Rotational Changes

[arxpert]

I am starting a Thread about Rotations. It is not to serve as a place to criticize any 1 particular player. There will be posts to discuss who this season's Kerr or Boswell is inevitably.

Instead, this is a place to discuss Rotations and Lineups that you think are interesting or not interesting. Effective, not effective.

A place to get your ideas out and back them up.

I am going to start below this post with a Lineup I want to see and anyone is welcome to add to it, comment on it, or let me know where the flaw in logic is. No one has to be "wrong" here and multiple things/opinions can be correct at the same time too.

Also just go ahead and post your lineups that you want to see. As in depth as you want. You can even put minutes by the players.

The point is to get some ideas out there. Whether you think players or team personnel see it or not doesn't matter.  You never know.

[arxpert]

I would really be interested in seeing a Bradley, KJ, Carter, Townsend, Awaka rotation.

G Bradley
G KJ
G/F Carter
F Townsend
F Awaka

Love is a good defender in my opinion, but he isn't a Point Guard. Bradley isn't really a PG either, but he is the closest we have. So he will have to be out there.

To me, this lineup would be the golden lineup.

We may sacrifice size with Awaka taking on 7ft'ers, but realistically there aren't that many of them to worry about and Tobe has proven he can hold his own pretty well. Maybe he isn't Dennis Rodman, but he is as close to The Worm as we have had in a very long time here. Giving up some 2's if we can't properly "Front" an Ogre in the low post isn't the end of the world and also Tommy can easily send Bradley, KJ or Carter on the back end to help whenever someone tries to lob over top of Awaka in that scenario. If the Ogre even tries to bring the ball down to his waistline, there should be a player ready to pick the pocket. Not many teams play like us classically where a Tubelis type would catch it in the low post High up and just go right up with it. It's not as easy as we have made it look through the recent years.

Awaka has proven to be something like an Oscar Tschebwie already. Super strong for rebounding, not that talented, but in College good enough to get his 12-10 lines.

Townsend is a strange archetype, but I think he has the ability to play inside and out the ways we typically see a guy beat us in March Madness as a random stereotypical Mid Major tweener who is hard to guard because he is crafty with his size and there's not many oddly built guys out there who can make 3s (or jumpers) and play inside.

Carter can do everything overall from what I see. I get that it is high praise and possibly "too soon", but sometimes I see what I see and know. Carter plays with confidence in himself. Maybe not confidence in his role or in this system, but definitely in himself. He is Showtime. I hope Tommy allows it sooner than later.

KJ is the clamps on an opponent's 1 or 2 and is probably the best help defender on the team if not one of the best in the Nation. He belongs out there in this rotation over Love because my theory is that Townsend, Carter or even Bradley could send a 3 Ball when needed (and Tommy should be having KJ practice a 3 ball from at least 1 or 2 spots like he did with Dalen Terry where it was highly telegraphed, but once in a while it was a necessary shot that cannot be guarded and that mostly KJ would pump fake and take inside to the rim to create anyway). So while Love is maybe a better Man to Man defender in some ways in some people's minds, I like KJ more in this idea because he is more of a swiss army knife out there both ways who will help Bradley, Townsend, and Carter's games while Love may take away from their games and especially Carter's presence (IMHO) - It is highly telegraphed that Love will just try to go All In whenever, from wherever. This is a way to get Love a breather and stay extremely dynamic without being telegraphed.

We could easily play many types of defenses with him in the lineup. I just don't think Tommy is teaching enough different schematic defenses to these players at the moment.

I think this lineup/rotation has a lot more Defense than people think while not losing anything on Offense for what we are under Tommy's tutelage.

This lineup can Run.
It can jack up 3s with at least 3 players with good enough confidence.
It can play Inside.
It can get to the line.
It can gang rebound and still get out in transition.
It can attain offensive rebounds
it can also Press as well as play Man or Zone

(All lineups can do these things to extents, but i think this one can do it the best for what we have)

Weaknesses - It probably gives up some Size at the 5 defensively and may even give up some size at the 4, but it is probably big enough to overpower the 1-4 vs most teams. It is susceptible to foul trouble for Awaka, KJ, or Bradley which could hinder the main go-to Starting rotation. However, maybe this evolves into most of the "down the stretch" rotation anyway depending on the hot hands. It also may not be a great FT shooting lineup.

A side pot Plus ---> This lineup doesn't require "Featuring" any 1 guy, but if someone is the "hot hand" it allows for letting the chef cook a lot more than if we have a hot hand and then Love just starts chucking and kills that momentum or Tommy calls for moonballs into Krivas/Henri because of the "tunnel vision" mode.

This is my most theoretical "dynamic lineup" from what I've seen so far.

I think my logic is sound "optimally". Of course the whole point here is if it isn't working or if a team is overmatching us on the other end somehow, then you adjust. But I think this lineup can rebound vs other Bigs. I think it can guard the perimeter too. Weakest spot would be Awaka getting into some foul trouble, but that will happen in any rotation with him and how he plays the game and would be even worse if getting those fouls while Henri or Krivas are out there because that would mean Awaka is playing undisciplined. This lineup would force Tobe to be accountable and play disciplined. So even if it isn't a lineup that gets utilized for 10-15 minutes worth per game, I think sprinkling it in would go a long way for Awaka specifically as well as KJ and Bradley. All 3 who are primary featured Starters at the moment and it gives Townsend + Carter more of a "leash" to play their games without the threat of Love taking back over the flow or Tommy calling for Moonballs to the post.

I would like to hear feedback if anyone has some.

I also want to see some others post their lineups ----> Even without the long write up, just post it and everyone can take a look and consider the strengths and weaknesses.

We will figure all of it out for Tommy... Together!

Onward and UP

Beardown.

[Keithjacksontucson]

Caleb Love. I think he's a nice kid, but can't shoot especially in big games. Give  Love less minutes, Carter Bryant , Del Orso more. Loves shooting is killing us. Lloyd should tell him to stop shooting threes and drive the basket instead. He's not going to get better. Every time he shoots it's a turnover.
The Wisconsin game had ridiculous foul calling, but that plus Caleb shooting lost the game. Lloyd needs to keep his job by making lineup changes. Give Bryant a chance , he may be gone after this year

[Keithjacksontucson]

I agree with Arxpert's lineup. What's Tommy got to lose. Will he wait until he's lost 10 games

[arxpert]

I agree with Arxpert's lineup. What's Tommy got to lose. Will he wait until he's lost 10 games

I fear Tommy won't make the changes overall. Love would make an incredible 6th man, but overall I can't see it happening. Tommy is going to go down with these 1-9 type shooting nights from a guy taking way too many shots. They say "shooters need to keep shooting", which is true, but when we have a guy 2-5 from the field in Carter where both makes were 3pt shots, I think Bryant should have been green lighted to take a few more shots and Love should have facilitated more to him. Feed the hot hands. Don't give a "pitch count" to players.

[arxpert]

Caleb Love. I think he's a nice kid, but can't shoot especially in big games. Give  Love less minutes, Carter Bryant , Del Orso more. Loves shooting is killing us. Lloyd should tell him to stop shooting threes and drive the basket instead. He's not going to get better. Every time he shoots it's a turnover.
The Wisconsin game had ridiculous foul calling, but that plus Caleb shooting lost the game. Lloyd needs to keep his job by making lineup changes. Give Bryant a chance , he may be gone after this year

I also think Tommy over recruited Bigs and then got stuck with Love. At this point I would have preferred Love moved on like Ballo did and Sanon held true to his commitment. We would have been better off not being forced into these boom or bust games with the pre-set "alpha". Alpha should be earned every game, not just assumed.

[Keithjacksontucson]

Kind of reminds me of Sean Miller hanging his career on Alonzo Trier , which cost him early NCAA exits, especially the 2016-17 team. And Trier was a more consistent player than Love. Every time Love chucks up a premature 3 , for a turnover,I get kind of sick

[Bear]

3 games in. Delly can't play defense and can't move the ball on offense. To me, very different than Love. I am not ready to give up on Love and trusting another freshman, Sanon, as a starter was a stretch. Caleb will come out of it and we will Love him when he does. Until then, I agree, he isn't starter material over Carter.

[arxpert]

Kind of reminds me of Sean Miller hanging his career on Alonzo Trier , which cost him early NCAA exits, especially the 2016-17 team. And Trier was a more consistent player than Love. Every time Love chucks up a premature 3 , for a turnover,I get kind of sick

I can agree about Trier, but I also think that his Ostarine thing got in the way of his development path. He was in, then out, then in.. just seemed like the rules and situation was handled wrong. Trier was a good player, but maybe not a "Himothy". He had a ton of accolades and reason to believe in him. He was also caught up in the whole Rawle/Ayton nonsense too. Arizona was just under siege for a couple seasons and it never ended up working out to the maximum it could have.

[arxpert]

3 games in. Delly can't play defense and can't move the ball on offense. To me, very different than Love. I am not ready to give up on Love and trusting another freshman, Sanon, as a starter was a stretch. Caleb will come out of it and we will Love him when he does. Until then, I agree, he isn't starter material over Carter.

I agree that trusting Sanon as a starter would be dicey, but that was sort of my point. If Love had moved on and Sanon came in, he definitely would have accepted the 6th man "spark plug" role without question by comparison to Love. Bradley and KJ would have started. Carter would have had the "Aaron Gordon/Stanley Johnson" pathway to starting as a 5* or at least a ton of playing time that came with his own "10 shot quota" per game whereas currently he seems stuck around 5 shots for better or worse and then he is just out there for the sake of being out there.

Example:

Bradley
KJ
Carter
Awaka
Krivas

6th Man Joson Sanon.
Primary Backup Forward Townsend.
Primary Backup Big Henri.

Townsend could start too, but I really think that having him on the 2nd Unit would be a big mismatch for opponents to have to deal with.

With those 8 names, all of them except Krivas would be around 20-30min except a couple primary starters like Bradley and KJ playing more than 30 most nights.

Sanon would have made it such that giving KJ a breather would allow for Carter and Townsend to both play together and all 3 of them could knock down a 3. So could Bradley. So we wouldn't be losing much rotationally.

Caleb Love simply cannot facilitate. And he shouldn't. He is who he is.

This is another reason I was screaming for Tommy to pursue Liam McNeely who ultimately chose UConn. An elite shooter who can play defense unlike Tony Del Taco. I remember a certain member or two who thought McNeeley was trash. I just simply beg to differ.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/player/gamelog/_/id/5239590/liam-mcneeley

6'7" 210lb is enough size to play the 2 and succeed with help defense in zones.

I do not hate Tony Del Taco. I just believe he is too skinny and overmatched at this level. If we really had a Nembhard type "Steve Nash" PG who could break down the Defense and kick it out to Tony then I think he would work out more as a spot shooter. He must have gotten away with a lot at Campbell or whatever because the size alone just doesn't work.