Who's next???

Who is the next GT player to announce he's returning?

  • José

    Votes: 44 45.4%
  • Michael

    Votes: 49 50.5%
  • Moses

    Votes: 3 3.1%
  • None of the above

    Votes: 1 1.0%

  • Total voters
    97

tbglover

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
716
True 9 man rotations aren't going to happen. The minutes just aren't there and if you don't believe me go back through FSU's games, in particular the games that were closer or their losses (more on this in a sec). They may have had 9 or even 10 players they felt comfortable going to, but they usually had 8 man rotations and sometimes less. The reality is while players want to play, that's not just true of young players. Starters want to play big time minutes. It's a balancing act and 9 and 10 man rotations just aren't going to be sustainable.

IMO people greatly overexaggerate what the get old stay old philosophy means. It doesn't mean always having 3 seniors or 5 upperclassmen. It means consistently having a core of uperclassmen to lean on. Sometimes that may just be 3 starters and the rest of the rotation is sophs and freshman. But if those 3 upperclassmen are playing 30+ minutes, then you are still old, at least as far as the philosophy goes. And you can maintain that even with a 7 man rotation.

The reality though is that Pastner is doing a big rebuilding job. Yes, even in year 5 there are still aspects that he is building up. One of those is the fact that winning begets winning and that is especially true of depth. For two major reasons, at least, that I can see. One is that it's a lot easier to look like a deep team when you win every other game by 15+. You can play 7 or 8 in more competitive games and then go 9-10 in games you are in no danger of losing after the half. This year we rarely had those opportunities, and after the start of the year the staff was probably gun shy about going deeper in the bench early (especially with Meka and Maxwell being hurt). The second, and the one that is just starting to be a factor for us hopefully, is that it's a lot easier to convince players to have development years where they don't play big roles if they believe they will be competing for championships when their time comes. That's even more true if you can bring in players when they expect that to be the case so they aren't shocked or as likely to be frustrated with low minutes.
Pastner should deepen the rotation if the talent is there. Yes there would be a numbers crunch but other teams are able to successfully play more guys and make it work and in the case of FSU for example not see large numbers of transfers. Playing more people gets the youngsters prepared for life without the seniors and put them in better position when they're the go to players on the team. Most importantly, it would help the veterans. For example, nobody plays more minutes than Jose and he goes full throttle when he's out there. But he also gets hurt every year and it may be in part because of the workload that he has to carry. He was out for games last year with the ankle. And this year we saw him slowed down with a hamstring injury. I'd rather him play 30 a game and then handle a bigger workload in the tournament than be sidelined or slowed down because of wear and tear.
 

RamblinRed

Helluva Engineer
Featured Member
Messages
5,715
True 9 man rotations aren't going to happen. The minutes just aren't there and if you don't believe me go back through FSU's games, in particular the games that were closer or their losses (more on this in a sec). They may have had 9 or even 10 players they felt comfortable going to, but they usually had 8 man rotations and sometimes less. The reality is while players want to play, that's not just true of young players. Starters want to play big time minutes. It's a balancing act and 9 and 10 man rotations just aren't going to be sustainable.

IMO people greatly overexaggerate what the get old stay old philosophy means. It doesn't mean always having 3 seniors or 5 upperclassmen. It means consistently having a core of uperclassmen to lean on. Sometimes that may just be 3 starters and the rest of the rotation is sophs and freshman. But if those 3 upperclassmen are playing 30+ minutes, then you are still old, at least as far as the philosophy goes. And you can maintain that even with a 7 man rotation.

The reality though is that Pastner is doing a big rebuilding job. Yes, even in year 5 there are still aspects that he is building up. One of those is the fact that winning begets winning and that is especially true of depth. For two major reasons, at least, that I can see. One is that it's a lot easier to look like a deep team when you win every other game by 15+. You can play 7 or 8 in more competitive games and then go 9-10 in games you are in no danger of losing after the half. This year we rarely had those opportunities, and after the start of the year the staff was probably gun shy about going deeper in the bench early (especially with Meka and Maxwell being hurt). The second, and the one that is just starting to be a factor for us hopefully, is that it's a lot easier to convince players to have development years where they don't play big roles if they believe they will be competing for championships when their time comes. That's even more true if you can bring in players when they expect that to be the case so they aren't shocked or as likely to be frustrated with low minutes.
Building on your point. As you get deeper into the season and play more talented teams the rotation almost always tightens. Just part of the game.
All 4 of the teams in the Final Four are basically 7 to 8 man rotations. Once you get into conference play you simply are not going to find many teams willing to go deeper than that because the dropoff at that point becomes too great and other teams can take advantage of it.

Gonzaga has had 1 game all year decided by less than 10 pts and yet you look at their rotation and it's basically a 7 man rotation: 31.2, 30.9, 29.2, 28.5, 27.6, 19.4, 13.6. Then they have some deep reserves that get 5-7 mpg because they win so many games going away.
Baylor may have the deepest rotation and it is eight - 34.8, 33.0, 31.9, 26, 22.5, 20, 15.1, 13.9. They basically have a big 3 and then the others fill in around them.
Houston also goes 8 deep - 35.8, 33.5, 27, 26.3, 19.3, 19.3, 15.5, 15.0
Finally UCLA, like Gonzaga, is a pretty short bench team, in the NCAA it is 39.8, 37, 34.8, 31.2, 24, 14.1, 9.9, 7.4

Most NCAA teams are pretty similar, you are going to have a core group of 2-4 guys that play 30+ min and then another 3-4 that play 13-25 min. I'd love for our bench to be strong enough that we could comfortably reduce the big 3's time to 33-35 mpg if they all return. FWIW, here were GT's min in ACC games - 37.4 (Jose), 35.7 (Moses), 34.9 (Devoe), 30.1 (Usher), 25.6 (Bubba), 23.6 (Moore), 10.9 (Kyle),
6.4 (Rodney, 12 games).
 

OG-T

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
292
I feel we played our best ball toward the end of the year when we had the 8 man rotation going. I think 10 guys should be in the mix considering we have games where we have cushions. Close games are an 8 man rotation, fouls man stretch it to 9. In the long run, not wearing guys down, especially small guards - Bubba and Jose looked less than 100% at the end.
 

slugboy

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
10,749
While I don’t know the players personally, from the outside looking in this looks like a close knit team that like each other and their coaches. That’s one reason that many of the seniors are coming back for a covid year.
The young players can see more time coming than last year, and certainly starting after next year (if everyone comes back). For players like Meka, seeing Moses training with the guards and forwards to get more of an inside-out game should be one roadmap for how he can grow here. I’d already seen a lot of progress with Saba in conditioning.
 

gt24

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
354
Going 10 deep is nearly impossible in a meaningful way, and even FSU doesn't do that. They went about 9 deep last year.

IMO I doubt we would often go more than 7 or 8 deep next year regardless but I could see those 7 or 8 coming from a group of 9.

Jose, Mike, Usher, Moses will play for sure if they are all back. IMO Deebo likely will as well. Too good a fit with that group to not. I think Moore would likely play most games as well simply because of his versatility being able to come in when any of Mike, Deebo, or Ush comes out. Otherwise, I could see Kyle, Bubba, and the best big also see fairly consistent play depending on what the match up needs.
this is exactly my solution/approach... 9 guys playing meaningful minutes regularly, but the 8th and 9th are situational. although they play good chunk of minutes and play regularly, it is not every night as it varies based on opponent systems, matchups, etc.
 

CuseJacket

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
18,898
I hope we stick with what the majority of top coaches and programs do: a 7-8 man rotation.

Baylor and Houston have gone 8 deep tonight, as a prime example. For emphasis, not a single minute to a 9th player at the under 4 timeout in the 2nd half.

Florida State and North Carolina of recent years are outliers. And as @lv20gt pointed out, they are not playing true 9-10 man rotations in close contests. Most coaches believe and have proven that 7-8 is the sweet spot for 1) allowing guys to get in and stay in a rhythm and 2) not having a drop off simply for the sake of spreading minutes.

I expect we will be in a standard rotation model next year, regardless of who else returns.
 

GT_EE78

Banned
Messages
3,605
back to the poll
maybe "none of the above" will be our "Denk" Nowitski
isn't he getting feedback too?
.
it will be interesting to see where the roster goes given the variables,
including what the portal could giveth or taketh away
 
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