, fill in with all the guards and perimeter guys.
 
Your point isn't lost - teams that can throw out multiple bigs is rare. In addition to UCLA, there is Kentucky, UNC, etc. But I'm not saying we need to have a Welsh and Leaf or Meeks and Hicks. I wouldn't MIND it of course, but I'm scared about next year's inside. We have Tory...and that's it. I think he's decent, but you have your reservations for a reason. Seiwart showed us promise, and I'm hopeful for Battey but not as high as most on these boards are. If Tory gets in foul trouble or gets injured, and Seiwart doesn't progress as want, we're left with one freshman as an option. I'd just like it to be TWO freshmen to battle it out and win the playing time. I'd like to have four options that I can plug in as my big at any one time, even if only 2-3 get the majority of minutes. The rest, sure, fill in with all the guards and perimeter guys.

You ignore Walton in this paragraph. You even mentioned him earlier. He's no doubt an unknown quantity at this point, but we will have two freshman after Tory and Siewart, Battey and Walton.
 
Your point isn't lost - teams that can throw out multiple bigs is rare. In addition to UCLA, there is Kentucky, UNC, etc. But I'm not saying we need to have a Welsh and Leaf or Meeks and Hicks. I wouldn't MIND it of course, but I'm scared about next year's inside. We have Tory...and that's it. I think he's decent, but you have your reservations for a reason. Seiwart showed us promise, and I'm hopeful for Battey but not as high as most on these boards are. If Tory gets in foul trouble or gets injured, and Seiwart doesn't progress as want, we're left with one freshman as an option. I'd just like it to be TWO freshmen to battle it out and win the playing time. I'd like to have four options that I can plug in as my big at any one time, even if only 2-3 get the majority of minutes. The rest, sure, fill in with all the guards and perimeter guys.

Honest question - do you think Ondingo would be more ready to provide quality minutes this year than Walton who RS'd last year? I'll fully admit I'm not as up to date on Ondingo as I should be, but I would think the RS frosh who has been here working on his game and practicing against men would be more ready to step in in case Battey isn't ready.
 
I think you can get by with bangers in the 6'8" or 6'9" range and get excellent players there if you're a program like CU. I'd rather focus there than take lesser players because they're 6'10" or taller. And, of course, if we can get an excellent player who is a true big, you jump on that like a mofo because those guys are game changers. Bottom line is that I don't see as much value as some in an offensively-limited tall/wide body who struggles to get up and down the court. When the Pac-12 was down at the time CU entered the conference, there were a lot of those types of guys and CU handled them just fine with Austin & Dre on the defensive interior.
 
You ignore Walton in this paragraph. You even mentioned him earlier. He's no doubt an unknown quantity at this point, but we will have two freshman after Tory and Siewart, Battey and Walton.

Honest question - do you think Ondingo would be more ready to provide quality minutes this year than Walton who RS'd last year? I'll fully admit I'm not as up to date on Ondingo as I should be, but I would think the RS frosh who has been here working on his game and practicing against men would be more ready to step in in case Battey isn't ready.

torerobuff - you're right, I do ignore Walton, which answers Goose. I am hopeful of Walton, and when he signed, I was on-board as a project. He's tall, had a smooth stroke (can't say anything about range or consistency of that stroke in getting a ball in a bucket), and didn't seem like Mills-clumsy. However, he's super skinny, was playing against kids much smaller than him in the vids I saw, and still didn't show athleticism or power (the poster coereg did state in an old thread that Walton was athletic prior to the ACLs, and nothing against coe, but I'm just very skeptical). That's completely understandable considering his knees though. Still, I just see Walton as a project...if he gets on the court to provide some valuable minutes as a junior or senior, great. If not, get a kid a degree and move him through. Stashing one complete project on your roster is fine imo.

As for Ondigo - I've only seen his highlight tape. He's not spectacular, but he's more athletic than Walton imo (granted, I've only seen Walton senior year tapes...where he's a year removed from two ACLs). His shot is awkward - definitely not as smooth as Dallas; not expecting him to stretch a D anytime soon, if ever. He seems to have some post moves though, and plays with more power/aggression from what I could tell. He can run - not like a deer, but he can run fine. Ondigo also has a decent frame to grow and looks less skinny than Walton, although their weights would suggest they're not too different. But like you said Goose, projecting bigs is tough. I just have a mindset of ignoring Walton until we actually see him in games, and so yes, I do think Ondigo is a better insurance policy in case Battey struggles for whatever reason. PURE SPECULATION on my part...have no inside info.
 
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