Anyway, here's my take on Facey possibly being ineligible: it's a big deal, but not a huge deal (i.e., season defining, likely to move us down in the pre-season polls). The biggest question entering the season in regards to Facey was, could he play the five? And frankly, I'm not sure he could have, given he appeared a bit more raw than I had hoped for in what I've seen of him so far and he's as thin as a rail. He would have been a minus offensively and not as impactful as I had hoped for defensively unless he put on a fair amount of weight between now and November. In other words, he would have been a bit of a tweener: not skilled enough to play the four and not physically mature enough to play the five. A few months ago, I thought Facey would scoop up 20-25 minutes a game and play crunch time for us at the five, but the more I thought about it, Nolan's probably more likely to play the lion's share of the minutes at the five due to his extra couple inches and more filled out body. I am not convinced Facey was going to play more than ten minutes a game (assuming everybody was healthy/eligible) with Daniels logging 30+ minutes at the four and Olander likely scooping up the minutes Nolan didn't play at the five.
As for Samuel, I didn't think he'd play much anyway. Where a potential eligibility issue with him would really hurt us would be the following year, when we're relying on him to play minutes at the point and facilitate the offense. Next year, not so much with two all-American caliber point guards in the back court and Calhoun/Kromah capable of filling in at the two. My newest minute projections, assuming the losses of Facey and Samuel, are as follows:
PG - Napier 20 min, Boat 20 min
SG - Boat 14 min, Napier 13 min, Kromah 10 min, Calhoun 3 min (possibly more if he improves his ball-handling)
SF - Calhoun 27 min, Giffey 13 min
PF - Daniels 33 min, Giffey 7 min
C - Nolan 20 min, Olander 15 min, Giffey 5 min
Facey and Olander were going to battle for backup minutes at the five, so worst case scenario, we've lost our backup center. If anybody thinks losing our backup center is going to be the difference between making the final four and not making it, I'd love to hear your rationale on that. And to be honest, I get the feeling Olander would have beaten out Facey for the additional minutes at the five, anyway. He's better offensively and more experienced/savvy defensively. Where these potential losses will really hurt us, is depth. As gurleyman/fleud points out, we now cannot afford to lose a Giffey/Olander/Kromah or Napier/Boat/Calhoun/DD will be forced to log huge minutes.
