Topher17 said:

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Add a guy like Griffen to this roster and I'll really start to believe we have a chance to be a lot better next season than I would have previously expected.

As for Federiko he should be a solid off of the bench guy. I understand the excitement from our fans, as he changed the game for Tech in the S16 against Arkansas, which is a game a lot of people would have watched. His entry late in the game and dominance on the offensive boards was a large part of the Tech comeback.

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I think you're underselling Federiko. We started Coleman the majority of the games this year. Federiko is a MUCH better shot blocker and puts up similar scoring and rebounding numbers. I believe he starts and plays significant minutes.

It's interesting to see so many posters who are happy with what Bucky is doing right now in recruiting. Simultaneously, there is the idea that even being a bubble team would be great in Bucky's first year. And I'm on board with both of those sentiments.

Let's all remember this next season if it's not going like we hoped right away. I'm anticipating posts saying that we settled for a guy who was unproven at this level, etc. I like the hire and I'm all for giving him a few years to see what he can build. Dream scenario for me is that we've hired a guy who will coach here for 25 years and get us to the Sweet 16 a dozen times and a few Final Fours along the way.

bobinator said:

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ObviousLazyRiverIsObvious said:

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Let's all remember this next season if it's not going like we hoped right away. I'm anticipating posts saying that we settled for a guy who was unproven at this level, etc.

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None of the people who are going to make those posts are on this board right now.

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This. Those people don't show up until late November and aren't year-round basketball fans.

Rec said:

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I will have to see what his layup line passes look like before passing judgement

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ObviousLazyRiverIsObvious said:

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It's interesting to see so many posters who are happy with what Bucky is doing right now in recruiting. Simultaneously, there is the idea that even being a bubble team would be great in Bucky's first year. And I'm on board with both of those sentiments.

Let's all remember this next season if it's not going like we hoped right away. I'm anticipating posts saying that we settled for a guy who was unproven at this level, etc. I like the hire and I'm all for giving him a few years to see what he can build. Dream scenario for me is that we've hired a guy who will coach here for 25 years and get us to the Sweet 16 a dozen times and a few Final Fours along the way.

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I'm ecstatic with Bucky's recruiting, but let's not forget that the transfer portal/NIL era is different To get the program truly rolling will take time, but this should be a tournament team next year. The portal signings so far include a McD AA (didn't have that before), three players who have averaged double figures in a major conference (had three of those this year), a legit shot blocker, size off the bench, and higher shooting percentages. In previous years that type of transfer talent just wasn't available and defections of recruits after a coaching change could be devastating.

I think I've overrated Mgbako, in fact looking over his history again I am sure I did since I thought he had played ONE college season, not TWO. So I somehow was way off.

His stats pretty much identical each year too, slight improvement consider he also dropped 2 minutes a game.

bobinator said:

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Quote:

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but this should be a tournament team next year.

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This is a wild thing to say.

Who cares what Mgbako's recruiting ranking was three years ago, he was the third best player on a team that fired their coach mid-season. Hill was the best player on a terrible NC State team. Griffen had a down year at Kansas after a promising sophomore season at Alabama. Clemence and Vinson were basically non-factors last season. I like Lane and Holloway but we need to see what they look like at this level.

There's a lot to like here from a potential standpoint, for sure, but expecting this team to make the tournament seems like too much. It's just picking all the of the best things you like about each player's history and ignoring the rest.

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That's what we do here!!!

Well his coach also sucked so who knows how good he really could be. Could be brilliant, but it's just another unknown. This is part of the problem with basketball compared to a sport like baseball is that the data isn't as cut and dry. You can't just swap out parts like you can in baseball, or even in football to some degree where guys only play one side of the ball.

Some players benefit statistically playing on bad teams, some don't. Scoring depends almost as much on the other players on your team (ability to get you open and pass you the ball, not let you get double teamed, how often you draw the other teams' best defenders, etc) as they do your own ability. How you play defense impacts how you play offense, etc.

There's just way too many variables to have any sort of idea how these pieces are all going to fit together, or how any of them are going to fit into this style of play.

The only thing I'm relatively sure of for next season is that we're pretty likely to get absolutely bombed at least a few times.

I get what you're saying, but this year our second and third best player (and at times our best two players) were transfers. Sure there were contributors who had been on the roster, but without Phelps and Payne we're not a tourney lock. I think teams are going to need to be constructed every year in this era and not just with coaching changes. If the expectation was that Bucky would have a tourney team in 26-27 it still probably only includes 3 or 4 guys on the roster now.

Like you've said before, I think the most important thing out of all of this is how they play in this system. Do the best parts of their game work well together and make for a strong team. We still have some pieces, I'm hoping we can land a true lethal 3 point shooter and another impactful big man.

Also imagine if we ignored the best thing about each of our guys last year and blindly threw all their talent and skill together… lol that would be something!

There's a huge difference though between plugging in a couple of transfer guys into a (in our case, VERY) old team and building an entire roster out of them.

Everything from the new guys having fairly well defined roles from the beginning and the coach already having an idea of how most of the roster pieces play together, to even just having guys in the locker room that know what the coach means when he says something. Even just that system/institutional knowledge is helpful in the locker room whether the players that have it are any good or not.

Everyone talks about Arkansas building their team out of the portal last year but they had like four or five players that were with Calipari the year before at Kentucky. They know the offseason routine, they know the offense and defense, etc. etc. That was like a $10M roster with several players with experience with the coaching staff and they still struggled to make the tournament.

And for the record I'm not being pessimistic, I certainly think this team CAN make the tournament. Definitely moreso now than I did a few weeks ago. But I just think it's crazy to have that as an expectation.

My biggest question is can we play defense?

From what I've seen of Bucky's offensive choreography and the shooting numbers for our incoming transfers, I think we'll find ways to score. Not as sure whether we'll have enough athleticism to defend consistently in the SEC.

Never heard the term offensive choreography.. I like it.

Those unrealistic expectations lead directly to BAS. Being optimistic or hopeful is one thing but expecting something, such as making the tournament in year one, is completely different.

Yeah it's almost a complete 180 from last year. Like you said I expect us to be able to put up points at a decent clip, but defense is going to be the fascinating part. Other teams play the way we're going to try to play on offense, but we're gonna be out there on our own on defense if the plan is to play the same kind of defense Bucky has played previously.