Brandon Williams out for the season after undergoing surgery - Updated

[iowajake]

Losing Brandon Williams to knee surgery for the season is a big blow.  I look forward to having Nico and Josh join Chase in the starting lineup, hope Stone and Zeke will make meaningful contributions, am excited to see Doutrive earn more playing time, and believe Ira gives us a different look upfront than our other bigs.

But we'll now go only as far as Nico takes us.  His health is paramount.  When he sits, our most likely backups at point guard are two guys, Hazzard and Smith, who committed more turnovers than assists over their past three active seasons -- Hazzard at UC-Irvine and Smith at Arizona and UNC-Asheville.  And with all due respect to the quality of play in the Big West and Big South, it's not the Pac-12.  Hazzard, in particular, played off the ball in AAU and at UC-Irvine, I doubt he or Smith - in their fifth year in college - morph into elite ball-handlers or facilitators. A leopard cannot change its spots.

Alternatives are to try Josh at point guard, or to run the offense through Stone, as did Cornell. Either may be viable -- but I'll keep my fingers crossed for Nico's health/strength (to enable him to play the entire season and postseason) and conditioning (to enable him to play 32-40 minutes a game).

[Liquidated]

Losing Brandon Williams to knee surgery for the season is a big blow.  I look forward to having Nico and Josh join Chase in the starting lineup, hope Stone and Zeke will make meaningful contributions, am excited to see Doutrive earn more playing time, and believe Ira gives us a different look upfront than our other bigs.

But we'll now go only as far as Nico takes us.  His health is paramount.  When he sits, our most likely backups at point guard are two guys, Hazzard and Smith, who committed more turnovers than assists over their past three active seasons -- Hazzard at UC-Irvine and Smith at Arizona and UNC-Asheville.  And with all due respect to the quality of play in the Big West and Big South, it's not the Pac-12.  Hazzard, in particular, played off the ball in AAU and at UC-Irvine, I doubt he or Smith - in their fifth year in college - morph into elite ball-handlers or facilitators. A leopard cannot change its spots.

Alternatives are to try Josh at point guard, or to run the offense through Stone, as did Cornell. Either may be viable -- but I'll keep my fingers crossed for Nico's health/strength (to enable him to play the entire season and postseason) and conditioning (to enable him to play 32-40 minutes a game).

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/max-hazzard-1.html
Over the past three seasons at UC Irvine, Max Hazard had 188 Assists and 137 turnovers. So he did NOT commit more turnovers than assists. He is also a sharpshooter, a 2 guard and not a PG, so why don't we compare him to Salim Stoudamire? Salim, in four years at Arizona, DID have more turnovers (262) than assists (256). Point being that we did not need Salim to pass, we needed him to shoot.   

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/dylan-smith-1.html
Dylan Smith does have more turnovers than assists but the biggest disparity was as a freshmen at UNC Asheville, his numbers are greatly improved at AZ.

Doutrive, BTW, had 18 assists and 17 turnovers last year - not exactly PG material either.

None of these guys should ever be a starting point guard but they are perfectly competent players and for a few minutes of Nico rest would be fine handling the ball.

Again, Nico playing more minutes will make us better. Miller won't be able to substitute him out when he gets hot 9probably will anyway) and IF he is as good as people say, then Williams or anyone else is a huge step down at PG anyway. Not much difference between Doutrive or Smith or Hazard and Williams when compared to Mannion.

Not sure about the conferences being worse than the PAC12...was anyone actually worse than the PAC12 last year!? 

[iowajake]

My bad re Hazzard. And his assist to turnover ratio of 1.37 is similar to that of Kyle Fogg -- who was an effective passer and facilitator off the ball.

[ChrisZona]

Losing Brandon Williams to knee surgery for the season is a big blow.  I look forward to having Nico and Josh join Chase in the starting lineup, hope Stone and Zeke will make meaningful contributions, am excited to see Doutrive earn more playing time, and believe Ira gives us a different look upfront than our other bigs.

But we'll now go only as far as Nico takes us.  His health is paramount.  When he sits, our most likely backups at point guard are two guys, Hazzard and Smith, who committed more turnovers than assists over their past three active seasons -- Hazzard at UC-Irvine and Smith at Arizona and UNC-Asheville.  And with all due respect to the quality of play in the Big West and Big South, it's not the Pac-12.  Hazzard, in particular, played off the ball in AAU and at UC-Irvine, I doubt he or Smith - in their fifth year in college - morph into elite ball-handlers or facilitators. A leopard cannot change its spots.

Alternatives are to try Josh at point guard, or to run the offense through Stone, as did Cornell. Either may be viable -- but I'll keep my fingers crossed for Nico's health/strength (to enable him to play the entire season and postseason) and conditioning (to enable him to play 32-40 minutes a game).

I think Hazzard is a capable ball handler at the very least. In a situation where Nico is injured or fouls out he takes over ball-handling duties and Josh Green (underrated play-maker) takes over the half-court offense. Not ideal but it should get the job done.

[Liquidated]

My bad re Hazzard. And his assist to turnover ratio of 1.37 is similar to that of Kyle Fogg -- who was an effective passer and facilitator off the ball.

I think Foggs numbers were dramatically different at the end of his career vs. the beginning.

[WILD]

https://twitter.com/JavierJMorales/status/1159603222010617862

[lynxaz]

These last 10 years have been tough and for sure this BWill situation brought back all those Ray Smith /Bash memories.

I don't want to say the C word but we for sure have not have the best luck with injuries or circumstance for that matter
They can't get caught up in all this and just need to use as fuel.
Honestly though can't bring myself to read that article lol

[ThrowItDownBigMan]

Hopefully Miller has a 3 guard lineup of Nico Max and Doutrive at certain points, all 3 being good ball handlers. Max being the shooter he is and Doutrives ability to slash should be deadly for teams. Also having Ira set a pick and roll for Nico with Zeke being able to step out for 3 could be a killer lineup.

Losing Brandon Williams to knee surgery for the season is a big blow.  I look forward to having Nico and Josh join Chase in the starting lineup, hope Stone and Zeke will make meaningful contributions, am excited to see Doutrive earn more playing time, and believe Ira gives us a different look upfront than our other bigs.

But we'll now go only as far as Nico takes us.  His health is paramount.  When he sits, our most likely backups at point guard are two guys, Hazzard and Smith, who committed more turnovers than assists over their past three active seasons -- Hazzard at UC-Irvine and Smith at Arizona and UNC-Asheville.  And with all due respect to the quality of play in the Big West and Big South, it's not the Pac-12.  Hazzard, in particular, played off the ball in AAU and at UC-Irvine, I doubt he or Smith - in their fifth year in college - morph into elite ball-handlers or facilitators. A leopard cannot change its spots.

Alternatives are to try Josh at point guard, or to run the offense through Stone, as did Cornell. Either may be viable -- but I'll keep my fingers crossed for Nico's health/strength (to enable him to play the entire season and postseason) and conditioning (to enable him to play 32-40 minutes a game).

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/max-hazzard-1.html
Over the past three seasons at UC Irvine, Max Hazard had 188 Assists and 137 turnovers. So he did NOT commit more turnovers than assists. He is also a sharpshooter, a 2 guard and not a PG, so why don't we compare him to Salim Stoudamire? Salim, in four years at Arizona, DID have more turnovers (262) than assists (256). Point being that we did not need Salim to pass, we needed him to shoot.   

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/dylan-smith-1.html
Dylan Smith does have more turnovers than assists but the biggest disparity was as a freshmen at UNC Asheville, his numbers are greatly improved at AZ.

Doutrive, BTW, had 18 assists and 17 turnovers last year - not exactly PG material either.

None of these guys should ever be a starting point guard but they are perfectly competent players and for a few minutes of Nico rest would be fine handling the ball.

Again, Nico playing more minutes will make us better. Miller won't be able to substitute him out when he gets hot 9probably will anyway) and IF he is as good as people say, then Williams or anyone else is a huge step down at PG anyway. Not much difference between Doutrive or Smith or Hazard and Williams when compared to Mannion.

Not sure about the conferences being worse than the PAC12...was anyone actually worse than the PAC12 last year!? 

[Jdmarti]

Good news is we still have a talented team we have less depth  can not afford to have anyone else out.

[WILD]

I agree that Smith will see added minutes due to BWILL being out at the start of the season. I'm hoping Miller does not hesitate to put DD in instead of Smith if he proves to be more valuable. I think we can all agreee that DD was already better than Smith last year, but we all know that Miller does not give unheralded freshman very many minutes if he doesn't have to. Sophmores under Miller always get a lot more minutes then they did as freshman.

A perfect example would be Gabe York. He played just 5 minutes a game his freshman year & that jumped to 21 minutes a game his sophmore year. Devonaire played 11 minutes a game his freshman year and his time should double this season.

Smith on the other hand played 24 minutes a game last year, but that was in a down season where we had much less talent & BWill was injured the 2nd half of the season. I expect Smith's minutes to go down as the season progresses & DD's to go up.