I don't know if this is TFG's typical roster construction, or if he just ended up with it based upon who was best available, but I really like what he did with the bigs. With Micah's injury and us down to 3 bigs, I realize how much that platoon of 4 bigs benefitted us this year. Felt like we could just throw bodies at other teams, and even if one fouled out it wasn't the end of the world, as we'd likely still have coverage to finish a game. I hope he continues this philosophy, as in the past I believe we've often been undersized... starting a 6'8-6/9" center either by design or due to injury. We still joke about Egbunnu never coming back, but losing him had Kevarrius as our main big man at 6'8-6'9". Then we had Kerry Blackshear who is listed at 6'10" but looked more like 6'9" and wasn't that big body center you need. He was more of a PF. Castleton was a beast, but when he went out we had Jitoboh and no other real bigs. Jason was a good dude and all, but was never going to be a viable threat in the SEC at his weight, speed, motor, and skill level. I mean... we'd be in even better shape if Shimmy was available and EJ Jarvis hadn't quit. We really have to applaud Golden's approach to building this roster. I hope this roster full of playable bigs is his philosophy going forward.
We got really lucky with Condon and Haugh. So impressive this year and are going to dominate in coming years.
It would’ve been great to have Jarvis now, but I’m glad we got so many minutes for Haugh and Condon this year as they develop into great players.
he has always preferred to start two bigs so imagine he will keep doing so and recruiting additional big men
It was really instructive to hear Golden early in his tenure talk about those SF teams of his. He learned very quickly that he didn't want to be stuck with smaller lineups that depended on jump shots. Size, especially two traditional post players (even if we don't play a traditional high-low post offense) enable you to score at a higher rate around the rim and rebound the ball better on both ends. Offensively, that means you can still be efficient even if you don't have terrific shooting. Has worked like a charm this year.
absolutely......and with the minutes / experience all 4 of them got this year. We can expect to see little if any dropoff with Condo playing starters minutes...and since it's single knockout now, we don't need to be play a deep rotation anyway. Kudos to Micah for helping us get this far, doing all the hard work....now it's up to the rest of the bigs to do him proud and dominate the paint at both ends.
I'm stuck in a mindless meeting. Blocks per minute: Condo 0.060 Haugh 0.048 Micah 0.047 Samuel 0.041 Jr. 0.019 Richard 0.017 Kugel 0.009 Zyon 0.003 Rebounds per minute: Micah 0.363 Condo 0.313 Samuel 0.280 Haugh 0.255 Kugel 0.149 Richard 0.136 Zyon 0.119 Jr. 0.116 We're gonna have to step up on the boards.
Here's to hoping The World's Tallest Teenager is a major baller. Watch him come in at 3:42 Olivier Rioux - Yahoo Video Search Results
Hadn't thought of that. Great point. The claim is Richard is 6'5" but I think he's more like 6'4" though he plays a little bigger. I think he's going to be much better as a senior if that's physically possible.
He mentioned in a presser recently that this current identity/roster is by design.....So we have some fun basketball to look forward to, and so do recruits.
I like our basketball teams to be tall, but I do remember Baylor's national championship team being pretty short. Their starting lineup was 6'10", 6'5", 6'4", 6'3" and 6'2". Basically a Forward and 4 guards. They hustled like crazy and were physical, though. I'd say if you are more physical and outhustle the other team, you will win pretty much every game. I remember playing against the UF football team in intramurals and those dudes were so strong, muscular, and in cardiovascular shape that they didn't even need skill to blow us out. To be honest, they were terrible basketball players and fouled on every play, but the refs let them play and it was night night.
stating the obvious but good Lawd is he tall and IMG is just too stacked, it's like a college team playing against a JV high school team
the good thing is we have enough flexibility on this roster that if we wanted to play small ball we have ZP, Clayton, Richard, Abeerdeen and Kugel to throw out there
6’ 10” is a Preddy common size for a center in college. Using Uf as an example, we hasn’t had a seven footer since Dwayne Schintzius until this year (Handlogten). That is more than 30 years that UF centers were in the 6’ 9” to 6’ 11” range.
It seems pretty clear that Golden wants to build a roster based on 4 quality bigs, a savvy pg and then a bunch of wings. The wing guys are plentiful out there and Golden doesn’t need 5 stars at the wing to be successful. And we didn’t get “lucky” with Condon and Haugh. That was great talent evaluation by Golden.
Castleton, Jitoboh, Gak, Egbunu, Noah, Ronnie DeSantis. They were all in the 7 foot range. It’s all about the shoes.
My point was that the other starters were all 6’5” and below and they didn’t even have a true 7 footer.
