re: 2024-25 Basketball Thread - Save us Bruce. You're our only hope.

Long time lurker, first time poster, finally, haha. I am a huge basketball fan and have over 20 years of experience playing basketball.

I first want to say how excited and relieved finally that we have a difficult nonconference schedule that I believe will help us in March. Worst thing that happens is we lose them all but we’ll still get credit for at least playing these games.

Secondly, I think this team has a chance to win the national championship. We have all of the pieces to make a run. No one will be able to guard Broome. I think Pettiford is a legit NBA prospect. If he was 4 inches taller, he would be a top 10 draft pick for next year. Pegues is mature and a playmaker and won’t have to be the guy like he was at Furman, which means he can be more of a facilitator instead of forcing shots like he had to at Furman. I think the sleeper on our team will be Miles Kelly. That guy can flat out shoot. He’s a mismatch at the 2 and 3. I honestly believe he will be the starter at the 3 ahead of CBM. He’s THAT good. Denver Jones seemed to live up to his potential the last 2 months this past season. If he can continue that progression for this year, we will legit have 4 guys on the floor that can shoot it from anywhere. The X factor to me though is Chaney Johnson. He had a difficult time adjusting last year but did improve towards the last month. He won’t be like Jaylin but we don’t need for him to be. If he could just average close to 9-10ppg, we will be unstoppable. He needs to work on his defense though, he fouls way too much. I also think outside of Hudson and Moore, our bench is experienced and athletic. Hudson to me seems like he will be put in for emergency situations or play like 5-10 minutes a game. Him and Moore will be the two guys who will see the least amount of playing time, which is a good thing to me.

I am looking forward to seeing what the rest of our schedule looks like. I haven’t been this excited about basketball in years. The quality of teams we will be playing in the nonconference along with our conference schedule, it’s going to be frustrating but fun, ??. I look forward to talking basketball with everyone on here, War Eagle!

I also want to add this: reading between the tea leaves from updates about our summer practices, looks like Pearl is going to have Broome play more at the 4, meaning he’s going to play our best five instead of just trying to have a hockey substitution style like he has had in the past. I really hope he does. I think one of my biggest criticisms of Pearl is that he leans too much in wanting to play 10 guys and not allowing our starters to gel with each other. No team has 10 guys that are contributing significantly. At most you need a rotation of 8, that’s it. I think Pearl will do that this year, which will help with our players’ chemistry with each other in the long run and into the tournaments.

quote:

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looks like Pearl is going to have Broome play more at the 4

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I’m still skeptical on how much we will see of this. My guess is it’s more situational based off matchups or if we are playing a bad team. I have concerns about Broome being able to guard the 4 (unless we run more zone out of it) and also about Cardwell being able to stay out of foul trouble.

Thank you and I agree with your thoughts as well on Moore and Hudson, which I stated earlier that I think we shouldn’t use them outside of blowouts or emergency situations such as an injury or giving someone a 2-3 minute breather.

As for too many cooks in the kitchen, I think we have a balance of scorers now, and I much rather have bunch of alphas on the floor rather than guys too scared to shoot. I mean, in no world did KD need to have the ball in his hands at the end of the Yale game but no one else called for it. As much as I enjoyed Jaylin, he was very passive as well and disappeared in a lot of our big games. I think now we have some guys who are aggressive and want to take over the games, such as Pettiford, Pegues, CBM and Kelly.

My ideal rotation would like this:

Starters:
Pegues
Denver
Miles
Chaney
Broome

Bench
Howard
Pettiford
CBM
Cardwell.

Also, there are so many options you can have with the versatility of this roster. For example:

Pegues, Miles, CBM, Broome and Cardwell could all be on the floor at the same time and Broome being a 4 would be a huge mismatch. And if you double Broome, that leaves Pegues, CBM or Miles open. I’ll take that any day. Another option could be Pettiford, Jones, Miles, CBM and Broome. A smaller but quicker lineup. Again, this roster is so versatile where Pearl can create mismatches with just about any team in the country.

One thing I love about this roster is that we have two Uber talented freshman that we don’t need to rely upon. If they struggle they will sit but there will be games and moments where they will get chances to breakout.

I completely agree with you about our freshmen! As I stated earlier, Pettiford is legit and would be a lottery pick next year if he was 3-4 inches taller. Howard has so much raw athleticism, I think he has the potential to be a draft pick in a couple of years. I also agree that we won’t have to rely on them to make or break our season. I mean, with the freshman from last year (not saying his name, as much shade he has thrown at us, doesn’t deserve any respect), if he was even shooting around 35% from 3 and didn’t miss every layup, we would have been such a better team overall. But again, that’s what happens when you rely on freshmen to be significant contributors. This year, like you said, we have guys that will help our freshmen actually grow into the system and not have to worry about being the guy or forcing shots or what have you.

Talking about sharp shooters, this guy can shoot! Would love to have him, but I think he’s unfortunately leaning towards Syracuse at the moment from what I have read.

Too bad none of the players from the previous years’ teams will be there, would be a much better game to see where we are early in the season. Still wanting to know the rest of our nonconference schedule, don’t know why it takes so long.

Pearl should make a t-shirt with that tweet

In a transfer portal world its less of an accomplishment but having 10 seniors including an All American has to count for something.

I think the guy has a bias.