re: Tide Hoops | Recruiting

Their big guards overmatched us.We couldnt drive because their bigs camped out near the basket and if we did beat anyone off the dribble it got rejected altered or just plain stalled.

Our bigs would make for instance Floridas people pay a high price for that. Condon Chineylu and the like will have to play like 3s against us and that aint their strength. On the other hand we will have some serious matchup issues against their size.

We need one more big and I think we'll be fine.

quote:

---

Then there was Florida and Duke.

---

Maybe tomato tomahto. In my view, it wasn’t physical team. It was teams that looked like NBA squads in the back court. I thought we handled rock fights pretty well (A&M, Houston, Tennessee, etc.). But if teams could take away Sears and Aden, we were done

Jalil Bethea

It'll be more of a collection of guys.

Philon, Latrell, Aden, Houston, Jalil, and Aiden...but

I think Aden Holloway or Labaron Philon will have the opportunity to be the go to guys.

I don’t think so. After Brandon Miller we had no idea mark Sears would turn into the all American he turned into. I’d argue Philon showed just as much promise all around in his first season as Mark did his first season. Philon also carried us during the first two months of the year while mark and Aden were both off. We won’t need anyone this year to average 18 or 19 ppg. We’re gonna have games that Philon leads us, but also Aden, Latrell and Bethea. I think becoming too reliant on one player is kind of the reason that Mark regressed his final year. He had so many people telling him he needed to score so much and it affected his game.

Why would it be concerning lol?

That's crazy!

Philon will have the ball in his hands a lot and if he improves his outside shooting then it's game on.

Holloway can score at all three levels, get by anybody, and create his own shot at any given time.

These two guys can absolutely be the go to scorers!

The step Philon needs to take isn't as much alpha scorer as alpha point guard when we need a basket late in the shot clock.

He needs to be the guy to beat his man and make good decisions using the array of great 3 point shooters surrounding him.

quote:

---

Beat Rutgers, they had 2 of the expected lottery picks in the backcourt. Handled OK, Texas, and Illinois who all had a projected lottery pick in the backcourt. Beat Houston and other teams that had good guard play but limited front court size.

FL and Duke were the ones that had extreme size in the front court. They dominated us in the paint and on the glass in all 3 matchups (the closest was the FL blowout in SEC tourney, because they played their scrubs for significant minutes in the 2nd half). We got out rebounded by double digits in the 1st FL game and Duke game, and that was with us having a larger and more proven front court last year than we have this year. Those are all just straight facts, not opinions.

Hopefully Sherell and others will step up this year, but I’ll be there watching and cheering either way.

---

while it certainly helps to have size at every position the premise that thats what it takes to win it all, esp in the frontcourt isnt nearly as set in stone as what youre implying. plenty of championship teams in recent memory didnt have that feature. baylor started essentially 3 pg's and their main center was 6'8. they beat the mess out of that undefeated gonzaga team who did have nba level skill and size at every position. virginia started 3 smaller guards, who werent even athletic and one was 5'9. neither of those villanova teams were very big, but ofcourse all of these teams were still very elite with talent, coaching, chemistry, and two way basketball.

bama last season did have good size but our team defense had struggles, mainly from rotations being a bit slow. mo was the only elite team defender we had, while philon, grant, and when cliff was awake was also solid. then against those teams like florida, duke, and auburn should be included as well the offense wasnt as flowing due to not having the depth of shooting or playmaking needed to deal with them consistently.

not being able to keep mo did create more questions on how the D will look but i would say oats and co did a solid job overall of trying to address the main issues that hurt us last season. we should be quicker, longer, more athletic, better spacing, and honestly while our physicality and depth do remain questions, as far as general size goes i see just as much on this teams frontcourt as last seasons and much more on the perimeter. sherrell is several inches taller than cliff. bowen is just as tall as grant but longer. bristow is taller than mo and reid. williamson is a 7 footer. all of our wings are taller, longer, and more athletic than youngblood and certainly more skilled than jarin so, while i get where the concern is coming from i really just cant find a reason to go along with it as of now.