Liam McNeeley

[arxpert]

PS - there is a difference between a Doutrive, Akot, Barcello or Paulius/Borovician hitting the portal and a Carter Bryant, Sanon, Phillips type hitting a portal. This team doesn't have that much left which means that who is here will get the minutes and the players currently with us are Good.

Dylan Anderson was a rough loss IMHO. We don't need to be losing players like that because Tommy wants to bring in 2-3 "Townsend"'s per year as transfers.

[KansasCityCats]

Arizona only has depth at the wing and at center. There's no need to bring in another shooter.

I agree that the transfers shouldn't be major role players and/or ball hogs. Keshod played significant minutes but was vital to this team. Another power forward would be ideal, even if he gets 25+/- minutes.

It sucks that transfers are a common part of college basketball but we have to accept that every program will abuse the system like free agency. Hopefully our talented freshmen flourish; I think the wings will all contribute immediately.

[Jdmarti]

I would like arizona  to pursue Brea from Dayton, defenses  would have to respect him from 3, if love r returns we are good though.

[KansasCityCats]

There are a number of Power Forwards that would fit our system:

Tyler Bilodeau from Oregon State should be our top priority.  He can stretch opposing defenses but is big enough to defend centers.  The Sophomore crushed us on 8/10 shooting and 22 points (including 3/4 from deep).

Dillon Mitchell is a nice rebounder from UT that can run quickly in Lloyd's system.

Tarris Reed would fill out nicely if Chris Rounds brought him in from Michigan.

Great Osobor will be pursued by every D-1 program so he's a longshot but it would be impossible to say "no" to the Utah State transfer.

We all know about Oakland's Trey Townsend.  Undersized but would perfectly backfill Keshod's vacancy.

Saint Thomas at Northern Colorado was also previously mentioned.  A "smaller" double-double machine.

Amari Williams is likely on the radar but I don't think our staff should pursue the Drexel big man becaus he's prone to turnovers and hasn't really improved over the past couple seasons.

[arxpert]

Arizona only has depth at the wing and at center. There's no need to bring in another shooter.

I agree that the transfers shouldn't be major role players and/or ball hogs. Keshod played significant minutes but was vital to this team. Another power forward would be ideal, even if he gets 25+/- minutes.

It sucks that transfers are a common part of college basketball but we have to accept that every program will abuse the system like free agency. Hopefully our talented freshmen flourish; I think the wings will all contribute immediately.

I still don't see why you think there's no value in having shooting on the roster. Shooting is maybe the top commodity to have in the sport of basketball. I already assume we aren't getting Liam, but I think there is no logical reason not to put our name in the hat and a fat check in with it.

I have a lot of thoughts on this, but I will keep this one shorter. I think we are just at an impasse as a program. There is a changing of the guard. There really is no reason for Tommy to be bringing in more than MAYBE 1 Portal player (or inviting back Love or Pelle whatever). If Tommy chooses to bring in 3 guys who are 23-24 then I think we will just see at least a couple of the recruits decommit or eventually bail on Tommy.

The guys he recruited are not Borovicians or Paulius's. They will be playing heavy minutes if they end up suiting up for us.

I have absolutely no problem playing Carter next to Liam. Not sure why anyone would. That would be unguardable and would take pressure off of Carter to shoot 3s where he can work inside more. Especially with any 2 of Bradley/KJ/Sanon/Phillips on the court and then Henri or Krivas playing the "5". All 4 of those guards are going to be good defensively for us, but remember Tommy's way is to score 90-100ppg. So realistically his system requires Scoring for it to truly work.

I think that we have better defense than people are expecting. These players are much hungrier to show what they have. Krivas and Henri can play together. Sanon already sounds like a massive 6th man sparkplug.

I truly have no idea where a Transfer like a Townsend truly fits in at all. Tommy should just give all the players on the end of the bench the scholarships for 1 year and find some new walk ons. Gain favor as "That Dude" and everyone will want to come play for Arizona knowing Tommy is synonymous with "Him" because in the end it is very difficult and random to win a National Title in March, but it is not random at all to control your own destiny with scheduling and navigating your Conference slate to hang a now Big12 Conference Title Banner and a Big12 Tournament Banner. Those are controllable. So is Recruiting. Hence why I say March Madness is always #4 on that list of importance.

[arxpert]

I would like arizona  to pursue Brea from Dayton, defenses  would have to respect him from 3, if love r returns we are good though.

Brea is a great 3pt shooter. Not that great on defense, but he's another 6'6" type player that can shoot the ball. That is what Liam is. In theory I'd rather have Liam, but I would be fine with Shooting coming in that has Size overall.

[arxpert]

The Sophomore crushed us on 8/10 shooting and 22 points (including 3/4 from deep).

I just want to quote this from your PF bunch ----> Last year I said it all season. Tommy had no answers for any sort of athletic PF. Even Holmes had a bad game vs us for Dayton and it was still good statistically. We probably should have lost to them, but they stopped playing their style, didn't put up enough 3s against us. As mentioned here actually, "Brea" should have taked 15 3's vs us and Holmes should have ate all game.

Just because we saw PF's dominate us doesn't mean PF's will dominate other teams. A PF like "Osobor" doesn't even fit Run and Gun. I think this team has a new identity being forged in front of our faces. Krivas is the only Ogre now. Why did Dylan choose to leave overall? Money is fine and dandy, but I think it is more than money. Tommy seems to have a plan to roll with 1 Ogre and Stephen is more of a PF IMHO. He's not as big as Ballo or Dante. He's probably thicker than Koloko originally was. He will do fine running the floor I think.

I really want to see what Tommy ultimately decides to do because Phillips, Carter, Sanon, and Stephen are not coming here to do nothing, but watch transfers come in and take their minutes.

[KansasCityCats]

No way could only two of Bradley, KJ, Sanon and Bryant be on the court at a time. That would give each of them 20 MPG. Most Arizona fans complained when KJ/Bradley only averages 20 min last season. The other two freshmen will be playing often.

I mentioned that Osobor would only have a look from Arizona because of his talent level, not as a result of his fit in our system. There are plenty of others that would complement our backcourt.

I'd personally prefer to add one PF contributor, one defensive-minded guard that wouldn't play often and one international player that can develop. That would leave an additional  scholarship for 2025-26 and create more minutes for an already deep team.

[arxpert]

Bradley, KJ, Sanon and Bryant

I said Bradley, KJ, Sanon, and Phillips.

We already can tell that one of those players will be the 6th man, 2 will be starters and 1 will be scrapping to earn some minutes. I imagine that would be Phillips at the moment and like KJ Lewis, Phillips may show up more ready than expected and Sanon may show up not as ready. We don't know.

What we do know is Tommy has yet to prove he will adapt.

My biggest spotlight will be to see if Tommy is willing to pull the plug on ANYTHING that isn't working out as opposed to staying married to it and going down with the ship. Now that Boswell is gone I think the loyalty should all be gone and out the door too. Tommy needs to put the best players for the job out there.

We can mock up a million lineups, but Tommy has to be willing to bench players who are struggling and not playing with a proper attitude.

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I hope Liam McNeeley doesn't read this post. He'll be disappointed to find out that the Liam McNeeley thread only briefly discusses Liam McNeeley.