With Aidoo off the board, we're not looking at a 20+ mpg big out of the portal anymore. Aidoo was the last forward available who could have radically knocked our starting 5 look off the trajectory it was on based on the guys we now have.
Which means this lineup is starting to look a lot more like the 2009/2021 teams, the two most prominent Drew groups where you had four guards (Jerrells/Dugat/Lace/Tweety in '09, Teague/Butler/Flagler/Mitchell in '21) decidedly in the top 5 of team mpg over the course of the year. Obviously in one scenario this is a very good thing, but our roster is much thinner in the frontcourt than the best of those, which is not out of line to observe at this point.
I think you'll see a lot of similar rotations where Josh O starts in the same way Flo did and get to 14-16 mpg average and give way to Roach, VJ, Nunn and Love (in a best case scenario vis-a-vis Love's health, Wright will be in the mix as well) as the other top four minutes-getters on average. Which means, barring something unexpected in the portal, which is still nominally possible but not to any massive degree anymore, we're looking at more of Drew's 4-man guard lineups. Based on Drew's past and our roster construction, I think this is absolutely inevitable, and on the continuum I think this will be among the most guard-based starting 5's he's fielded. Which is saying something.
This is not an inherent negative, but it isn't an inherent positive either.
The reason this worked in the natty year and didn't work in '09, to say nothing of the talent difference, is because you had Vital (the only non-guard getting starter minutes) and EJ off the bench giving you nuclear post energy rotating nonstop throughout games. Kevin Rogers was an effective pull-up post guy, but he was not giving you that low-post rage we got in '21, and Acy was still a true frosh, hence the difference in results. Guard-heavy can work, but it needs a really energetic, experienced, mean gardener in the frontcourt to make it grow.
Aidoo would've given you that. I'm struggling to see where it's coming from now. Josh O has improved a lot, but he has more Flo energy than a Vital or Acy or Gathers. Boyed decommitted. I don't see any way Missi withdraws his name from the draft. Even if Bridges did come back, he's definitely not that guy. Lohner showed painfully few flashes of being that guy, but he wasn't and now he's gone anyway. Then you have a very green Asemota, who from what I can tell from his tape is more of a Bridges/slasher-scorer type and not that high-motor low-post garbage banger. Beyond that, you're hoping to get an unexpected lightning bolt from the portal out of nowhere, or something out of someone who's never contributed in any significant way in that role before.
We'll see what the rest of the portal has to give, but at this point I would be shocked if you don't see a 5-guard setup at points throughout the year, which is not normal but also not unprecedented for Drew. On balance we're going to be among the top 10 most talented teams in the country next year and should expect another high seed in March, but we're going to be extremely imbalanced across our roster and barring something unexpected it'll be up to our backcourt to pick up interior slack with undersized low-post energy.
Which means this lineup is starting to look a lot more like the 2009/2021 teams, the two most prominent Drew groups where you had four guards (Jerrells/Dugat/Lace/Tweety in '09, Teague/Butler/Flagler/Mitchell in '21) decidedly in the top 5 of team mpg over the course of the year. Obviously in one scenario this is a very good thing, but our roster is much thinner in the frontcourt than the best of those, which is not out of line to observe at this point.
I think you'll see a lot of similar rotations where Josh O starts in the same way Flo did and get to 14-16 mpg average and give way to Roach, VJ, Nunn and Love (in a best case scenario vis-a-vis Love's health, Wright will be in the mix as well) as the other top four minutes-getters on average. Which means, barring something unexpected in the portal, which is still nominally possible but not to any massive degree anymore, we're looking at more of Drew's 4-man guard lineups. Based on Drew's past and our roster construction, I think this is absolutely inevitable, and on the continuum I think this will be among the most guard-based starting 5's he's fielded. Which is saying something.
This is not an inherent negative, but it isn't an inherent positive either.
The reason this worked in the natty year and didn't work in '09, to say nothing of the talent difference, is because you had Vital (the only non-guard getting starter minutes) and EJ off the bench giving you nuclear post energy rotating nonstop throughout games. Kevin Rogers was an effective pull-up post guy, but he was not giving you that low-post rage we got in '21, and Acy was still a true frosh, hence the difference in results. Guard-heavy can work, but it needs a really energetic, experienced, mean gardener in the frontcourt to make it grow.
Aidoo would've given you that. I'm struggling to see where it's coming from now. Josh O has improved a lot, but he has more Flo energy than a Vital or Acy or Gathers. Boyed decommitted. I don't see any way Missi withdraws his name from the draft. Even if Bridges did come back, he's definitely not that guy. Lohner showed painfully few flashes of being that guy, but he wasn't and now he's gone anyway. Then you have a very green Asemota, who from what I can tell from his tape is more of a Bridges/slasher-scorer type and not that high-motor low-post garbage banger. Beyond that, you're hoping to get an unexpected lightning bolt from the portal out of nowhere, or something out of someone who's never contributed in any significant way in that role before.
We'll see what the rest of the portal has to give, but at this point I would be shocked if you don't see a 5-guard setup at points throughout the year, which is not normal but also not unprecedented for Drew. On balance we're going to be among the top 10 most talented teams in the country next year and should expect another high seed in March, but we're going to be extremely imbalanced across our roster and barring something unexpected it'll be up to our backcourt to pick up interior slack with undersized low-post energy.