And no one would call those teams deep. We've been talking all year about Kansas' lack of depth while fielding a similar roster -- in terms of the number of productive players -- since Grimes left.Quinton said:Again, it is a fact that there are better teams than ours much more dependent on one or two players. This is fleshed out in any impact metric you want to use. Im a critic of some of the analytics at times, but since everyone references them they point to it very clearly. Yes, Im not interested in searching them out so yall can have it.bear2be2 said:There aren't many contending teams with no backup point guard and one playable forward. Those are roster holes that we've managed to overcome because RayJ and Bridges have stayed healthy and been really effective. But those are fairly unique roster holes for a team in our current position.Quinton said:bear2be2 said:We can afford to lose Love because we have other players who can score. We have one player on our entire roster who can facilitate an offense (RayJ) and one competent forward (Bridges). If we lost either, we'd be utterly screwed.Quinton said:bear2be2 said:The problem is starters have sit at some point. And RayJ and Bridges both have key and irreplaceable skill sets. Our offense grinds to a halt without RayJ because all of those other players capable of going off depend on his playmaking ability to do so. And Bridges is the only playable forward on our roster, so every time he sits, we're playing four on five for those minutes.Quinton said:Hotsauce said:
We have 6 guys averaging double figures in points, and 5 of those are competent three-point shooters (three of those are over 40%).
This is the answer to the question. This team has 6 guys on any given night that can put up 20+. That isn't a stretch.
With Nunn's emergence, we have 6 when you include Love. So while we don't have 9 D1 bodies, we have one of the deepest groups of guys who can go off. Unfortunately it hasn't happened at once but other than maybe UConn and Kentucky, haven't seen a team capable of that.
We have a really talented starting five, but depth matters because those guys have to rest at some point, and our offensive capabilities take a cliff dive when they do.
We're answering different questions. He was asking why they were considered deep. That's one of the reasons. The depth of talent that only probably two teams have.
I fully understand this isn't the most common def of deep. Still applies. I didn't say we are deep in the sense that we have 8+ guys that can go bc it's not the case.
Most teams have a player or two they can't afford to lose although I don't completely agree with you description of our untouchables.
Losing our second/ third best player for a month and not tanking proves we have depth of talent not necessarily depth of 10 deep bodies.
Not unique to other teams and not even as much as several better teams around the country. Purdue and Houston are I believe the most one player dependent teams in the country based on the metrics this board loves to site. Only UConn is "deep" if we're going on this standard.
I agree Dennis makes things happen and plays guys open. His pick and roll play is high level and gets things going. He passes guys open and is skilled playing his pace. No doubt.. team is still has a depth of guys who can really go in comparison to almost everyone else. Which makes them more frustrating but still dangerous.
Our depth everywhere else is fine. But we're an injury to one of those two away from seeing a completely different -- and much worse -- team on the court.
So if a contending team has a back up scrub pg or center.. cool. Watch that depth play and the team completely sink. That is the point. You could play Nunn (like he's playing now) and while a large dropoff would occur.. it would be less than if Purdue or Houston lost their top two guys.. (maybe not Purdue if Edey is still there but it would be close).
Our team has a really good starting five. It's not particularly deep. Without Love, our bench is really, really weak.