Wright is our only true point guard.

He needs to play 30 plus minutes a game and that requires starting.

He's sitting at 25 minutes a game which for now seems about right. He makes his share of freshman mistakes but I do think he's special. He will keep getting better and better as the season progresses.

BUCANDOIT82 said:

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He needs to play 30 plus minutes a game and that requires starting.

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Tune in Wednesday afternoon and again in Storrs. You'll be a very happy camper.

I'm planning on attending the Wednesday game, so I could be very happy.

Love me some RW lll double figures every game off bench ,,..

At Connecticut…I believe this debate is over. He needs to start and get 32 plus minutes per night.

You better call Drew and let him know your imaginary debate is over

Wright comes off the bench so we can somewhat stagger Roach and Wright's minutes since they are the only guys who can play PG. Whether or not he is starting Wright will play starter's minutes moving forward. He got 33 minutes vs. Uconn and I think he will keep getting those minutes. He's already our best player behind Omier. I think we will start playing more small ball lineups and Josh O will start losing minutes once we get everyone healthy.

Yep. Agree. I wonder if Drew and the staff thought that Asemota was gonna be a little bit more ready when he got to campus than he ended up being, and when he wasn't we were basically stuck with 2 front court guys (1 of which is more of a situation player being thrown into playing more minutes than he probably should) and then a pretty small overall lineup otherwise although the 8 pieces are good when all are healthy. Small ball will likely work against a portion of the Big 12.

I agree, I think the staff probably expected to get something from Asemota. That said, I think Celestine was the biggest swing and miss. Celestine was recruited as the Bridges replacement to play the 4. Huge miscalculation. Celistine plays small and is only a streaky 3 point specialist who contributes nothing else when his 3 isn't falling.

Yeah, my fear with Celestine is that he does really well against lower competition and then is really streaky versus higher level comp, which is basically what he did at Cal. Looking at the numbers he basically didn't provide much offense against Arkansas, Gonzaga, Tennessee or UConn going 4-18 from 3, but feasted on Tarleton and Sam Houston. The anomaly appears to be St. Johns, where he played really well. I was hoping we could count on him as an instant offense guy off the bench. We couldn't afford for him to lay an egg like he did last night. And I haven't checked the individual defensive efficiency ratings yet but I don't think his will be very high either.

Bridges was hugely underrated especially what he did for us on the defensive end with his length and ability to get deflections. We whiffed big time as far as replacing him with Asemota and Celestine. The inability to replace Bridges is essentially what is forcing us to play Josh so much. Josh should only be getting around 1o minutes a game directly behind Omier.

Bridges wasn't on last year's team. Missi was.

We don't have any more meaningful games until the start of conference. They could start me the first four minutes and still blow out the teams between now and then.

BUCANDOIT82 said:

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Bridges wasn't on last year's team. Missi was.

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Ummm....yes he was.

Whoops…My bad…Bridges was on last year's team. We replaced him with Orchad.

Anytime Wright is on the floor, Omier needs to be out there with him. Those two seem to have a chemistry

BUCANDOIT82 said:

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Whoops…My bad…Bridges was on last year's team. We replaced him with Orchad.

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No problem. But I kinda view it as replacing Missi with Norchad and Bridges with Celestine. The Bridges replacement was a big miss.

Crawfoso1973 said:

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BUCANDOIT82 said:

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Whoops…My bad…Bridges was on last year's team. We replaced him with Orchad.

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No problem. But I kinda view it as replacing Missi with Norchad and Bridges with Celestine. The Bridges replacement was a big miss.

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If Celestine was recruited as Bridges' replacement, someone didn't do enough scouting. Celestine has always been a tall guard -- on both sides of the floor.

He may have front court height, but he is absolutely not a front court player.

It still floors me that our staff thought this roster had enough in the front court.

We're one injury away from fielding our worst team in more than a decade. And all this talk about a four-guard lineup solves nothing IMO.

I think they were hoping one of Celestine or Asemota would replace Bridges. It was a disastrous miscalculation.

bear2be2 said:

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Crawfoso1973 said:

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BUCANDOIT82 said:

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Whoops…My bad…Bridges was on last year's team. We replaced him with Orchad.

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No problem. But I kinda view it as replacing Missi with Norchad and Bridges with Celestine. The Bridges replacement was a big miss.

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If Celestine was recruited as Bridges' replacement, someone didn't do enough scouting. Celestine has always been a tall guard -- on both sides of the floor.

He may have front court height, but he is absolutely not a front court player.

It still floors me that our staff thought this roster had enough in the front court.

We're one injury away from fielding our worst team in more than a decade. And all this talk about a four-guard lineup solves nothing IMO.

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It was a gamble on him being undervalued being two years off major injury. They thought they could develop his rebounding / defense but it hasn't happened and like you said.. its not his game.

The bet on Josh also looks poor right now. It hasn't worked so far. Toppin at NM would have been a great target. They tapped out on the market for Hawkins (rightfully so) but Toppin could have been swung. The unexpected guys leaving after 1 year and the 4+ guys we carried on the roster that never developed basically shot the system. Needed to be resolved about a year ago and just never happened.

Someone explain the Yanis situation to me. We signed him in 2023. It was sold at that time that he would need to redshirt because of an ACL injury but he would eventually be counted on as a proven PF who was a good defender and rebounder, which is what we need in a reserve role right now if Asemota isn't the answer. He's 18-24 months from his injury and he's basically not even dressing out. Did we sign someone who had a knee injury as bad or worse than EJ's? What's up with that?

bear2be2 said:

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Crawfoso1973 said:

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BUCANDOIT82 said:

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Whoops…My bad…Bridges was on last year's team. We replaced him with Orchad.

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No problem. But I kinda view it as replacing Missi with Norchad and Bridges with Celestine. The Bridges replacement was a big miss.

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If Celestine was recruited as Bridges' replacement, someone didn't do enough scouting. Celestine has always been a tall guard -- on both sides of the floor.

He may have front court height, but he is absolutely not a front court player.

It still floors me that our staff thought this roster had enough in the front court.

We're one injury away from fielding our worst team in more than a decade. And all this talk about a four-guard lineup solves nothing IMO.

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It does require 4 healthy guards, which we currently lack. But it will work if we get back to 5 guards.

Wright may turn out to be a Missi freshman. Not forecasted to enter the draft but trending in that direction.

Bumping this post back to the top of the board. We need to turn the offense over to Wright, move Roach to the 2 guard, and bench Nunn. Wright plays point guard when he and Roach are in the game together and Roach plays the 2 guard already. It's just allocating the most minutes to the best players. This team is 3-1 in Conference play and well positioned to finish in the top 4 in the League and get a high NCAA Tournament seed. We keep wasting the beginning of both half's by sitting Wrght.

Today's a weird day to bump this one. Wright played one of his worst games of the year last night and was benched for the entirety of overtime due to his inability to take care of the basketball.

He's a good player and will likely be a great one before it's all said and done. And I agree that he's by far our most natural point guard. But he's still got things to work through himself before he can be a guy we can consistently count on to lead the offense in crunch time.

I love the kid, and when he's good, he's really good. But he's thrown out some stinkers lately too.

Can you asses Nunn?

Wright is good but he almost blew the game last night. Had several TOs in key moments. Az St was agressive but they aren't special on that end. I don't love our spacing and press break execution but Wright struggled individually. Young and expected.. but have to cut down. Doesn't help that Nunn and VJ have pretty loose handles so they can key in on Rob and Jeremy.

Wright did have a bad turnover late in the game. He's better right now than Nunn or Roach and should start.

BUCANDOIT82 said:

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Wright may turn out to be a Missi freshman. Not forecasted to enter the draft but trending in that direction.

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I don't think I'm revising history, but everyone knew from the beginning of last year that Missi was only staying one year.

BUCANDOIT82 said:

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Wright did have a bad turnover late in the game. He's better right now than Nunn or Roach and should start.

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Again, I am not sure why you are so obsessed with who starts or who is "benched." We only have a 7-8 man rotation, so our rotation guys will all play all the minutes they can handle.

BUCANDOIT82 said:

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Can you asses Nunn?

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Nunn is a good, not great, two guard who happens to be the only healthy player on this roster who is a consistent threat to hit a 3-pointer at the moment.

He's also an active, albeit inconsistent defender.

He's a better player than he's given credit for being by some here but not dynamic enough to be a No. 1 or 2 scoring option on a good team.

But we knew all of this before the season. Nunn is doing exactly what anyone who watched him last year would expect him to do.

It's Roach who needs to up his game. He was brought in to be an impact player, and he has only occasionally been so this year. For this team to reach its potential, it needs Roach and Omier to be consistent sources of leadership and, especially, production. Omier brings it every night. We need Roach to do the same.