I'm assuing only George leaves early. Will assume the rest stay until I hear otherwise. I'd be surprised if Flagler comes back, but until he says either way... we'll keep him here.

Flagler
Cryer
Love
Bonner
Walter
Grimes
Little
Tchatchoua
Olijuwuna
Lohner
Bridges

What is your starting 5? (I have no idea)

Too early to know I wouldn't be surprised if we grab a forward from the portal. Hopefully a Mark Vital clone who can bring defense and toughness. I think Flagler is gone for sure, maybe EJ decides not to return I haven't heard one way or another.

Is Yves Missi going to make it to campus early? He could be a nice addition too inside.

Stay tuned. I believe he's trying to reclassify and we should have the answer pretty soon.

Just my guesses:

Gone
Flagler, George and Flo

Possibility of Leaving (My words, not their's; won't be surprised if at least 2 or 3 leave for whatever reasons)
Cryer
Jonathan
Bonner
Bridges
Love

Ain't Going Anywhere (will be here)
Little
Walter
Lohner
Grimes
Josh O

Squatters
Loveday and Turner

Unknown
Missi (reclassification)


Tough to project a starting 5 until more is known. Bonner/Grimes/Little battle at PG should be interesting. I think all 3 would be in the 8-9 man rotation. Figure Cryer, Love, Walter will be part of a rotation, assuming all 3 are here. Bridges starts. Josh O may start by default, depending on what happens with Jonathan and what we do in the portal.

Will probably miss on all of this, but that's okay because we have almost 8 more months for this to start anyway so may as well talk about something.

I hope Cryer and Bridges stay because they will be our alpha offensive players. I think Bridges has breakout potential to be an all-conference player and will be relied upon more offensively with Flag and especially Key out of the picture.

Hopefully Lohner, Turner, and Loveday no longer squat and take roster spots. Replace them with 1 or 2 portal players who can contribute immediately and a diamond in the rough willing to redshirt and develop.

Crawfoso1973 said:

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I hope Cryer and Bridges stay because they will be our alpha offensive players. I think Bridges has breakout potential to be an all-conference player and will be relied upon more offensively with Flag and especially Key out of the picture.

Hopefully Lohner, Turner, and Loveday no longer squat and take roster spots. Replace them with 1 or 2 portal players who can contribute immediately and a diamond in the rough willing to redshirt and develop.

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I don't think Bridges is cut out to be an alpha scorer, so we're going to need some guards to emerge around Cryer -- assuming he stays. Bridges is best IMO in the role he played throughout conference play as a really competent inside-outside threat who can provide some outside shooting and easy offense around the guards. I think he'll be overexposed offensively if asked to do too much, and we don't want that.

I'm hoping Love takes a big step forward next season. If he's finally fully healthy, he's probably our best bet to break out in 2023-24.

Why would Bridges transfer for the second time in two years after being an important part of the team?

Back in the fall Bridges looked like a 3 and D guy I would have agreed with you, but during conference play we saw glimpses of much, much more. He made some plays that made me say wow this is an NBA shooting guard. Instead of just shooting 3s he can floor the ball and get to the rim. With Key and Flagler departing I think he has the potential to take that next step.

bear2be2 said:

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Crawfoso1973 said:

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I hope Cryer and Bridges stay because they will be our alpha offensive players. I think Bridges has breakout potential to be an all-conference player and will be relied upon more offensively with Flag and especially Key out of the picture.

Hopefully Lohner, Turner, and Loveday no longer squat and take roster spots. Replace them with 1 or 2 portal players who can contribute immediately and a diamond in the rough willing to redshirt and develop.

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I'm hoping Love takes a big step forward next season. If he's finally fully healthy, he's probably our best bet to break out in 2023-24.

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I bet he does. Having an entire summer with the team will pay dividends (for Josh O too). He hasn't been playing at 100% all season and didn't even shed the brace til January or so. He'll be a different player for us next year.

Love and Cryer started together and were dynamic together in AAU. They have been looking forward to this opportunity for a long time.

Josh O will be recruited hard by others. I hope he has bought into our team and chooses to stay.

Crawfoso1973 said:

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Back in the fall Bridges looked like a 3 and D guy I would have agreed with you, but during conference play we saw glimpses of much, much more. He made some plays that made me say wow this is an NBA shooting guard. Instead of just shooting 3s he can floor the ball and get to the rim. With Key and Flagler departing I think he has the potential to take that next step.

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I think Bridges can become a 12-13 ppg guy and look good doing it. But if we're counting on him to be a No. 1 or 2 scoring option, we're likely going to be in trouble. I don't think his offensive game would play as well if he's the focal point of a defense, but I'd love to be wrong.

Hopefully, he'll be one of two or three guys that take a big step forward next season. We're going to need some guys to if we hope to maintain the level of play we've grown accustomed to in recent years.

Jon, Bonner, and possibly Cryer (school ramping NIL to get their last piece to a title team) makes sense. But Cryer has been waiting turn to showcase and next year would be it so with the right "re-recruiting" would think he stays.

Is there something with Bridges and Love we don't know? Bridges I guess you're thinking possibly NIL bc he's becoming a borderline prospect with that last 2 months of play. Hopefully not Love as he has great potential to be a foundation guy if he plays 2 more years.

Need most of those guys to make a run.

Big12Bear said:

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bear2be2 said:

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Crawfoso1973 said:

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I hope Cryer and Bridges stay because they will be our alpha offensive players. I think Bridges has breakout potential to be an all-conference player and will be relied upon more offensively with Flag and especially Key out of the picture.

Hopefully Lohner, Turner, and Loveday no longer squat and take roster spots. Replace them with 1 or 2 portal players who can contribute immediately and a diamond in the rough willing to redshirt and develop.

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I'm hoping Love takes a big step forward next season. If he's finally fully healthy, he's probably our best bet to break out in 2023-24.

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I bet he does. Having an entire summer with the team will pay dividends (for Josh O too). He hasn't been playing at 100% all season and didn't even shed the brace til January or so. He'll be a different player for us next year.

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I think it will help him just to have a more regular role, where he can play through some mistakes without having to worry about getting benched. It's hard to be that bench guy because your playing time is so often dependent on how well you play in short bursts. I think he'll be better in a role where he's allowed some leeway to play himself into a rhythm.

Love feels like he's set to make a huge jump scoring wise. He will be 2 years removed from ACL surgery and actually has a summer in the gym unlike last year

Bridges was already a 10 point scorer as the 4th option behind 3 extremely high usage starting guards. I don't think it's a stretch to see him move into a more prominent role offensively in the wake of Flagler and Key's departures.

I hope you are right about Love. He regressed in the few games before the eye injury effectively ended his season. Hard to know if he was still rounding into form or this is just the player he is. It usually is the 2nd year back from an ACL before we see a player's full recovery both physical and mental, so hopefully we see that out of him next year.

Crawfoso1973 said:

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Bridges was already a 10 point scorer as the 4th option behind 3 extremely high usage starting guards. I don't think it's a stretch to see him move into a more prominent role offensively in the wake of Flagler and Key's departures.

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I think he was a 10 ppg guy because he was the fourth option. He was able to sit out on the perimeter and be a catch-and-shoot guy, clean up misses for putbacks and drive the lane when he had a favorable matchup to do so. All those things get more difficult when you're one of the two or three guys the defense is keying on every possession.

I love Jalen Bridges and think he will be a huge part of next year's team. I just think he's better suited for a secondary or tertiary scoring role than a primary one. I think he'll shine if we can get three guards who can score 8-15 points on a consistent basis.

No. As I said, "guesses" based on each of them potentially having something that could sway them. Every team would have a list of these. Not just us. Could be NIL. Could be wanting to be closer to home. Could be looking for a new start. Could be issues with coaching staff or their role.

Off topic but Graham Ike (Wyoming) just entered the portal. Seems like a guy we could really use. I'm sure he will highly coveted

I think we are arguing about semantics. I don't mean Bridges will suddenly need to turn into a volume scorer like Keyonte. I just think he will have more opportunities to flourish with Key and Flagler out of the picture being replace by guards who are not as volume-oriented.

There has to be a donor out there that can come up with a six figure NIL deal for Flagler to come back one more year!!!

https://www.ourdailybears.com/baylor-basketball/2023/3/21/23648248/where-do-we-go-from-here-preliminary-musings-on-the-2023-24-baylor-mbb-team

These guys have a couple of different starting 5s for next year...one with Cryer staying, one without. They both are 99% sure Flagler is gone.

Bonner vs Grimes seems to be a big battle in the offseason if Bonner stays.

They think Cryer should stay: 'he wont get drafted'

I would be somewhat surprised if Bonner and Love both stay. Love might stay partially because he's been so oft injured that he hasn't been able to put much on tape for the portal - I also think he has a great chance to snag a starting role, but as we know that's often not enough to entice kids to stay when you have multiple high recruits en route.

A Cryer/Love/Walter/Little guard rotation has the potential to be real salty next year. I think Little's is a major piece we missed last year, and at least based on film he has the potential to be the best ball-handler and distributor we've had since Pierre.

I'm leaning more toward guys that can play defense. Can you rank the defensive abilities of Cryer, Bonner, Love, Grimes, Walter, Little? (Cryer last?)

As far as Walter and Little, I don't have enough of a read on them to say yet, although Walter in particular has a rep as all-action defensively. Of those returners Bonner is the only one on that list I'd rate as above average defensively, and it's not like he's Gary Payton either. As long as he's good being a 6th man (at best) here I'd love to keep him, I'm just not sure if that's what he wants. Offensively he's just not there.

And yes, Cryer definitely last on that list. We might as well roll out a tackling dummy after he hits his 3.

Married A Horn said:

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I'm leaning more toward guys that can play defense. Can you rank the defensive abilities of Cryer, Bonner, Love, Grimes, Walter, Little? (Cryer last?)

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Hard to do bc all but 2 are still in prove it at this level. Love not really fair to judge since coming off an injury so missed a lot of development in the program. Walter has the most potential due to size, length, mentality. Hard to say but order I see is.

Grimes
Walter
Bonner
Little
Love
Cryer

Little with more explosion work could move up and Walter with time could be great. Grimes only limitation is size which isn't so bad at the college level.

parch said:

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As far as Walter and Little, I don't have enough of a read on them to say yet, although Walter in particular has a rep as all-action defensively. Of those returners Bonner is the only one on that list I'd rate as above average defensively, and it's not like he's Gary Payton either. As long as he's good being a 6th man (at best) here I'd love to keep him, I'm just not sure if that's what he wants. Offensively he's just not there.

And yes, Cryer definitely last on that list. We might as well roll out a tackling dummy after he hits his 3.

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If Bonner could perform at the level he played the last six games offensively, he'd be fine as the No. 3 or 4 guard.

From the Texas game on, he averaged 8.5 points on .571/.583/.706 shooting with 2.5 assists, 1.2 turnovers and 1.2 steals in 24.2 minutes. Those averages would play all day every day in a third guard or sixth man role.

When Dale plays with confidence as he did down the stretch, he's got enough offense to be a legitimate contributor to a good Big 12 team. I'd love to see him do so for an entire season.

I keep toying around with the idea of moving Cryer to a 6th man role. Not so much a signal that defense cant be overlooked or anything, but the defense could be much stronger and if he comes off the bench it could be insta points.

Probably wont happen, but what do yall think of it?

He will be our top scorer and all conference, so no. We will have a stronger defensive team overall to hide his deficiencies on that end.

I really like Bonner but I wouldn't be surprised if he transfers. Looking at our roster I think he's the 5th or 6th guard. He might would rather be somewhere where he's guaranteed a larger role. Would love to wrong because he is a great bench guy to plug in and as he proved this year he will stay ready, won't pout, and is capable of giving us energy and grit.

Yeah my fault. Problems with running through it too quickly. I think your read on who could move is probably right.

Cryer is too good offensively to limit his minutes, so we're kind of stuck with his defense. It wouldn't be as big of a deal if we had a mid-sized banger making the paint more inhospitable, and at least one sticky guard who we can reliably task with the opp's top scorer.

Walter and Little will be big gets, but it doesn't address our lack of interior defense. Until we can punish teams after they get past the first line, we're not doing much in March.

I don't even think we even need a bruiser to punish teams who get in the paint. We need a forward who can switch and defend the perimeter, who can prevent teams from getting in the paint to begin with. Our natty year we had Vital and EJ who were both elite defenders who could guard 1-5. Their lateral quickness and perimeter D was what made them special. Those guys don't grow on trees obviously but I'm confident our staff is working the portal as I type this.

Is it safe to say that, at this point, not even CSD knows who the starters will be for next year?