He played the starters way too many minutes. Norchad had 41 minutes, Roach had 44, Edgecome had 36 on one and a half legs. Ojianwuna only had 17, Wright, one of the stars had 28, and Love had 15. The starters were gassed in the second overtime. Their legs were gone. Norchad even missed two free throughs. They have an other game in 24 hours. The players were fantastic and they gutted it out but that was way too many minutes to play with another game a day later.

Crawfoso1973 said:

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I don't know what you expected Drew to do any differently. We don't win if he doesn't play those guys the minutes he gave them. We don't have any depth after our top 8 guys. The rest of our rotation is basically walks ons and practice players, not rotation-caliber players. We have an 8 man rotation, this is one of the few times depth will be a problem for us. We will be gassed tonight but it won't matter when we get to the NCAAs because we will have at least 48 hours between games.

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Asemota is six eight and a high four star player. He had two threes in the last game and got no minutes. He could have given some minutes when Norchad was out and Ojianwuna in. Ojianwuna is better than 17 minutes. Wright could have gotten more minutes earlier in the game. Love could have given more than 15 minutes. The players were shot. They gave us a real gut check late but still have another game today.

Asemota appears to be more of a project. Maybe he will be ready later in the season but not yet. And I trust our staff to know if he is ready for rotation minutes since they work with him every day.

chorne68 said:

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Crawfoso1973 said:

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I don't know what you expected Drew to do any differently. We don't win if he doesn't play those guys the minutes he gave them. We don't have any depth after our top 8 guys. The rest of our rotation is basically walks ons and practice players, not rotation-caliber players. We have an 8 man rotation, this is one of the few times depth will be a problem for us. We will be gassed tonight but it won't matter when we get to the NCAAs because we will have at least 48 hours between games.

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Asemota is six eight and a high four star player. He had two threes in the last game and got no minutes. He could have given some minutes when Norchad was out and Ojianwuna in. Ojianwuna is better than 17 minutes. Wright could have gotten more minutes earlier in the game. Love could have given more than 15 minutes. The players were shot. They gave us a real gut check late but still have another game today.

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Wasn't the last game against Sam Houston State? Not exactly a ringing endorsement that Asemota is ready to play a top-half of the conference Big East team. Sheesh. touch grass.

That was one of the more physical front lines we will see this year and it was evident from the onset the refs were going to allow it to be a physical game. Josh was getting manhandled physically and contributing nothing as he lacks physicality and his skills haven't developed as much over the summer as I had hoped they would and I'm sure as much as the coaching staff had hoped they would. Asemota is physically weaker than Josh. He would have been tossed around like a rag doll, although I do agree with your statement that it made no sense not to get him more PT with the regular rotation guys in those mop up games against Sam Houston and Tarleton because he will be needed some nights this year when we run into a set a refs who call touch fouls all night and we get in foul trouble. Drew's only option was to try and use Celestine as much as he could because he actually has some physicality to him.

Go back and look at the stats of the St. Johns front line. They basically would have totally dominated had it not been for Norchad, who I said in the game thread put on one of the most impressive games I've seen in a Baylor uni as he fought through 3 big, physical guys all night and managed to score, rebound and defend.

I don't know how you divide the minutes any better than Drew did last night if the goal was to win. We weren't winning that game if Josh and Asemota played big minutes. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are saying and you're saying the value of getting them experience through minutes is better than the value of winning that game?

chorne68 said:

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Crawfoso1973 said:

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I don't know what you expected Drew to do any differently. We don't win if he doesn't play those guys the minutes he gave them. We don't have any depth after our top 8 guys. The rest of our rotation is basically walks ons and practice players, not rotation-caliber players. We have an 8 man rotation, this is one of the few times depth will be a problem for us. We will be gassed tonight but it won't matter when we get to the NCAAs because we will have at least 48 hours between games.

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Asemota is six eight and a high four star player. He had two threes in the last game and got no minutes. He could have given some minutes when Norchad was out and Ojianwuna in. Ojianwuna is better than 17 minutes. Wright could have gotten more minutes earlier in the game. Love could have given more than 15 minutes. The players were shot. They gave us a real gut check late but still have another game today.

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Here's the problem.

Love is an injured mess he can't give minutes his ankle might further implode.

Ojianwuna is unfortunately not a better than 17 minutes player, our once great reputation for developing big men clearly was an assistant coach who left at some point (who I'm not sure).

Asemota probably should be getting more minutes but I'm inclined to trust Drew that he isn't good enough to earn them - that's a recruiting problem that drew didn't address the need at that position, not a minutes of how we're playing guys problem.

What do you expect minutes to look like in a double OT game, sure as heck my best players better be over 40.

The Bears bench played 75 minutes while BC bench played 68 minutes. Luckily Love was available for 15 of those 75 bench minutes. Everyone … especially the players need to get used to an 8 man rotation because that is what is going to be required. We will need to ride Norchad hard once B12 play begins .. he will play 35 to 40 minutes per game unless he is in foul trouble or we have a comfortable lead. We need to get into game shape now. We have what I consider an easy win after the game tonight which should allow the back up guys some playing time before UConn then we have 3 what should be easy wins to find tune things and allow some of support guys an opportunity to play while the starters get a break.

If you want to win these top tier games you must test and stretch your primary rotation. It is not going to get any easier once the league starts. This team is very young from a chemistry perspective the more time they have together in these high pressure situations the better they should perform in league play.

The coaching staff knows what they are trying to accomplish. They want to battle test these guys to show them what it is going to be like night in night out once we hit the court on Dec 31th against Utah.