Rival coaches share thoughts on the top college basketball transfers to move up to Power 6 conferences Walter Clayton Jr., transferring from Iona to Florida: You don’t want to jump the gun, but I think that kid is going to make a lot of money playing the game and could see him in the NBA. We tried every sort of coverage against Walter Clayton. Seems like a great kid. Very stoic on the court. Doesn’t get too high or too low. For a sophomore to handle every coverage. We tried to limit his touches, but he finds a way. He gets to his pull-up. He shot it decent from three. He’s very athletic. He’s very explosive. He’s got that toughness from his football days, too. He’s a winner, man. I think he’s special. I think he’s a name that you’re going to hear not for the next couple years, I think you’ll hear it beyond it. Athletically, Clayton is going to be just fine (on defense). You don’t worry about guys like him.” – Dan Engelstad, Mount Saint Mary’s head coach Zyon Pullin, transferring from UC Riverside to Florida: “I think Zyon is a terrific player. He’s a great player. I really like Zyon. He’s really a strong, physical guard.” – Joe Pasternack, UC Santa Barbara head coach
Maxwell, Moten , Montgomery and Lett was a pretty deep back court back in the 1980s. Weaks, Dupay, Nelson, and Hamilton was both a great backcourt and a deep one in 2000.
Whatever the comparison with past backcourts, what I love is the shooting. Last year, we only had twos guy who had ever shot 40% from the arc in a season or were at 35% for their careers (Jones, Bonham). Coming into this year, we have five who have hit 40% in a year (Richard, Clayton, Pullin, Rishwain, Jarvis) and five who are at above 35% overall (take away Jarvis, add Kugel). Even if there is a regression to the mean for lower volume shooters (Pullin, Jarvis) or Rishwain isn't fully healthy, I still don't see how our perimeter shooting fails to improve drastically. And it likely won't be dependent on a couple of special shooters, but you will have guys at the 1-4 capable of making threes with regularity.
Every good shooter will have off-nights and even multi-game slumps. In recent years, since we had so few good shooters, this spelled defeat for the Gators. Now, if we have one or two guys having bad shooting nights, we'll still have 3 or 4 other guys knocking 'em down.
And on top of that, you will have multiple guys (especially Samuel as a low post threat, but also Handlogten and Jarvis in different ways) who can score effectively around the rim. Golden has been insistent that he doesn't want to be dependent on jumpshooting.
Yep. Our best teams always had scoring balance so you couldn't scheme us to take away one or two scorers. I'm hopeful that our bigger presence inside will lead to lots of garbage buckets out of rebounding.
The 2011-12 Florida team had the following guards: PG: Erving Walker (12.1 ppg, 4.6A) 31.3 min SG: Kenny Boynton (15.9 ppg, 2.7A) 31.6 min SG: Mike Rosario (6.6 ppg, 1.0A) 14.4 min SG: Bradley Beal (14.8 ppg, 2.2A, 6.7 reb) 34.2 min PG: Scottie Wilbekin (2.6 ppg, 1.6A) 15.2 min That 2012 UF team had the dynamic scoring tandem of Boynton (2000+ pts)/ Walker (1700+ pts/547A) as well as All-NBA guard Beal (15,000+ career pts in 11 seasons). With his time at Rutgers, Rosario was also a prolific scorer (1700+ pts). Wilbekin finished in the school's top 10 for assists (419) as well as leading UF in 2014 to a 21-0 SEC record and the gators' last Final4. In the following year (2013), Wilbekin & Rosario both became starters with increased playing times: PG: Wilbekin (9.1 ppg, 5.0A) 31.9 min SG/PG: Boynton (12.0 ppg, 2.7A) 31.6 min SG: Rosario (12.5 ppg, 2.0A) 29.5 min SG: Mike Frazier (5.6 ppg) 18.0 min ==================================== In both of those above instances, three guards averaged 30+ min and 1-2 guards averaged 14-18 min. Based on those observations, I would project the 2023-24 UF team to average the following minutes (only a guess): PG/SG: 6'4 Zyon Pullin, 29 min PG/SG: 6'3 Walter Clayton, 28 min SG: 6'4 Will Richard, 24 min SG: 6'5 Riley Kugel, 23 min SG: 6'5 Julian Rishwain, 15 min PG: 6'1 Kajus Kublickas, 1 min ------------------------------------ Total min (PG/SG/SF): 120 min If Florida goes to a 4-guard offense for a few minutes a game then some of the guards would have increased minutes. If one of the guards should have an injury or just have foul trouble in a game then Florida should have enough guards to overcome that situation. As for the front-court, based on the minutes played at their former schools (i.e, Marshall, Seton Hall, etc.): C: 7'1 Mica Handlogten, 23-25 min C/PF: 6'10 Tyrese Samuels, 22-23 min PF: 6'8 EJ Jarvis, 18-19 min C/PF: 6'10 Aleks Szymczyk, 8 min C: 6'11 Alex Condon, 6 min PF:6'9 Thomas Haugh, 1 min --------------------------------------- Total min (C/PF): 80 min Rebounding was the biggest weakness on last year's Florida team. For that reason, I believe that Handlogten (9.8 rebg/ 2.3 blks), Samuels (11 pts/g, 5.9 rebg) & Jarvis (11 pts/g, 5.5 reb/g) would get the majority of the post minutes. Samuels would start at PF while also getting some significant minutes at center. I would bring Jarvis off the bench whenever Handlogten(C) and/or Samuels(PF) goes to the bench. Or vice versa, start Jarvis(PF) & Handlogten(C) and bring Samuels off the bench to replace one or the other. Samuels should have the versatility to play either post positions. I can't say yet how much a true frehman Condon can play in the post so for now, I will go with the upper classman Szymczyk who has proven to be a decent 3-pt shooter last season in limited action. Of all of the guards, Richard (10/4 ppg, 4.5 rebg) has been the best rebounder and productive 3-pt shooter. For that reason, I would start Richard at SF and bring in Kugel off the bench again.
I don’t have a clue as to playing time, but here are some thoughts. You appear to have kicked Denzel Aberdeen off of the team. He is going to play. Riley Kugel getting the fourth most minutes of the smaller guys is not gonna happen. He likely will get the most minutes of anyone playing the 1-3. Will Richard played great last season considering that he was in the SEC. His year was comparable to the years of the guys we brought in through the portal. Richard shot something like 40% from 3, 60% from 2, about 86% from the free throw line and rebounded the hell out of the ball. It’s conceivable that he will get more minutes than Clayton and Pullin. As for the big men, my guess is that Samuel and Jarvis will be our two best big man. However, I don’t know who will be the starters. Shimmy likely will be the best three point shooter of the bigs and one of the best on the team, but that doesn’t guarantee him playing time. Jarvis also looks great shooting the ball from three, and I expect him to shoot a good percentage from there this coming season. I like all six big guys, but some of them are not going to play much.
Tampa made a few good points already, but yeah I have a hard time imagining Kugel isn't starting next year.
Kugel will almost certainly get the most minutes on this team. He can play both wings spots, you can run the offense through him, and he can probably defend four positions.
Great post. I'd add re: Richard that his year was comparable to some of the"better" players we have brought in the portal. Maybe this is what you intended. He's still just a junior. I'm not ready to suggest that he's on par or better than DFS or Canyon Barry (two of our best transfers), but he could rise to the level of either, which would be huge.
Thanks. I meant that his year at UF, an SEC school, was somewhat comparable to the years that Clayton and Pullin had at lesser conferences. That is significant considering the typical drop off that you see when players transfer from mid-majors to Power 6 schools.
Riley will play more minutes than anyone else. In my opinion, we will play some 4 guard line-ups with Richard at the 4 when playing smaller teams, giving our talented guards more minutes, and leaving one of the bigs with less time.
Attached is a picture of me before I started doing strength and conditioning.very skinny man - Google Search
Here’s a picture of me from after I get finished with the strength and conditioning program. very muscular man - Google Search
