Starting line up | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Starting line up

jibsey said:
Akok against a muscular 5 is going to get eaten alive inside, and that's why Whaley is in there.
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Whaley is even worse against big 5s. He got destroyed over the last couple years by anybody with size inside. He’s been super effective against small ball 5s. We had to use Carlton against teams with a real 5. Akok is better than IW against bigger 5s. Johnson is probably the sub we will need should we face anybody like that.
 
I don't care who starts as much as who is playing well getting the minutes.
They've all had minutes that looked great and also looked lost.
 
husky429 said:
Akok is not nearly as bad as you are suggesting. You choose some weird hills to die on sometimes. He's an excellent defender. Are we even watching the same game?

Whaley is definitely marginally better defender. But he's also a better defender the 99.9% of college players. However, If he's gonna blow it on offense this bad consistently, it really isn't worth the better defense. It's not like our D is bad without him.

I suspect Whaley will regress to the mean soon enough. He isn't going to shoot 1/8 forever.
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Weird hills that I see we both choose at times. Your call but Akok who I like a lot hasn’t been very good on D it’s that simple and we aren’t playing anyone yet. Let’s see hope you’re right for now you’re not. He’s perfect off the bench for now, hope he did actually deserve to take that 4 spit it only makes us better.
 
HuskyHawk said:
Whaley is even worse against big 5s. He got destroyed over the last couple years by anybody with size inside. He’s been super effective against small ball 5s. We had to use Carlton against teams with a real 5. Akok is better than IW against bigger 5s. Johnson is probably the sub we will need should we face anybody like that.
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Akok was just as bad against the big guy for LIU it was definitely ugly for both our 4s. They were moved like sticks. Hence why we need Sanogo out of foul trouble
 
The battle of atlantis will be the barometer. Cole, martin, and sanago should start. After that will depend on match-ups and who is hot and practicing well. We are easily 9 deep with interchangeable parts. I am not worried.
 
I do get cold sweats thinking of possible cold starts at Atlantis. Dan Hurley's starting lineup just strikes me as a losing formula. And just as a winning formula doesn't win all the time, a losing formula doesn't lose all the time -- especially when it's pitted against opposition that does lose all the time. That's been the case to date. We have a losing formula that's just waiting for a chance.

Also. when you lack early offense, it is risky to bring in a streaky shooter (Polley) who is as likely to come in stone-cold as hot. It is a way to turn a 4-12 deficit into a 4-20 deficit in a blink. Since Hurley is already choosing to use two (maybe three) of his top five players as substitutes, he should not compound the situation by bringing in his ninth man ahead of his sixth.
 
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WestHartHusk said:
Thats fine, but you can't just leave points onnthe court. And that is what our starting unit is doing.
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The team is averaging 92 points a game. How many points should they score?
 
navery12 said:
I agree with everything you just said, but that's different from what you posted before. You said Akok can't replace Whaley because he'll get eaten alive by muscular 5's. That's factually incorrect when Whaley is mostly playing the 4
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Akok doesn't have the physicality against stronger players down low. He will block shots down there so it's give and take. With Whaley and Sanogo we lose shooting ability and range. Hurley has to figure this out so we don't get challenged offensively and off to bad starts.
 
By Christmas we will know who our starters are. Hurley is too experienced to make a determination on early blowouts of cupcakes.

Whaley is our Captain and brings a lot of experience to the starting squad. Whaley has a history of getting much better as the season progresses.

With that said, come Xmas we will see if he can hold it down.
 
bendm said:
why stop there? spread the floor as much as realistically possible by replacing whaley w/ akok and aj w/ hawk. we only have 1 of our 4 best shooters starting (and i say realistically because polley obviously shouldnt replace martin)

imo the intimidation effect of our uber physical starting lineup is overhyped. akok and hawk are nba level athletes too.

both a first unit of cole/hawk/martin/akok/sanogo and second unit of gaff/aj/polley/whaley would have great blends of physicality and shooting
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This. The Good thing about that second unit is at pretty much any position you can put the hot hand out of the starting lineup.
 
Kitaman said:
By Christmas we will know who our starters are. Hurley is too experienced to make a determination on early blowouts of cupcakes.

Whaley is our Captain and brings a lot of experience to the starting squad. Whaley has a history of getting much better as the season progresses.

With that said, come Xmas we will see if he can hold it down.
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It wouldn't make sense to me to change the starting lineup before Atlantis. If we play 3 games and Whaley or Cole hasn't gotten out of this funk, then a decision needs to be made. Right now, with SO many games in a short amount of time this weekend.. I think relying on a consistent lineup and rotation is gonna be better for our guys. Let's go out here and get a few wins.
 
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Whaley can keep his starting spot if he starts shooting 3s. He doesn’t have to make them at a great clip (33% is fine) but he need to keep the defense honest like Akok can.
 
Cole is the floor general and I haven't really seen Gaffney pick that up - and that's a reason RJ is a starter even if he may have some weaker games IMO. If Jackson keeps hitting 3 like he did vs LIU it really changes a lot and the starting lineup looks better. Hawkins could be a game changer, I'm definitely seeing what everyone else is and hope it's legit. I'd much rather say picking a lineup is tough because of so many choices vs an empty bench!

I agree the cold starts are a bit disheartening but we've pulled through, admittedly by using the bench. Atlantis should give us a good peek into how the first half of the season will go but I am definitely hopeful this will be a strong one.
 
Let’s revisit this thread. Our starting lineup was absolutely stagnant to start the game (except Sanogo, obv). Need to get Akok, Hawkins or Polley in there to actually get some points on the board.
 
I don’t care if Whaley scores again this season as long as he keeps playing D like that. Jackson is a different story tho. He’s not scoring and giving the ball away at the same time. Get Hawkins in there.
 
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Its not just that Jackson doesnt score, he doesnt even try. I think his first real attempt was late in the second half. We need someone that is a threat. Maybe Polley against most teams, Akok if the matchup warrants it.
 
Scrappy3 said:
We need to adjust and we will.
With three non shooters in starting line up with under sized pg— it sets the stage for slow starts
Even though we have won big— we have started slow— it’s guard-able by bad teams so good teams even harder.
Whalley to me is the natural 5. The fact that he’s sitting at the three point line is not great. And he’s there for one reason and all teams will know it. Big to big pass down low to adama
But whalley is best as a back up 5 with Akok as the more natural opposite big in unit 1
Whalley brings what we need on unit 2. We can play 4-1 with whalley and we will see great production and better balance
9-10 guys can play
But my theme is the same
Three non shooters and two legit 5 men in unit 1 is not the best we can do.

By the way how Good is Hawkins going to be???!
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I dont think Im far off. well have some adjustments to get more of Hawkins throughout the season. BUT there is no doubt that our SL is down a scorer. Puts too much pressure on the unit. Teams are gonna triple down on adama
 
UofCT said:
Akok is better than Whaley. Hurley knows, Whaley knows and the rest of the team knows it. Whaley has no business starting over Akok. Time to make the change now. I'd also like to see Gaffney starting over Cole but I'll save that for another thread.
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I don’t even know that it’s Akok is better than Whaley. That’s really debatable on intangibles. I do know that our mix an match lineups destroy our starting lineup on offensive end ( and that has little bearing on Whaley vs Akok I guess it might) ……. But maybe Hurley is playing “ rope-a-dope” early ? If that’s the case he’s a diabolical genius. Even still I don’t like the first 7 minutes on offensive end, but if we win? Who am I to argue?
 
August_West said:
I don’t even know that it’s Akok is better than Whaley. That’s really debatable on intangibles. I do know that our mix an match lineups destroy our starting lineup on offensive end ( and that has little bearing on Whaley vs Akok I guess it might) ……. But maybe Hurley is playing “ rope-a-dope” early ? If that’s the case he’s a diabolical genius. Even still I don’t like the first 7 minutes on offensive end, but if we win? Who am I to argue?
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We won. Stop
 
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August_West said:
I don’t even know that it’s Akok is better than Whaley. That’s really debatable on intangibles. I do know that our mix an match lineups destroy our starting lineup on offensive end ( and that has little bearing on Whaley vs Akok I guess it might) ……. But maybe Hurley is playing “ rope-a-dope” early ? If that’s the case he’s a diabolical genius. Even still I don’t like the first 7 minutes on offensiend, but if we win? Who am I to argue?
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We won.
 
Would agree with the folks wanting Akok in the starting lineup. Not because he’s better necessarily but because we need the spacing and Whaley isn’t a 5. Our starting 5 is all very tough, great defenders, and rebounders but they won’t get it done offensively.

Outside of that I’m fine with some of our bench scorers like Hawkins coming off the bench. Don’t see how you bench Reese and I don’t see what Jackson would give us coming off the bench. Cole is the much more steady PG of him and Gaffney as well as today showed.

How great is it that this team can adjust to almost anything a team throws at us? Only thing we may really need is an extra ball handler and Reese and Hawkins to consistently be that perimeter scorer. We are REALLY good this year when we don’t get in our own way like we did today.
 
I know they both bring plenty of value to the team but in 44 minutes vs Auburn Whaley took one shot and in 20 minutes Jackson took one shot. That makes us a terribly inefficient offensive team when they play together and very easy to defend.
 
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