2017 -2018 Uconn Roster Up | Page 2 | The Boneyard

2017 -2018 Uconn Roster Up

Huskyforlife said:
Not having a center over 6'9 is probably a good place to start.
  • David Onuorah being our most experienced big, the next being Cobb who played something like 1 min a game his freshman year.
  • Concern over Gilbert, Larrier, and Diarra coming back from their respective injuries 100% and staying healthy all year whilst playing the majority of min at their positions.
  • Not having a pure back up 3.
  • A lot rests on Adams and Vital taking huge steps up, not a given.
  • Our incoming players are underwhelming on paper(Yes I know they can outperform their rankings; Vital)
  • Lots of tough games early, we seem to start slow
I'm sure there's more, but I think you get the point.
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These are all fair points and they're all true. But you can't objectively look at this team on paper compared to the rest of the conference and tell me you really think this team finishes last in the conference. At the bare minimum Jalen puts us ahead of USF by himself
 
We've got 9 guys between 6'7" & 6'9", not super tall, but we have many frontcourt options to mix & match depending on the game. It's really difficult to know who will be starters or back ups at this point, but Ollie & staff have time to sort it out before November. This is what October practices & pre-season games are for. For frontcourt players, provided everyone is healthy here's what I think.... SF: Larrier (starter), then Polley. PF: Diarra (starter), then Williams/Whaley/Carlton (not sure who is primary backup or even starter). Center: no clue who starts, could be some combination of Cobb or Onuorah, depending on the game, with Carlton also in the mix too. I wouldn't be surprised to see Whaley redshirt (since he's quite thin, but he seems to be a scorer). Foxen might struggle to get end of game minutes (if we are up big, he'll get some). We may not be super talented in the frontcourt, but we have lots of options, so it will be fun to see who evolves! I like being deep in the frontcout, even if no super star. Let's just enjoy the ride. Woo hoo!
 
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Huskyforlife said:
Not having a center over 6'9 is probably a good place to start.
  • David Onuorah being our most experienced big, the next being Cobb who played something like 1 min a game his freshman year.
  • Concern over Gilbert, Larrier, and Diarra coming back from their respective injuries 100% and staying healthy all year whilst playing the majority of min at their positions.
  • Not having a pure back up 3.
  • A lot rests on Adams and Vital taking huge steps up, not a given.
  • Our incoming players are underwhelming on paper(Yes I know they can outperform their rankings; Vital)
  • Lots of tough games early, we seem to start slow
I'm sure there's more, but I think you get the point.
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There is no way a team that probably has the best top 3 players of any team in the league, finishes last. Adams doesn't need to take some leap, he's already there. He needs to be heathy and not play the whole game with no supporting cast. Vital already stepped up last year. He should improve and be the role player he should be. Gilbert and Larrier are studs. Yes they were hurt, but any team in the league could have injuries to key contributors.

The other guys are question marks. But Diarra looks solid and has a year in the program. Onourah provides veteran leadership, defense and rebounding. I think Cobb will surprise people. Yes, he played little at USCe, but Juco experience is still experience. Then we need one of the four remaining guys to be good. Just one in four. That's not unreasonable.

For UConn to finish in the bottom half we'd need catastrophic bad luck like last year, where we still did better than that with a roster much, much worse than this one. I think top 3 is a fair prediction, with an NCAA bid.
 
Stairmaster said:
And this translates to "close to last in the conference" for you?
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If we lose all 3 guys again or they aren't effecrive and all our big guys suck then we could be in the bottom quarter of this conference. Remember even with average big men last year we finished sixth. Now we are worst on paper with only Jalen and maybe CV as proven players.

We not finish last but I just don't see how this team makes the sweet 16 unless Jalen goes off every game.
 
That's actually a lot of size in our front court. Yes, we don't have a near 7 footer, even in Mau measurements, but we have a lot of guys with size. If a couple of them can play a little bit, score a little bit, rebound and defend well we could be ok. But, this will depend on Gilbert and Larrier's health. We are going to need Vital, Gilbert and Larrier to score and hope that the committee in the front court can score enough.
 
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After 4 years of Amida something looks obviously different.
 
Huskyforlife said:
Not having a center over 6'9 is probably a good place to start.
  • David Onuorah being our most experienced big, the next being Cobb who played something like 1 min a game his freshman year.
  • Concern over Gilbert, Larrier, and Diarra coming back from their respective injuries 100% and staying healthy all year whilst playing the majority of min at their positions.
  • Not having a pure back up 3.
  • A lot rests on Adams and Vital taking huge steps up, not a given.
  • Our incoming players are underwhelming on paper(Yes I know they can outperform their rankings; Vital)
  • Lots of tough games early, we seem to start slow
I'm sure there's more, but I think you get the point.
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I get your point. It's why bother going to games because we are going to be lousy right? Unbelievable that you have mailed in the season already. I really like this team and I think they will be legitimately good. You have to admit that with Jalen, Vitals, Larrier and Vitals, that we have an ultra talented 4. We also have a boat load of players that are long, athletic and have girth. If coached up properly, with a 40 minutes of Hell attitude, then I think you will be pleasantly surprised. Do yourself a favor, take a vacation from naysayer land brother!
 
Some of these guys are still growing. We had a seven footer that couldn't rebound or make a layup.

I'm not concerned
 
UC56CAFF said:
I get your point. It's why bother going to games because we are going to be lousy right? Unbelievable that you have mailed in the season already. I really like this team and I think they will be legitimately good. You have to admit that with Jalen, Vitals, Larrier and Vitals, that we have an ultra talented 4. We also have a boat load of players that are long, athletic and have girth. If coached up properly, with a 40 minutes of Hell attitude, then I think you will be pleasantly surprised. Do yourself a favor, take a vacation from naysayer land brother!
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You missed the word "potentially"
 
So many question marks that the season is incredibly hard to predict. A good solid season that includes being ranked in the Top 25 much of the season would be fantastic, but we will need a big or two to really step up for that to happen.

Some say sweet sixteen, some say potentially real bad. My guess is something in the middle, but I am not even confident in that non-commital prediction.
 
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Huskyforlife said:
Not having a center over 6'9 is probably a good place to start.
  • David Onuorah being our most experienced big, the next being Cobb who played something like 1 min a game his freshman year.
  • Concern over Gilbert, Larrier, and Diarra coming back from their respective injuries 100% and staying healthy all year whilst playing the majority of min at their positions.
  • Not having a pure back up 3.
  • A lot rests on Adams and Vital taking huge steps up, not a given.
  • Our incoming players are underwhelming on paper(Yes I know they can outperform their rankings; Vital)
  • Lots of tough games early, we seem to start slow
I'm sure there's more, but I think you get the point.
Expand ...
You had me at "whilst."
 
3rdbass said:
If we lose all 3 guys again or they aren't effecrive and all our big guys suck then we could be in the bottom quarter of this conference. Remember even with average big men last year we finished sixth. Now we are worst on paper with only Jalen and maybe CV as proven players.

We not finish last but I just don't see how this team makes the sweet 16 unless Jalen goes off every game.
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We are not "worse on paper" than last year. Maybe worse than the roster at the beginning of the season, but not by the end. We are essentially replacing Facey with Larrier (a much better scorer) and adding an All American point guard along with a top 100ish power forward in Diarra. Brimah never really improved in his 4 years, which left a lot to be desired at the center position. If one of our centers can play defense and rebound we are already far better than last year (and that's assuming none of our incoming freshman contribute at all)
 
Brimah is the only one I worry about replacing .
We have to compensate for his defensive presence by improved team defense especially on the perimeter and increase physicality.
We are better at every other position post Larrier injury and at guard pre injury.
 
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AZHuskiePop said:
Brimah is the only one I worry about replacing .
We have to compensate for his defensive presence by improved team defense especially on the perimeter and increase physicality.
We are better at every other position post Larrier injury and at guard pre injury.
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His shotblocking we will miss. His lack of rebounding, and body up defense we won't. Nor his offense. We can't rely on shotblockers at all. If Cobb and David O can put bodies on the 6'8" guys that used to score on Brimah all the time and actually keep them away from the layup area of the lane, we'll be fine.

This is really on the coaches. This needs to be a different defense. I am really hopeful that the staff can run a defense that these players can actually execute. I never liked the reliance on a shot-blocker who may or may not be on the court, as it leads to some bad habits.
 
I would point out that Gilbert's standing as a "pure" PG is questionable. In his senior year at Miller Grove, he started at SG. The starting point was a kid named Aaron Augustin. Clearly the coach wanted to exploit AG's offensive skills and was looking for a PG to find Gilbert, not for Gilbert to be looking for others. The truth is that Gilbert, like Adams, is a penetrator/shooter first, his passing mainly taking the form of sudden handoffs to startled big men.

At this point in time, Adams is probably the better passer, hence the better PG, based on his experience last year. Gilbert, I submit, would be far more at home at the 2. If their heights were switched, Gilbert 6-2 and Adams 5-11, there would be no question at all. Adams would start at point. He probably should anyway, the chief argument against it being the difficulty of a 5-11 handling the 2 position defensively.

I have no doubt that AG will be tried at PG, but if he handles it no better than he did against Wagner and NE last year (where he and Jalen largely got into each other's way), he will find himself battling Vital for minutes at the 2 -- and in that battle, Vital has the initial edge, based on his 3-point ability.

All that said, I think that AG has both the smarts and the leadership flair to make a superb PG. It will take time, however. We should not expect it out of the shoots.
 
Nebraskan18 said:


I wanted to watch some Alterique and Terry to get me ready for this season, and even though we obviously lost this game. Adding two more guys that can just go out and make plays will be atleast more fun to watch this year.
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I sensitized those videos; I hope I don't have to go through that painful process again.
 
AZHuskiePop said:
Brimah is the only one I worry about replacing .
We have to compensate for his defensive presence by improved team defense especially on the perimeter and increase physicality.
We are better at every other position post Larrier injury and at guard pre injury.
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We're going to miss all three of the seniors more than people realize. Facey was a very good two way player last season who would help us immensely this year, and even Purvis - the guy we should theoretically have the easiest time replacing because of our depth in the back court - gave us a lot of value defensively in his ability to guard three or four positions. We're going to miss his size and athleticism a lot defensively. We don't know if Vital is big enough to be an ideal fit at the three and we don't know if Gilbert can guard at all. Same goes for Larrier, whose loss last season was, in my opinion, overstated. I might take Facey over him if given the choice.

We'll be better than last year, but it won't be an addition by subtraction thing. Pair this years back court with last years front court and I think you would have found a hell of a team. The major problems last season were the lack of a second ball-handler and coaching.
 
champs99and04 said:
We're going to miss all three of the seniors more than people realize. Facey was a very good two way player last season who would help us immensely this year, and even Purvis - the guy we should theoretically have the easiest time replacing because of our depth in the back court - gave us a lot of value defensively in his ability to guard three or four positions. We're going to miss his size and athleticism a lot defensively. We don't know if Vital is big enough to be an ideal fit at the three and we don't know if Gilbert can guard at all. Same goes for Larrier, whose loss last season was, in my opinion, overstated. I might take Facey over him if given the choice.

We'll be better than last year, but it won't be an addition by subtraction thing. Pair this years back court with last years front court and I think you would have found a hell of a team. The major problems last season were the lack of a second ball-handler and coaching.
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I guess for me I need to see more Terry before I could even make the choice although I think it's fairly easy. I would also need to know if it's the first 3 years plus the last 12 games Facey or the one who had a 12-13 game stretch last year where he looked like most if us wish he had been redshirted. Again, late in the season though he couldn't make a shot and wasn't close to what a healthy Larrier will bring us I don't believe. He could offensive rebound the hell out of the ball thought when he wanted to.

If we don't have a shooter that can streak us back into games we will miss Rodney and defensively when Rodney's passion was prevailing that guy will be missed. Brimah, well I'm not going to go all "mau" on this one but if we have a guy or guys who can defend people on the post physically, move his feet and then turn and rebound the ball and not fall over, we will be fine. Don't need to block shots to be a good defensive team, it helps if you have an 11 rebound guy like Hasheem as well as being physical on the block, but 2.8 blocks and 5 rebounds doesn't get me all that excited, especially when a lot of time people weren't where they should be.
 
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