AOC vs Cassius vs Boogie, who do you think gets the last starting spot?

[BandAlum83]

I see what you are getting at. I hope not.

I don’t see what he is getting at. Transfer?

What is the typical timing on transfer announcements / decisions?

[BandAlum83]

There does seem to be more roster parity than in recent memory. It could lend itself to a deeper rotation. What it will definitely do IMO is make this perhaps one of Ks biggest coaching challenges in a while. The pieces can be put together in so many ways affecting so many key decisions.

[CDu]

I don’t see what he is getting at. Transfer?

What is the typical timing on transfer announcements / decisions?

Transfer decisions can happen at pretty much any time. Some know in the Spring (Jeter and Thornton, for example). Some decide/announce after the semester end (Gbinije, at least officially). Some decide during the Fall and transfer midseason (Murphy, Tucker, and Czyz, for example).

[jimsumner]

Yeah, O'Connell doesn't seem like a "high bball IQ" player at this point. He's pretty athletic and he has some skills, but it doesn't seem to come together on the basketball court unless he's playing against a vastly inferior opponent. So what he's tended to be is just a catch-and-shoot guy. And he's only really had success there against teams that play zone.

That's not to say he can't make strides to improve it. He has some tools for sure. But I agree that he needs to improve on both ends of the court to be a regular contributor.

Well, he had a fair amount of success against Syracuse, not exactly a vastly inferior opponent.

But I get your point. In the first Syracuse game, Duke found out Reddish was out right before the game and Jones went down and out early. O'Connell was thrust into a major role and he didn't have time to think about it, didn't have time to fret about it. And he responded with arguably the best game of his career.

O'Connell has the ability to a top-tier ACC player. But he needs to be more emotionally resilient. He's too reliant, IMO, on early results. If his first shot goes in or he makes a good play early, then it's all rainbows and unicorns. But an early miss or two, or a dumb foul or bad turnover and he tends to shut it down. Not always. But too often.

Can he fix this? Or is the stage too big for him?

Moore, Ellis and Stanley all imperil his PT. But O'Connell has two years of experience in the NCAA's best league, two years of practice with and against some of the best players in the country, two years of tutelage by one of the best coaching staffs out there.

Moore, Ellis and O'Connell do not.

So, O'Connell should be able to leverage that experience into consistent playing time, maybe even a starting role. But he has to consistently show us things he hasn't always shown us on a consistent level.

As always, YMMV.

[kshepinthehouse]

I'm really hoping its Baker. He has a good stroke and I think he's sneaky athletic. I have to admit, I think he could have helped us this year with his outside shooting. Would have been interesting to have all 5 freshmen out there. I think once Jack's shot went MIA, and Alex wasn't hitting either, it would have been nice to see what Baker could have done. Instead he was only given 1 or 2 mins at a time, then was stashed on the bench.

[azzefkram]

Well, he had a fair amount of success against Syracuse, not exactly a vastly inferior opponent.

But I get your point. In the first Syracuse game, Duke found out Reddish was out right before the game and Jones went down and out early. O'Connell was thrust into a major role and he didn't have time to think about it, didn't have time to fret about it. And he responded with arguably the best game of his career.

...

As always, YMMV.

Unfortunately, I couldn't fargin' spork this post but I couldn't agree more. AOC has some skills and talent but hasn't shown the consistency in games yet. Without a fairly sizeable jump (which is certainly possible), I'd have a tough time pencilling him in for rotation minutes in DBR's annual minutes contest.

[CDu]

Well, he had a fair amount of success against Syracuse, not exactly a vastly inferior opponent.

Just to be clear, Syracuse was who I was referring to by the "zone" comment. The "against vastly inferior opponents" was more centered around non-zone teams. My wording wasn't clear on that, but my concept was essentially he has success against vastly inferior opponents and zone teams (where he can be a catch-and-shoot guy). His success as anything more than a catch-and-shoot scorer has generally come against bad teams or against the end-of-bench guys late in games.

[Troublemaker]

There does seem to be more roster parity than in recent memory. It could lend itself to a deeper rotation. What it will definitely do IMO is make this perhaps one of Ks biggest coaching challenges in a while. The pieces can be put together in so many ways affecting so many key decisions.

Exactly. People are mixing parity with depth. We have players who on paper aren’t obviously better than the other, but that doesn’t mean they are worthy of a championship caliber team.

This team like most Duke teams will probably run 7 deep in March.

I think it's more that people are conflating uncertainty with parity. I mean, certain players are going to separate and win their playing time battles; it's just that, based on recruiting ranks, we may not know at a couple of positions which players will win those battles as of right now.

So, for example, take the thread title example of AOC vs Cassius vs Boogie at the 2. (Which probably isn't that simple -- Coach K is capable of playing two big wings together, as he did just this past season, and he's also capable of playing two small wings together [e.g. 2012, 2013], so it's really a battle between those three in thread title and Wendell, Joey, maybe Jack, and heck maybe JGold for two starting positions). Let's say Boogie wins the starting position, Cassius finishes second, and AOC is third. I would expect Boogie to play ~30-32 mpg, Cassius ~8-10 mpg, and AOC to be out of the rotation.

In other words, just because we fans can't decide between those three in April doesn't mean they'll end up all getting playing time nor will it mean they each play 15 mpg because of "parity."

Don’t think this team will be nearly as talented as last year, however, I do believe the competition drops off more than we do. I expect another Final Four push but unless we have a big surprise from (Ellis, AOC, Baker, Stanley or Moore) I don’t think we’ll get #6.

Nationally, I don't think there will be any single team as good as UVA, Duke pre-Zion-injury, and Gonzaga from this past season, but there will be several teams as good as the next tier. So basically lop off 3 teams from 2019, but then college bball remains the same.

I do think your statement might be right about the ACC, though.

I don’t see what he is getting at. Transfer?

What is the typical timing on transfer announcements / decisions?

I don't see anything happening before winter break, personally. These players don't know what could happen if they return and compete; maybe they win the competition! So going back to the thread title example, AOC doesn't know that he's going to lose to Boogie or Cassius. He probably feels like he's better than those guys and that his experience will give him the edge. So he'll compete. And if, for a third straight year, AOC can't consistently be in Duke's rotation, then he'll have to decide whether a Duke degree and deep bench minutes are enough for him. Or maybe he wins the competition. Who knows? That's the point.

[johnb]

I wonder how quickly elite players figure out where they stand against other elite players. I’d guess that one pick up game with last year’s freshman would have left JD and MB looking at each, knowing their minutes wouldn’t be coming from RJ or Zion. And Vrank probably knew early this past year that even though he’d made sizable strides, he’d play few meaningful minutes in games.

If some of our incumbents have played with the incoming guys, they may already know they’re not going to play, and that might be enough for a transfer. Or not.

[BandAlum83]

I think it's more that people are conflating uncertainty with parity. I mean, certain players are going to separate and win their playing time battles; it's just that, based on recruiting ranks, we may not know at a couple of positions which players will win those battles as of right now.

So, for example, take the thread title example of AOC vs Cassius vs Boogie at the 2. (Which probably isn't that simple -- Coach K is capable of playing two big wings together, as he did just this past season, and he's also capable of playing two small wings together [e.g. 2012, 2013], so it's really a battle between those three in thread title and Wendell, Joey, maybe Jack, and heck maybe JGold for two starting positions). Let's say Boogie wins the starting position, Cassius finishes second, and AOC is third. I would expect Boogie to play ~30-32 mpg, Cassius ~8-10 mpg, and AOC to be out of the rotation.

In other words, just because we fans can't decide between those three in April doesn't mean they'll end up all getting playing time nor will it mean they each play 15 mpg because of "parity."



Nationally, I don't think there will be any single team as good as UVA, Duke pre-Zion-injury, and Gonzaga from this past season, but there will be several teams as good as the next tier. So basically lop off 3 teams from 2019, but then college bball remains the same.

I do think your statement might be right about the ACC, though.



I don't see anything happening before winter break, personally. These players don't know what could happen if they return and compete; maybe they win the competition! So going back to the thread title example, AOC doesn't know that he's going to lose to Boogie or Cassius. He probably feels like he's better than those guys and that his experience will give him the edge. So he'll compete. And if, for a third straight year, AOC can't consistently be in Duke's rotation, then he'll have to decide whether a Duke degree and deep bench minutes are enough for him. Or maybe he wins the competition. Who knows? That's the point.

Thus my next statement in my previous post:

What it will definitely do IMO is make this perhaps one of Ks biggest coaching challenges in a while. The pieces can be put together in so many ways affecting so many key decisions.

[ice-9]

I think it's more that people are conflating uncertainty with parity. I mean, certain players are going to separate and win their playing time battles; it's just that, based on recruiting ranks, we may not know at a couple of positions which players will win those battles as of right now.

I meant parity in terms of recruiting rank and years of experience, along the lines of Kedsy’s classifications. As in it’s hard to tell right now who will be better. So I agree uncertainty is also a valid word to use.