Now that the basketball roster is (somewhat) settled.
I remain optimistic about next season.
IMO, both Diabate and Houstan were not great college players as freshman (they may ultimately become good NBA players) and so they will be easier to replace than some think. Furthermore there seemed to be something off about the team chemistry last year. I'm not talking about camaraderie but the on court players never seemed to completely meld as a team.
Some mixture of TWill, Cheddar, Barnes, Jace, Jett could prove to be better college players than freshman Diabate and Houstan. Plus I like the size of Llewellyn/Bufkin at guard compared to Jones/Brooks.
I think (humbly and respectfully) that Michigan is a lock for the NCAA tourny and will compete for the Big Ten.
Plus there remains the likelihood of at least one incoming transfer. I am on the Bates train if for no other reason to irk Sparty. I think our coaching staff has the cajones to deal with the baggage that might come along with him and could rejuvente his NBA prospects while adding some star power to the team.
The Bates hate feels very premature. Yes there were a lot of negatives last year but he is a kid ass kid. He left high school a year early to play up. All the talent people were drooling over is still there. Howard is from the Heat coaching tree. The Heat coach up players better than anyone in the NBA. If Howard chooses to go after Bates I am certain it will be a successful marriage. That remains an IF but an intriguing one.
I need to start referring to the youngs as "kid ass kids".
As for Bates, I just don't see it. He's not going to be ball dominant or insanely high usage on this squad. For what he appears to want another program would be a much better fit.
I'm guessing the Bates comment is generating your downvotes. And you should be disappointed in yourself.
But besides that issue, I generally agree. I felt Caleb was the weak link on the court way too often last year. You can tell he'll be a pro. He's smart, long, skilled, etc. But he wasn't ready for the huge minutes he got last year. Diabate is insane, but honestly, I'd rather have TWill on the court. I think he impacts winning more. He brings so many intangibles. I think Hunter yr.3, TWill yr.3, and Reed backing them up in yr.1 will be a better combo than we had last year for our bigs.
Wings and guards? Well, we'll see and I'm not too confident about the guards. But I sorta believe that Jett Howard will be an improvement over what Caleb brought last year. Even without adding any more players, I think this year's team would beat last years team.
...
...except for Eli Brooks. Damn, that will hurt loosing him.
As much as I wanted Moussa back, spacing was definitely an issue with this team. If it wasn't the biggest problem, it was 1A. If the team spaces out Hunter with 4 guys who can be a threat, the sky's the limit for the program next season.
Defense was definitely issue number 1 (we were the 11th best Big Ten defense). It was so bad, you could probably say perimeter defense was issue number 1, rim protection was issue number 2, help defense was issue number 3...etc, etc.
But agree that spacing / positional fit was the top offensive issue (but we were the 4th best Big Ten offense so still pretty good).
This team is in desperate need of shooting. I wish we could go full Purdue and surround hunter with shooters. I just don't see that as a viable option this year unless kobe or one the freshmen got their shot going. I think we have to temper expectations this year. If we make the tourney, I will be happy.
Shooting? We will have better shooters at 2 spots and the same or better at two spots and only one worse shooter.
Llewylln > Jones
Brooks > Bufkin
Jett = Houstan
TWill > Diabate
Junior Hunter hopefully a little better shooter than Sophomore Hunter
They are seemingly upgrading shooting at 4 of the 5 positions, with only Brooks -> Bufkin looking like a downgrade. Last year had 2 non shooters in Jones and Diabate in the starting 5. Next year might have 0.
Hope is not a strategy. You aren’t replacing last year’s version of Diabate and Houstan; you are replacing next year’s version, which figured to be better. The majority of the guys you listed who are going to replace them have hardly played (if at all).
Such a weird mindset. Are they also replacing 6th year version of Brooks?
They are replacing the guys who were on the team last year that left. The idea of replacing a hypothetical version of a player makes 0 sense.
We don't make the tournament this year if those guys were not on the roster.
Also, it's very Sparty of someone to want a potential distraction on the roster just to spite your rival.
I wanted to see Houstan come back and become a really great shooter, but I certainly won't miss watching him disappear for huge chunks of the game with seemingly no cap for his playing time.
My problem was that Howard kept him on the floor all the time regardless of how he was playing. He seemed like a guy that was either "on" or "off" and when he was "off" he wasn't adding a whole bunch, yet he never came off the floor.
I feel like he would have been a lot more effective in a freshman Zak Irvin type role where he came off the bench to play 20 minutes a game and just let it fly whenever he was out there.
I am not going to lie.. I am a bit jealous of how our offseason is going compared to, say, Illinois.
No.
To be in position to compete for the Big Ten and be a certain tournament team, we need transfer portal help. Outside of Hunter, this team as it is now will struggle to shoot and score. As someone else pointed out, we have now lost six of our top nine players from the 2021-22 team.
I admire the enthusiasm, but there's work to be done.
You are correct that Diabate and Houstan were not great college players as freshmen, but we are not replacing freshman versions of Diabate and Houstan. We are replacing their sophomore versions that were expected to make significant improvements. They are a huge loss and would have been starters and impact players - we just have to hope that somebody else steps up or somebody comes from the portal.
Next year we only return one starter in Dickinson. Williams may be a solid starter next year, but no one else is a proven commodity in Big Ten play. Llewelyn may be a great player, but he hasn’t been proven in the Big Ten. Bufkin, Jace, and Jett could also be great, but they need to develop quickly. At the end of the day, we lost 7 rotation players, so I expect next year to be rough barring a great transfer or two.
I get your points and mostly agree things will work out, but those guys you mentioned will be a dropoff from Sophomore Houstan and Diabate. Hard to spin it any other way.
So weird to me that multiple people are saying this in the comments. They are replacing Freshman Houstan/Diabate. Sophomore Houstan/Diabate never existed and any projections on next years teams were with the understanding that there was a decent chance they would be gone.