Jose will be a legend and could be the cornerstone of CJP’s program at GT.
I've said this before but if we're lucky, Jose and Moses will be to CJP what Price and Salley were to Cremins. They've certainly done their part. Now it's time for us to build on what they accomplished.
Looking ahead we have a roster that looks something like the following
PG -
Sturdivant - Smith
SG -
Devoe - Parham - Maxwell-Kelly
SF -
Coleman - K. Moore - J. Moore
PF -
Ush - Meka - Hill
C -
Howard - Gigiberia
There is a lot of unproven potential there. I think you could make the case that in terms of raw talent this is the deepest roster we've ever had. Guys like Maxwell and Kelly being, potentially, end of bench players is not something I can remember us having. The problem is that usually it's your top 7/8 that make the difference because your 10/11/12 players rarely play no matter how good they are. I think our depth should make us a bit more resistant to injuries and the like completely knocking us off course, and there are always the tangential benefits of things like harder practices, and whoever winning the time being more likely to be ready for it.
I've bolded who I think are our likely top 8 that will play in most/all games. I also think you'll see Smith and Meka contribute fairly frequently when match ups favor them. The concern I have is with having a third scorer. To me, if Coleman can come and and give us a third reliable scorer alongside Devoe and Ush I think we are really well set up. I think whoever comes out of the trio of Sturdivant, Smith, Parham as the guard alongside of Devoe will be a very solid contributor at least. If it's Parham I would expect both he and Devoe would handle PG duties more or less 50-50. But I expect Bubba to be the first guard off the bench using his experience to give us whatever we need for that given game. Similarly whoever is the starting center out of Howard, Gigiberia, and Meka should also be solid with our big man coaching. Coleman over Moore I would put just for trying to get a third big time scorer going. Plus, I like having experience coming off the bench with both Bubba and Moore being options giving us a lot of flexibility to make early adjustments whether it's defense, shooting, size, or speed.
Regardless of the lineup, I think we have so much depth that it would be hard to imagine there isn't a combination that can get us back to the NCAAT. The question is how quickly we can identify which of the pieces are the right ones this year.
