Not enough minutes?

[sivert]

I've been looking forward at likely minutes for UNI. It's ridiculous. We have 13 guys who ought to get significant minutes (starter or bench). I added up the minutes based on how much I thought each player "ought" to get and it added up to over 260 minutes. Some of these, I felt like I was being pretty conservative ("+") and really they should have more.

36 AJ Green
35 Trae Berhow
30 Nate Heise
30+ Austin Phyfe
15 Antwan Kimmons
20+ Bowen Born
20+ Tywhon Pickford
20+ Noah Carter
15+ Tytan Anderson
13 Goanar Mar
8 Cole Henry
8 James Betz
5 Michael Duax
2 Drew Daniel
2 Derek Krogmann

Both AJ and Antwan Kimmons were out most of last season. It'll be interesting to see where Bowen and Antwan come in for minutes - whoever plays alongside AJ best and helps the flow of the offense.

If I impose a hard 200 minute rule, then maybe...
35 AJ Green
29 Austin Phyfe
25 Trae Berhow
20 Nate Heise
19 Bowen Born
16 Tywhon Pickford
12 Noah Carter
12 Tytan Anderson
10 Antwan Kimmons
7 Cole Henry
5 Goanar Mar
5 James Betz
5 Michael Duax

I could be way off - but I'm curious about the extra COVID-year scholarships everyone has - what does your team look like?

[siudawgs]

SIU also has an unusually deep team, if everyone is healthy this year. Thirteen legit scholarships guys, including three promising true freshmen for whom it might be hard to find playing time, though I'm hoping Foster Wonders can push returnees like Trent Brown, Ben Harvey and Steven Verplancken for minutes at the 2/3 spots. Grad transfer Ben Coupet (Little Rock) could move right into the starting lineup as a wing.

There is a ton of versatility on the Saluki roster, so questions like does Lance Jones mostly play at PG or move to the 2 with Dalton Banks on the floor, and does Marcus Domask play the 3 or 4 spot more often will have a big impact on rotations/minutes for various guys. Harry Schroeder wrote a preview on SIU recently (https://bustingbrackets.com/2021/09/06/ ... w-salukis/), and he implied Filewich and D'Avanzo will split time at the 5. Unless JD Muila isn't healthy again, and considering burly freshman big Scottie Ebube also is in the mix, I'd much rather see D'Avanzo's minutes come at the 4 and go with Filewich and Muila at the 5 (adding Ebube to the mix if warranted).

Lots of interesting personnel decisions for Mullins this year. Although there is a lot of solid depth, it seems like the rotation is typically whittled to 8-9 guys once you get into the heart of conference play.

[ahunte1]

It will be a challenge for Drew Valentine at Loyola as well.

I believe this works out to 200 minutes, and it's not super unrealistic. Obviously we don't know about Drew, but Moser would have Lucas and Norris playing at least 30 minutes a game, no question.

This has 40 minutes for the guys who will play the 5 (Hutson, Knight, Welch). Only 20 minutes for Kennedy and 15 for Hall who had his struggles last year, but has been an all-conference player before. It leaves no minutes for the freshmen.

30 Lucas Williamson
30 Braden Norris
25 Keith Clemons
20 Marquise Kennedy
20 Aher Uguak
15 Tate Hall
15 Jacob Hutson
15 Chris Knight
10 Tom Welch
10 Ryan Schwieger
10 Damezi Anderson
Ty Johnson
Saint Thomas
Ben Schwieger

[just ducky]

Reality is finally sinking in. The expanded eligibilities have improved the talent and depth of the great majority of D-1 teams and this was an easy thing to predict.

The average Valley fan needs to refocus away from their own talent bubble and look at the bigger picture studying each Valley team roster by roster. Du! Everybody is as good or better. Some may be vastly better! So if some are smugly content that their team of choice looks to be 10% better and 20% deeper then let me predict that such a team might actually fall in the MVC standings. OOC games will be equally challenging!

AND---- Some very talented Valley freshmen may almost never see the floor.

[BEARZ77]

Depth is nice but also vastly overrated; really unless you have injuries/or covid issues, too much depth is more a problem than benefit. In the end, successful teams will have 8-10 guys playing and 3-5 guys transferring.

I look at the Bears who have 5 starters back, 2 transfers who could start, a transfer 7 footer who sat last year with injury and a top level freshman. But they also have 4 returning freshmen who barely saw the floor last year [ and to me miraculously all came back] and who will have a hard time doing so this year, and a juco post who played some. Somebody won't be happy, I don't care how good a culture you have. I just think in a conference that plays games mostly in the 60's and emphasizes half court play, you can't play more than 8-10 and be consistent on the court in tight games.

[Blers42]

Depth is nice but also vastly overrated; really unless you have injuries/or covid issues, too much depth is more a problem than benefit. In the end, successful teams will have 8-10 guys playing and 3-5 guys transferring.

I look at the Bears who have 5 starters back, 2 transfers who could start, a transfer 7 footer who sat last year with injury and a top level freshman. But they also have 4 returning freshmen who barely saw the floor last year [ and to me miraculously all came back] and who will have a hard time doing so this year, and a juco post who played some. Somebody won't be happy, I don't care how good a culture you have. I just think in a conference that plays games mostly in the 60's and emphasizes half court play, you can't play more than 8-10 and be consistent on the court in tight games.

I disagree that too much depth is an issue. The goal of a coach is to win games and build the roster to the best of their ability. Yes, you want to recruit properly I think Moser did a good job at this. His system for the most part was a system where experienced players saw more time on the court simply because they bought into the system and were talented. We didn't lose many players, and having depth last year was great for the team. The depth of our bench last season allowed the starters to rest once we got a decent lead. The guys coming off the bench played well enough that in many occasions the starters didn't have to go back in. You're always going to lose players to transfers, especially when your team is in the spotlight. If you're a freshman that's coming to an experienced team in the Valley, you should know what you're getting yourself into.

[squirrel]

You can do two things at once. You can have really good depth that doesn't play. But you do need to have depth to stave off hiccups along the way. The year Wichita went to the Final Four, they lost 3-4 starters over the course of the month and still won the league and reached their max potential.

The year Bradley had their Sweet 16 team, Jeremy Crouch (who would lead the nation in shooting and set the school career mark for 3-point shooting) wasn't even playing the last half of the season as he wasn't providing much of anything that season and other guys were.

Most teams will only play 8 guys, no matter how good roster guys 9-13 are.

[sivert]

And for practice. It's huge.

Half a dozen years ago when UNI was running Deon Mitchel and Wes Washpun, Deon was the Senior and got the start. But Wes got more minutes.

But yeah, it does mean limited minutes and makes guys want to transfer. Noah Carter put his name in the transfer portal and then stayed. Not sure what made him make each of those decisions. I would think that he found that every other school everywhere was similarly over-stocked.

Both NIL and COVID-year are contributing to overstocked teams.

30 Lucas Williamson
30 Braden Norris
25 Keith Clemons
20 Marquise Kennedy
20 Aher Uguak
15 Tate Hall
15 Jacob Hutson
15 Chris Knight
10 Tom Welch
10 Ryan Schwieger
10 Damezi Anderson

Hutson probably will get more? But it's hard for me to say if he should be equal with Knight, who I've never seen.

[ahunte1]

30 Lucas Williamson
30 Braden Norris
25 Keith Clemons
20 Marquise Kennedy
20 Aher Uguak
15 Tate Hall
15 Jacob Hutson
15 Chris Knight
10 Tom Welch
10 Ryan Schwieger
10 Damezi Anderson

Hutson probably will get more? But it's hard for me to say if he should be equal with Knight, who I've never seen.

Remains to be seen, of course. Hutson stepped up big time late in the season, but I'd still be surprised if he plays more than 20 minutes a game given that we do have experience and some depth (and Hutson may have some minor conditioning issues.) Also seems like there may be a desire to play some smaller lineups.

[Red]

You can do two things at once. You can have really good depth that doesn't play. But you do need to have depth to stave off hiccups along the way. The year Wichita went to the Final Four, they lost 3-4 starters over the course of the month and still won the league and reached their max potential.

I don't think WSU won the league regular season title or Arch Madness that year. They just caught lightning in a bottle.