I agree with this. I thought it was strange that we even recruited Nowell. Sure there are a handful of sub 6 foot guys who make it but they are the exception not the rule. And the past 2 years we dominated with big guards. Maybe they were thinking Mahaney was the guy. The lack of size has been one factor in our defensive issues I think.
I found recruiting Lewis on top of that this past cycle interesting. My take is we could have had him, team opted for Adams. Not sure if there are any tea leaves to be derived.
Those games are opportunities to get young guys minutes to help get their feet under them.
Then you get blown in the face with real teams and Maui happens. Hoping that’s the last time we schedule like that. I get 2 cans or so, not 5. If it’s to play the system for metrics, can work against you just as easily.
If the goal is NC I’m not sure him starting would be conducive to that even though I’d like to see it.
Yeah I’m not really for playing the metrics game, especially at the expense of getting young guys valuable playing time and experience.
This whole thread is a riot. I’m photoshopping a picture of Liam sitting in a wheelchair.
Everyone needs some time to get their feet wet before the real trials start. It makes a difference in floor comfort level down the line. I think he couldve got more minutes than he did against a lot of that early schedule and it wouldve helped him. When he finally did get minutes it became a situation where he was pressing to show he belonged, and usually playing like that doesn't lead to great results. Certainly didnt in this case. The first injury took any other possible development time away too. This is just hindsight stuff on a message board. However, I would've preferred Nowell was in the heavy rotation from the get go and that isn't hindsight in the wake of Mahaney's disappointment. I was saying that before we knew what we know now about our guard position this year. I was willing to ride or die with that frosh. Certainly we could've died there too, but we will never know. Nowell hasnt showed out well since coming back from first injury. We decided to go to the portal and try to catch lightning in a bottle again. I get it. That gamble was obviously thought to be the only chance we could have at a 3peat. It didnt (well.......hasn't to this point, I will hold out hope) work out though, and now we have future questions at guard that could've been clearer (for better or worse) if we didn't go to the portal and stayed "in house" at the PG position.
We've won half of our titles with sub 6-foot starting PGs. 99/11/14.
Thank you.
Or has it been a season to learn? Let's see what he looks like next year.
I agree -to an extent. I don’t think he’s gonna come in and drop 20 points in 20 minutes but maybe just his presence being on the floor for 10 total mins and the small things he does might help put us over the top. His effect reverberates throughout the team. We ve lost a few games by 1 or 2 posessiions. Can mcneeley sway the scale in limited mins? I think he can - it’s not like we ve been getting blown out. U cud make the case we’d be in top 5 if mcneeley never got hurt …
Except this is the same exact way we scheduled in 2023. And 2024. Blaming the schedule for what happened in Maui is objectively dumb