OTish - Damion Lee to Louisville

[aceboon]

I hope there isn't someone here trying to argue were better off with miller over stone... Do you guys see what you're typing?

I think some of you guys aren't looking at this with enough nuance, its arguing the actual fit, not who is the better prospect. Stone is a natural college 5, shoehorning him and Brimah together might not have been ideal. Would either of them have been able to guard 4s? What would the spacing have been like? On a team that will probably not have great outside shooting(if the rumors of Gibbs are true, that can change things), now you are mucking things up even further having the paint clogged with Stone and Brimah. I know there are some on here who think Brimah adds nothing because they only look at his rebound totals and not the actual game and see how his rim protection makes UConn a better team, but adding Stone wouldn't have made Brimah replaceable. Now with Miller we're adding another piece that can defend his position and is a pretty good rebounder, probably minimizing the damage of Brimah chasing blocks.

 

[aceboon]

To use an example for the posters who can't understand fit over talent/prospect, look at Texas. Barnes was trying to use jumbo lineups to make sure Myles Turner got his playing time up front, thus moving Jonathan Holmes out of position from his best fit at PF/4 to the SF/3 spot. Look at the decline in their team peformance from the 13-14 year to 14-15. Is Holmes considered the better NBA prospect than Turner? Obviously no, but he was the better fit at PF.

 

[TigerJ]

Yeah good thing for us is that you guys have Pastner.

Umm this was about recruiting not coaching. Calipari, Kirk, and Finch have recruited well at Memphis. You finds ways to sell your program to kids. UConn shouldn't have no problem with championships they have.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Umm this was about recruiting not coaching. Calipari, Kirk, and Finch have recruited well at Memphis. You finds ways to sell your program to kids. UConn shouldn't have no problem with championships they have.

Ummmmm my comment was a not so subtle jab at Pastner's coaching abilities.

 

[Huskyforlife]

These are the types of things you tell yourself when you miss out on a kid like diamond stone. I'm reading having an agile 6'10 250 pound post up big next to our skinny shot blocking 7 footer isn't a better fit cause he's not 6'7 basically. Stone and brima appear to do nothing similar except score inside, like every big, so they wouldn't fit well together? I'm happy miller committed, but you people need to step back.

 

[aceboon]

These are the types of things you tell yourself when you miss out on a kid like diamond stone. I'm reading having an agile 6'10 250 pound post up big next to our skinny shot blocking 7 footer isn't a better fit cause he's not 6'7 basically. Stone and brima appear to do nothing similar except score inside, like every big, so they wouldn't fit well together? I'm happy miller committed, but you people need to step back.

Nah these are the things I tell myself because I actually watch college basketball. Having 2 bigs next to each other can definitely work in today's college basketball, just look at UK for example, but based on what I saw from Stone in international play and what I already know about Brimah, I can't actually see either one defending college 4s and having to defend the 3 point line with success. No need to try to crawl inside my head and try to figure out my thought process, I already laid it out for you up above.

 

[whaler11]

In general, I think your argument is sound. Kentucky 2012 and Duke 2015 won with three one and dones starting. Talent wins above all else.

But this point got me thinking. We will leave Evans out, since that was a unique situation. We were on probation - he was a low level DI kid who could get stopgap minutes on a team that was leaking players. That was not really a strategic signing, more just a chance to get a body in who wanted to play here. Given our roster makeup going into 2011-12, and knowing what we know, I'm not sure you don't take 2014 Kromah over 2012 Drummond if given the choice. We never did get our wing position sorted out - Giff wasn't ready, Roscoe was better suited for the 4 in spite of his protests, we went Bazz-Boat-Lamb a lot, but they had no backups (and Boat had to miss a few games, leaving us with zero depth at the 1-2). With Drummond, pieces didn't felt all that well - with Kromah, we are a bit more versatile and would still be a decent rebounding team.

This is purely a personnel decision for that one team. The year Kromah came, you would take Drummond every time in what would be the easiest decision ever (assuming no crystal ball that lets you know we win at all with Kromah). We were coming off a year with TO at center getting outrebounded by 20 some nights.

But this is a micro discussion of particular players on particular teams. On a macro level, most of the time the top 10 recruit is going to bring more to the table than a fifth year. There are just occasions when the veteran presence/skillset may fill the need better than a one and done who isn't as polished as Jones/Okafor. This could be one of those times - but we won't know for sure until next year when we see them both.

The original post was not a microdiscussion.

 

[Huskyforlife]

Nah these are the things I tell myself because I actually watch college basketball. Having 2 bigs next to each other can definitely work in today's college basketball, just look at UK for example, but based on what I saw from Stone in international play and what I already know about Brimah, I can't actually see either one defending college 4s and having to defend the 3 point line with success. No need to try to crawl inside my head and try to figure out my thought process, I already laid it out for you up above.

Isn't brima the AAC dpoty? Shouldn't he be able to close out on shooters? Also in lineups where on big is on the perimeter, we could go small, and rotate brima/stone depending on if we need shot blocking/scoring/foul trouble.

 

[UConn990411]

These are the types of things you tell yourself when you miss out on a kid like diamond stone. I'm reading having an agile 6'10 250 pound post up big next to our skinny shot blocking 7 footer isn't a better fit cause he's not 6'7 basically. Stone and brima appear to do nothing similar except score inside, like every big, so they wouldn't fit well together? I'm happy miller committed, but you people need to step back.

Hmm, no.

I'm not saying UConn will be better with a Brimah-Miller frontcourt than they would've been with Brimah-Stone, but it's not an unreasonable statement. On paper, a freshman Drummond-junior Oriakhi combo was more talented than a freshman Roscoe-sophomore Oriakhi combo. Which frontcourt performed on the court?

This isn't the NBA - there's no defensive 3 seconds, so having two post players who can't operate outside the paint can absolutely crush an offense. Again, not saying that's what'd happen with Brimah and Stone, but it's not crazy to think a senior Miller is a better fit for UConn's needs than a frosh Stone.

 

[Huskyforlife]

Then why did we recruit stone so hard? To be brimas backup? No. Ollie must've thought he could play the 4.

 

[aceboon]

Isn't brima the AAC dpoty? Shouldn't he be able to close out on shooters? Also in lineups where on big is on the perimeter, we could go small, and rotate brima/stone depending on if we need shot blocking/scoring/foul trouble.

Have you seen Brimah try to defend out on the perimeter? Brimah reaches out and fouls guys when they face up and drive on him from 10ft or when they turn and face up in the post, what do you think is gonna happen when he is on an island defending guys out to 20ft? I actually have a pretty high opinion of Brimah projecting forward, but the possibility of him defending college 4s is defintely not something I wanted to see. Plus it takes away from his value as a rim protector. Who knows who would've defended who since its all moot anyway, but I even voiced my aprehension about how they would fit together in the OG Stone thread before things went south in his recruitment.

 

[tcf15]

Then why did we recruit stone so hard? To be brimas backup? No. Ollie must've thought he could play the 4.

When a 5 star is interested in you, you recruit them, regardless. Just because we recruited Diamond Stone doesn't mean that he would have been the perfect fit with Brimah.

And UConn fans should know that, as we've gone through this before - @UConn990411 points that out above.

 

[CallMeBruce]

Then why did we recruit stone so hard? To be brimas backup? No. Ollie must've thought he could play the 4.

I'm sure he does think that, but that doesn't make it true. There's no specific evidence about whether Stone can play the 4. Stone is definitely the more talented player, and it's likely he's a better player next year than Miller. My point was that, given our needs, Miller is probably the safer player to bring in, and a better fit. We know for a fact that Miller can play the four and that he can hit a midrange jumper (and the occasional 3). Getting Brimah and Stone to play effectively together would have required some tinkering, and it could have failed. Getting Brimah and Miller to play together doesn't, and in fact Miller's skills line up perfectly with Brimah's deficiencies.

 

[Huskyforlife]

But then the question is, why would he consider us? If there's no time at the 5, then he and ollie must think he can fit our system at the 4

When a 5 star is interested in you, you recruit them, regardless. Just because we recruited Diamond Stone doesn't mean that he would have been the perfect fit with Brimah.

And UConn fans should know that, as we've gone through this before - @UConn990411 points that out above.

 

[CallMeBruce]

But then the question is, why would he consider us? If there's no time at the 5, then he and ollie must think he can fit our system at the 4

What's your point? Neither the fact that Ollie recruited Stone nor the fact that Stone had interest in UConn means that Stone would necessarily be able to effectively coexist on the floor with Brimah. It's certainly possible, but it's also possible that they would have struggled to find their space on the floor, as well as having issues defending smaller teams. Miller may well be the better player for us, in this situation, because there's minimal risk of him not being able to play with Brimah. No one is saying that it's great that we lost out on Stone, but I think that Miller is a very good consolation prize for us, and given that both players are one-year players, Miller is about as close to a perfect fit for this team as there is.

 

[Stainmaster]

Bottom line, Stone isn't coming here. It doesn't matter which of Brimah/Stone or Brimah/Miller is a better frontcourt tandem - one will see court time next year, and the other will not.

 

[Fishy]

Then why did we recruit stone so hard? To be brimas backup? No. Ollie must've thought he could play the 4.

Don't get too tangled up in positional numbers - if you have two talented centers, you play them both together.

 

[Huskyforlife]

Don't get too tangled up in positional numbers - if you have two talented centers, you play them both together.

I'm not the one you have to convince

 

[tcf15]

I'm not the one you have to convince

I don't think people are arguing whether or not Brimah & Stone would play together - they would. You put your most talented 5 on the court. It's more a matter of whether or not Brimah and Stone could be effective when they were on the court together. That's where the "better fit" part comes into play.

 

[Huskyforlife]

I don't think people are arguing whether or not Brimah & Stone would play together - they would. You put your most talented 5 on the court. It's more a matter of whether or not Brimah and Stone could be effective when they were on the court together. That's where the "better fit" part comes into play.

But I don't understand why we'd recruit a player, even if he's as talented as stone, if he's not going to be effective when on the floor with your other big. I'm sureOllie wouldn't recruit a kid who couldn't play with brima, and I'm sure stone is talented enough to learn how to play the 4 with coaching like ours.

 

[champs99and04]

As a general rule in recruiting, you accumulate as much talent as you can and figure the logistics out later.

 

[RipCity]

Miller was a beast last year. 4.8 WS year from him. Yes, it was in the Ivy, so you could knock it down a peg. But few freshman, even lottery picks, have years as productive as Shonn Miller had this past year.

Once you factor in the fact that we needed a scoring post player who could also help open up space for our wings, and Miller fits that bill perfectly, there's a solid chance that we'd be a better team with him than Stone next year.

The other side to this is that having a player go in the lottery, as Stone likely will, is helpful for recruiting. Of course, if we make another Final Four next year, that wouldn't hurt either.