Who will surprise us the most? | Page 3 | The Boneyard

Who will surprise us the most?

After reading this discussion I am just so excited about the coming season. It's going to be so much fun seeing this roster develop and learn to play Danny Ball. Can't wait.
 
Man this team is so deep. Literally every guy on the roster 1-12 has been mentioned with valid accompanying points. Exciting!

1. Karaban - 1st All Big East, potential All-American level year
2. Hassan - Does he start and take another leap offensively as a floor general
3. Samson - Senior, but last season was the first year he played any minutes. Could be a huge jump incoming
4. Stewart - Highly touted Freshman to Sophomore leap incoming, could he be a go to scorer for us and lockdown defender
5. Ball - see above
6. Mahaney - Does he come in and perform at an efficiency level that rivals the value Cam Spencer brought
7. Reed Jr. - My pick for the OP's question. I think Reed Jr. will be the reason, once the season gets rolling, all the talking heads are picking UConn for a 3peat on top of everything else this team has. He is going to be legit. UConn's anchor and continuation of the dominance we have seen at the center position over the last two championship runs.
8. McNeeley - I continue to look at his game like he is a 6'7/6'8 version of Cam Spencer. Pure shooter, good athlete, great positional size, cerebral operator from the perimeter and in the lane. Yet another 1-and-done lottery pick coming through Storrs, looking to bring home a championship.
9. Nowell - Prototypical lead guard and next up in the line of iconic UConn guards like Khalid, AJ Price, Kemba, Shabazz etc. From watching his game, I sense he comes in ready to contribute in a similar way as Jalen Adams his freshman year. The caveat being Nowell gets to benefit from Coach Hurley and the program's back to back championship winning staff and culture.
10. Ross - This kid looks so ready to breakout. If he can play minutes at the 2 and defend at a high level and be a reliable shot maker, we are in for one hell of a ride. If Ross shows a reliable handle with his shooting it will calm a lot of my nerves about this team's smaller backcourt.
11. Abraham - This kid is a stud and future pro. He's going to have a nightmare of a time finding meaningful minutes because of the strength in depth of this year's team but he will be a star by the time he leaves campus and I'm confident in his ability to make winning plays if he's called on at any point due to foul trouble or injuries. He has had a winning pedigree at the highest levels playing team first ball.
12. Singare - This young man is a ray of sunshine and looks like he shows up to work his tail off every day. At 6'10 with loads of dynamic athleticism, it's only a matter of time before it all clicks and he's ready for showtime. Needs to work on his defensive footwork, especially post defense. He will get plenty of reps against Tarris Reed Jr. and Samson Johnson that I'm positive will force fast improvement.
 
Jaydumo20 said:
Which player will surprise you most and why?
There doesn't need to be a concrete reason for why you're choosing who you choose.
It can be a gut feeling, or it can be metric based. I don't care

I think everybody has a chance to really make a step up this year, but the person I'm voting for is Singare.

His attitude is infectious. He is one of the more popular guys on the team. And he's learned under 2 of the best centers in college ball and the best big men coaches in the league.

We've never been truly "surprised" by anybody this staff recruits and retains, but the term is convenient.

Also can't wait to see Ross in the rotation.
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Ah, finally, a normal thread!!!
 
I think what will surprise us most is the hockey style substitution pattern that Hurley implements; it will completely mind-frik our opponents.

With quality two-deep at every position the coaches can mix and match first and second lines depending on who's been best at practice and the opposing line-up.

They can play like maniacs knowing the get a 5-minute breather after 5-minutes on the court. The other team will be overwhelmed.
 
Jaydumo20 said:
Which player will surprise you most and why?
There doesn't need to be a concrete reason for why you're choosing who you choose.
It can be a gut feeling, or it can be metric based. I don't care

I think everybody has a chance to really make a step up this year, but the person I'm voting for is Singare.

His attitude is infectious. He is one of the more popular guys on the team. And he's learned under 2 of the best centers in college ball and the best big men coaches in the league.

We've never been truly "surprised" by anybody this staff recruits and retains, but the term is convenient.

Also can't wait to see Ross in the rotation.
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I'm going with Ball and Abraham. I suspect they will both outperform expectations greatly.

Abraham has a nice mid-range touch, is athletic and competitive, and I see him breaking into the 2023-24 Stewart role expanding his usage as the year goes on.

There were many on this board who wrote Ball off when he lost his playing time to ... a 5 star one-and-done and an experienced backcourt backup who played great defense, didn't turn the ball over, shot amazingly well from 3 and brought energy every time he stepped on the court. Ball is a specimen, and I like his outside shot a lot.
 
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imno1 said:
I don’t know if this is the biggest surprise but I think Hass is going to be the starting pg.
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i expect he will be our starting PG and i think he's going to be the barometer of our success.

but whether he makes another leap this year, or becomes a less efficient player in his increased minutes next year, i will be equally surprised.
 
Scottobot said:
I think he will score 15 ppg
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15ppg would have led the team in scoring last year. i dont see it especially for a guy that will prob be coming off the bench. AK and Mahaney and McNeeley should be our top 3 scorers.

edit- i guess this would certainly count as a surprise and that was the exercise
 
Stewart and Ball shouldn't be answers to this question, it should be obvious the sophomore jump that's coming for them. But for a large portion of the board I think it will be shocking.

As for who's going to surprise a lot of people I'll go with Mahaney. I know most people expect him to start and be really good, but I expect him to be much closer to a Cam Spencer impact than many here expect
 
Being a Mahaney guy, it's hard for me to figure out in an unbiased manner what he'll do on this team. I just hope he can contribute... But overall, this UConn team (and the last couple) remind me very much of a high-D1 version of a SF Bay Area team I watched a lot last year.

Salesian College Prep of Richmond had this amazing team that played an extremely tough schedule and went 31-2, losing to Harvard-Westlake (Bunch of D1 guys, including Nikolas Khamenia) by just 5 in the Open state title game.

Salesian averaged close to 80 points a game yet had no double-digit scorers. Eight guys averaged over 7ppg, and the ball never "stuck" on offense. Player and ball movement was amazing to see, and they played their asses off on the defensive end. Sound familiar? If it doesn't, watch a Huskies game...

One thing about Aidan.., I think he may have been frustrated by Randy Bennett's insistence on practically always slowing it down and going into the halfcourt offense after beating a press. In this respect, he might reallllllyyyyyyy open things up at UConn!
 
AidanFan20 said:
Being a Mahaney guy, it's hard for me to figure out in an unbiased manner what he'll do on this team. I just hope he can contribute... But overall, this UConn team (and the last couple) remind me very much of a high-D1 version of a SF Bay Area team I watched a lot last year.

Salesian College Prep of Richmond had this amazing team that played an extremely tough schedule and went 31-2, losing to Harvard-Westlake (Bunch of D1 guys, including Nikolas Khamenia) by just 5 in the Open state title game.

Salesian averaged close to 80 points a game yet had no double-digit scorers. Eight guys averaged over 7ppg, and the ball never "stuck" on offense. Player and ball movement was amazing to see, and they played their asses off on the defensive end. Sound familiar? If it doesn't, watch a Huskies game...

One thing about Aidan.., I think he may have been frustrated by Randy Bennett's insistence on practically always slowing it down and going into the halfcourt offense after beating a press. In this respect, he might reallllllyyyyyyy open things up at UConn!
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I wouldn't worry about Mahaney, Hurley and staff will unlock his full abilities. I could see him being all-Big East next season.
 
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REB1094 said:
I’m going Solo Ball.
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This. I'm kind of past the point where anyone's improvement will surprise me. I expect it at this point. But I think Ball's development, as a shooter and as a defender, is potentially the most impactful. Roll out the Ball and let 'em play.
 
Jaydumo20 said:
Which player will surprise you most and why?
There doesn't need to be a concrete reason for why you're choosing who you choose.
It can be a gut feeling, or it can be metric based. I don't care

I think everybody has a chance to really make a step up this year, but the person I'm voting for is Singare.

His attitude is infectious. He is one of the more popular guys on the team. And he's learned under 2 of the best centers in college ball and the best big men coaches in the league.

We've never been truly "surprised" by anybody this staff recruits and retains, but the term is convenient.

Also can't wait to see Ross in the rotation.
Expand ...
For someone to surprise you, wouldn’t you have to not know they’re going to surprise you?
 
Mister P said:
Solo and Samson.
Solo showed at times what he is capable of doing and I think he will step up his game.
Samson has learned and improved a lot in successive years and I really think he knows that he needs to stay on the floor and I expect much better numbers offensively and defensively from him.
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Samson needs to use those Hilton Units to the max
 
Samoo said:
I think what will surprise us most is the hockey style substitution pattern that Hurley implements; it will completely mind-frik our opponents.

With quality two-deep at every position the coaches can mix and match first and second lines depending on who's been best at practice and the opposing line-up.

They can play like maniacs knowing the get a 5-minute breather after 5-minutes on the court. The other team will be overwhelmed.
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Remember the Knicks Minute Men in 69(73?), Mike Riordan, Cazzie Russel, Dave Stallworth(?), +one other.
They'd come in as a unit and completely and go crazy, destroy the other team for awhile and go out as a unit.
 
Samoo said:
I think what will surprise us most is the hockey style substitution pattern that Hurley implements; it will completely mind-frik our opponents.

With quality two-deep at every position the coaches can mix and match first and second lines depending on who's been best at practice and the opposing line-up.

They can play like maniacs knowing the get a 5-minute breather after 5-minutes on the court. The other team will be overwhelmed.
Expand ...
I've always felt a football team should try using a hurry-up offense all the time. Go go go and don't stop! Constant substitutions and non-stop quick action. It would take a lot of planning and coordination but you could run fairly simple plays and the opposing defense would just be spent. Even if both teams are winded, the offense has the advantage because they are acting and the defense is too tired to react quickly.
 
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superjohn said:
That's where I am. This is our most talented team ever from top to bottom. All these guys would be getting major minutes at other programs but it's just a numbers game with this much talent throughout the roster and some guys are going to get squeezed. We have an embarrassment of riches at the wing so Abraham will likely be low on minutes. Singare is still probably a year away from being a valuable gametime contributor at UConn and as talented as Nowell is I see us having multiple guards ahead of him. The practices are going to be battles.
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This is our best team. Just because we haven't seen them all in action means nothing. This team is capable of 2-3 big runs/game .
Expect to see more blowouts than we've ever had.
Unproven??? Maybe. But give a team of world class sushi chefs their pick of fish, and bet against the quality of that menu?...please..
 
I wonder how up tempo we are going to be. I think this team who will be high volume on the offensive end. I would not expect them to be as efficient but I think they will take way more shots this year.

Defensively I can see us picking up full court or at least 3/4 heavy ball pressure. I think we will look to use our length to create small passing lanes. I think we will have more steals this year.
 
On paper this is not our best team top to bottom. But it is the most talented mid to bottom.

However, the top is usually the most important.
 
Jaydumo20 said:
This is our best team. Just because we haven't seen them all in action means nothing. This team is capable of 2-3 big runs/game .
Expect to see more blowouts than we've ever had.
Unproven??? Maybe. But give a team of world class sushi chefs their pick of fish, and bet against the quality of that menu?...please..
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What brand of edibles are you eating? I want to get them for my wife.
 
Jaydumo20 said:
This is our best team. Just because we haven't seen them all in action means nothing. This team is capable of 2-3 big runs/game .
Expect to see more blowouts than we've ever had.
Unproven??? Maybe. But give a team of world class sushi chefs their pick of fish, and bet against the quality of that menu?...please..
Expand ...
It could be but Clingan is the most dominant defensive force I've ever seen at UConn and I watched Okafor's UConn career.
 
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The worst thing we can do is compare rosters season to season. The last 2 years were special for different reasons. I'll go out on a limb and say '23-24s would have beaten '22-23 7/10 times. Last year's team wanted to step on your neck and humiliate you more than the previous year. They just had more dawg in them, a lot of that fueled by Cam but Steph, Tristan and Clingan were tenacious on both sides of the ball and in general they were just more well rounded.
This year on paper they have potential to be special but Samson may not be the force that Clingan was. It would be unfair to think he will. In my mind AK is the X-factor. He will need be the "guy" you can depend on in crunch time like Tristan. After that, Reed, Stewart and Solo will need to elevate their games, Mahaney will need to be like Cam and one of the freshmen will need to be like Steph defensively and guard their opponents out of the gym. That's a tall task for this team. It's gonna be fun to watch their growth with Dan Hurley's crush your opponent mentality. I don't expect double digit wins for this 3-peat squad, but I'll take 5 point victories LOL
 
Shoulder god said:
The worst thing we can do is compare rosters season to season. The last 2 years were special for different reasons. I'll go out on a limb and say '23-24s would have beaten '22-23 7/10 times. Last year's team wanted to step on your neck and humiliate you more than the previous year. They just had more dawg in them, a lot of that fueled by Cam but Steph, Tristan and Clingan were tenacious on both sides of the ball and in general they were just more well rounded.
This year on paper they have potential to be special but Samson may not be the force that Clingan was. It would be unfair to think he will. In my mind AK is the X-factor. He will need be the "guy" you can depend on in crunch time like Tristan. After that, Reed, Stewart and Solo will need to elevate their games, Mahaney will need to be like Cam and one of the freshmen will need to be like Steph defensively and guard their opponents out of the gym. That's a tall task for this team. It's gonna be fun to watch their growth with Dan Hurley's crush your opponent mentality. I don't expect double digit wins for this 3-peat squad, but I'll take 5 point victories LOL
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Damn. I forgot Hassan. He'll need to be a glue guy and provide great D and timely O.
 
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