Keys for the season

S

SyracuseHorn

500+ Posts
I can think of four big questions going into the season. 1 and 2 are huge, while 3 and 4 are more interesting than critical.

1. Can Mason play PG? He and AJ will both log a lot of minutes. AJ is too valuable as a shooter, and his movement without the ball too critical, to play a lot at PG. As much as he may want to play PG, his best position is SG. If Mason can't play PG, then Balbay comes in. I don't think Balbay replaces Mason in the lineup, but bumps him to the 3 spot. Now, instead of Damion James at the 3, he's at the 4. This effectively takes Gary Johnson's athleticism out of the starting lineup, and weakens our defense and reboudning prowess. No pressure, Justin.
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2. Can Balbay and Ward provide solid minutes off the bench? If they can each play 8 mins per game, it will be a great break for our starting backcourt.

3. Can the bench depth at the 4 and 5 spots be productive? We know these guys can play, but can they produce consistently? Hill and Pittman will be intriguing, and Chapman is showing signs of big time potential. Wangmene has his moments too. I think there's enough talent here to be a big strength, but they have to produce, not just eat up minutes.

4. What happens when James is on the bench? Johnson, Mason, Atchley, or someone else will have to assert themselves on the offensive end when James is on the bench.

Am I too critical of the PG situation? Am I missing something else?
 
Yes, you're too critical of the PG position.

IMO the starters at the beginning of the year will be Abrams, Mason, James, Atchley, and then the best front court player, who I'm assuming will be Gary Johnson.

Balbay will be the 6th man. If he shows as much ability to run the team as I suspect, eventually he'll force Barnes to take minutes away from either Mason or Abrams and give them to Balbay. All three of them will play 20+ minutes per game.

Varez Ward is going to play 10+ minutes per game, IMO. While Harrison Smith is instrumental in many aspects of the program, I'll be surprised if he makes much of an impact in terms of playing time --- which doesn't mean it won't happen. That's just not the way I'm leaning until I see it occur.

As far as bench depth, I don't have any real concerns. It's Pittman's time. He's a junior. Losing all that weight and getting himself into the best shape of his life is fantastic, but now he's got to put it to use. He played such a key defensively on guys like Blake Griffin and Brett Lopez, but this is college basketball, and great big men that Pittman represents the best matchup for are few and far between. Pittman has to be more productive on offense --- an intimidating factor that opponents have a tough time countering --- and he simply has to play with better awareness on defense.

If Pittman doesn't step up the way he's capable, he's going to see his playing time taken away by Hill and Chapman, both of whom are very basketball savvy. Hill in particular is making a play for starting minutes. As a caveat to that statement, it's exactly what I heard prior to his freshman season, but that Matt Hill didn't exactly manifest himself on the court. He wasn't horrible as a true freshman, but he wasn't as good as I'd been led to expect in the offseason. Possibly the same is true this year. We won't know until play starts.

In any case, the front court simply has to provide more points with high percentage shots from the post, or from offensive rebounds.

This team should be a monster on the boards and on defense.

Free throw shooting is a gigantic concern of mine. AJ Abrams is the only player on the roster who shot more than 70% last year, and adding Balbay to the rotation isn't going to help matters. There's no excuse for James, Atchley, and Mason to perform as poorly from the charity stripe as they did last season. All three of them should be shooting in the 70s from the free throw line, and I fully expect them to. On the other hand, I'm simply hoping Balbay can hit at least 60%. Same with Pittman.
 
IMO we go out starting the season
PG Balbay
SG Abrams
SF Mason
PF James
C Conner
That being stated I think all 3 guards will handle the point at any given time, James,Mason will interchange at the SF, AJ and Mason will change up on the SG spot, Balbay will push the ball hard with Mason and AJ. They are all able to play several positions.

Mason will be on the floor, AJ for his movement and shooting will be on the floor, Balbay is a true pass first PG.
James will play the 3 and 4 spot depending on the flow of the game. Conner will shoot 3 's and rebound and set picks and play defense.
Balbay and Mason , James, Johnson, Conner.
Best defense and good offense. We will see this 5-10 games into the season I hope. AJ the sixth man ???? Hard to see Barnes using AJ this way ... but instant offense off the bench, I know it wont happen but you can hope.

Has James handle improved that he could go into the 2 slot if and when we every go BIG such as Dex,Johnson,Conner,James and Balbay/AJ/ Mason ?
Just throwing things out there see if anyone else has ideas about lineups , mismatches , defenses, etc.
 
Barnes doesn't want to go to a three guard lineup, but that really depends on Damion James and his ability to defend at 3 and attack people offensively from the perimeter off of the dribble.

If I was guessing guard minutes once the season is rolling along, I would think it looks something like this:

Dogus Gottleib - 20
Abrams - 25
Mason - 30
Ward - 5

Mason will always go minute heavy because he never messes up the things that get under Barnes' skin. I also think Abrams is a much more effective player for us at 20-25 minutes per game.

The logjam is at 4/5. 80 minutes for 6 viable players. I don't see how we manage that (happily) without a redshirt for someone.
 
Ward is a very good free throw shooter. That may increase his time at the end of games, as it might be a somewhat rare commodity for this team.
 
His weight has supposedly leveled off somewhere between 285-295, but a good percentage of that is muscle which weighs more than fat I believe. Maintaining a high energy level and increasing stamina is what Pttman worked on this offseason.
 
With the amount of big men that we have at our disposal, I'm hoping we shift to a larger line up with Damian James at #3. That's the position, he'll be playing in the NBA.

I agree that this is Pittman's year. And, I expect that he'll step up and into the starting postion at #5. That's the position he'll be playing in the NBA.

And, Atchley will slide over and start at #4. That's the position, he'll be playing in the NBA.

And, if I'm not mistaken, Barnes said in the Spring that GJ would be getting some work at the #3. But, I haven't heard how that experiment.

I'm really excited about this season. We have so many weapons. We're going to create some very difficult match ups.
 
BTW, from what I'm hearing, Varez Ward's presence is having a bigger impact than we would have anticipated. I've somewhat despairingly realized we're going to be playing more 3 guard lineups than I would prefer, at least at the start of the season.

Barnes is going to figure out which lineups work the best, and who is performing in a way that deserves more court time, but Ward has really been impressive in practices early on. "Justin Mason II" and "the most athletic player we've ever had on campus as a freshman" are the kinds of accolades he's receiving. He's apparently working his butt off, doing things Todd Wright doesn't think he should physically be able to do, simply through heart and perserverance.

While it's nice to have 4 legitimate healthy guards for the first time since the 2004-5 season (because of the injuries in (2005-6), I really was/am looking forward to a bigger lineup for long stretches.

It's just an FYI. Waaaaaay too soon to get to declaratory about this kind of stuff.
 
Varez Ward will play 20 plus minutes per game. He is the best perimeter defender on the Texas team. Barnes has stated privately that Ward is the strongest freshmen that he has ever coached. Ward has been magnificent in practice and has been running with the first team in practice for the past week. Hornfans will see an unbelievable suprise when they see Ward play. He plays 3 different spots and is the most athletic kid on the Texas team.
 
Knowing what we do about Barnes, and what SLX posted and what I assumed was that we start with a 3 guard starting 5 .

Ward is very good but not going to jump over Mason a proven Jr.- Abrams,Barnes guy ,leading scorer- Balbay with his international experience and being a pass first PG.

A couple of options, we run alot and push every time we rebound a ball, rotate the top 3 guards with Ward. Wards gets 10 minutes give or take a few, he gets HOT and Barnes always goes with a hot hand, Ward may get 15-20 minutes.

The other option, Barnes can not keep Dex, Hill ,Chapman off the floor because they have improved a LOT and will contribute up front in rebounding and Defense and Scoring. We go big and need a passing PG first, Barnes will play Mason for defense and Abrams for Scoring, Ward gets 7-10 minutes.

Someone earlier mentioned a red shirt season for a big , Hill is out of that scene, Dex is out as is Johnson so that leaves Chapman,Alex W.
If Dex and Hill start out well and Johnson is better that leaves less then 5-7 minutes for Chapman and Alex........
Barnes will play anyway that will get him a victory and that is why he is such a good coach We have a legit shot at the FF.
 
It is a contract year for Damion, Connor, and Abrams (assuming that Abrams has pro aspirations). My guess is that Barnes plays Damion at small forward and Connor at power forward to get them prepared for the NBA.

Johnson lost a lot of weight in the offseason so that he can play small forward. He and Damion have small forward more than covered.

The big guys (Dexter, Connor, Chapman, and Hill) have power forward and center more than covered. You have to assume that Damion is going to play power forward some (when the horns want to go small), so that will cut into the power forward minutes even more.

If Abrams is going to play pro anywhere (in Greece or Italy or Spain or wherever), it will have to be at point guard. Barnes has mentioned that Abrams is the smartest player that he ever coached at UT and that Abrams was a point guard before he converted to shooting guard. My guess is that Barnes probably gives Abrams a chance to succeed at point guard. It will be interesting to see how well Abrams handles the point. He can dribble well, shoots free throws well, and will be a good guy to have the ball when the shot clock is running down. Don't have any idea if he can run an offense.

Anyway, between Abrams, Mason, Balbay, and Ward, UT has two guard spots covered well.

Matchups will vary from game to game but UT may be playing a mostly 2 guard lineup this year and not have a dominating point guard. This implies that the horns are actually going to have to run an offense. This will be a huge coaching challenge to Barnes, since offensive scheming is not his strong point.
 
Kafka, great analysis. I have a few questions based on your analysis:

1. Does having Abrams back actually hurt us? He's too good a shooter (most of the time) to not play a majority of the time but he's rather short for a shooting guard and has had trouble making passes into the post. It seems that running a three guard combo keeps us small (you don't want to take Damion off the court) and so it's on Dex (and whoever spells him) to be a beast at all times on the boards. This also keeps Gary Johnson off the floor (which I personally hate because he's one of my favorites and he plays so hard all the time).

2. Among our guards, who do you think will be the best defender and get the tough assignments? I know nothing about Harrison Smith. AJ is short so a tall guard can abuse him at times. Varez looks great in practice (it's practice man... practice). Mason seems reliable on the defensive end.

3. Is next year a better year for us to get to the FF? I don't know. Yes we get amazing talent but we lose Damion and Atchley.
 
Saw an article the other day that said Dexter was down below 295 and also down to 15% body fat (from 43%). When he was close to 400, there was no way he could get up and down the court. But you gotta love the guy for losing over 100 pounds and watching his diet closely so he can really contribute now. Go Dex!
 
AFhorn82,

Many thanks for the kind words.

Having Abrams back is probably a good thing. He is short but it is not that tough to compensate for one short guy (last year the horns had to compensate for two short guys). Barnes is clever at this.

If Abrams wants to be a PG, he will need to master pick and roll passing, entry passing into the post, running an offense, etc. I don't know how that is going to turn out. Dogus may blow Abrams away at PG.

If Dexter is in really good shape, he is the kind of guy who can get whatever position he wants (including right in front of the basket). If he does post up right in front of the basket (i.e. in the lane), the horns will have to get him the ball immediately.

I could see that Dexter might be able to draw a lot of fouls on the opposing center (nice when we play OU, for example). I sure hope that Dex is actually in good shape.

With Connor at 4 and Damion at 3, it makes it tough to play a 3 guard lineup. Gary Johnson should be quick enough to play 3 this season so there is not much need to play Mason at small forward.

My guess is that moving the 3 point line out this season is going to depress 3 point shooting percentages a bit. This implies that outside shooting will be a bit less important relative to inside scoring.

My guess is that Mason and Ward should be the best defenders but maybe Dogus is good, too.

Unless things have changed a bunch, Harrison Smith is probably not going to play much.

I'll defer to the other guys about next year's chances.
 
I hate the search function on HornFans so I need to ask about Harrison Smith. He was a 4 star recruit or so I thought. What exactly has been keeping him off the court for so long? Attitude, off-the-court issues, lack of skills, injury, non-complementary skill set, etc.? Thanks to anyone who can answer my (potentially) naieve question.
 
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