I'll wait to see who yall pick but thinking
Lane
Isaacs
Griffen
Mgbapo
Federiko

Tbh I wouldn't mind Agee starting.

MarcAg said:

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Why do you assume the roster is set? I would be shocked if it's set. It might not be huge pickups, but I expect we will bring in some more players.

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You know that thing I do when I try to will something into existence by saying something is no longer in question?

Method Man said:

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I'll wait to see who yall pick but thinking
Lane
Isaacs
Griffen
Mgbapo
Federiko

Tbh I wouldn't mind Agee starting.

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Pop Isaacs 6'2"
Marcus Hill 6'4"
Griffin 6'6"
Mgbapo 6'9"
Federiko 6'11"

Hill has better size than Lane and has demonstrated good production in a power conference at NC State (see his game log from last season below). see Lane more as an important rotation guard coming off bench.

https://basketball.realgm.com/player/Marcus-Hill/GameLogs/194377

Federiko is listed at 6'11"

yea I think Hill and Agee could've started for us last season at the 3/4

tho Hill/Lane may depend more on Isaac's ability to handle primary point

Since we're definitely done and there's absolutely no way we're going to bring in anyone else noteworthy...

I think there's some philosophical wild cards that make this a little hard to predict, but I imagine our best five is definitely going to include Isaacs, Griffen and Mgbako for sure. Probably Federiko as well but I kind of envision us going small a lot of the time, especially if Mgbako and Agee can defend size at all. If Agee can defend size then my guess at our best five would be Isaacs, Hill, Griffen, Mgbako, Agee.

I like Federiko but Agee is more versatile. His clips remind me a little bit of a Jalen Jones type of player who is up there with our all-time most underrated players.

But by philosophical wild cards I mean if we're really going to press the whole time come hell or high water then it would seem to be to our advantage to hold back a couple of our high usage players so there's not as much drop off, especially guards.

Isaacs, Griffin and Mgbako are probably going to be really high usage players, so it might make sense to start someone who isn't alongside them and hold back someone else who is for that second wave.

This is going to be fun to watch come together though. We've got a lot of guys that want to go get buckets in a system that's all about getting buckets.At this point I'm actually pretty confident that we're going to be really good on offense, I just don't know if we're going to be able to guard anyone.

This may have already been answered, but how often does Bucky substitute?

Interesting question, I'm not sure how you'd find good data on that. You can easily see that the bench plays a lot of minutes. 10 guys averaged over 10 minutes a game and only one played more than 25 minutes. The year before 10 guys played over 12 minutes a game and only one played more than 23. (in both seasons the heavy minutes player was Rylan Jones)

But you'd probably have to dig into the actual play by play data to see how often guys were going in and out.

One would hope that with an active full court press one uses a hockey rotation to keep legs fresh??? I mean…that sounds extreme but…

I love the idea of having 5 shooters on the floor.

Lane
Isaacs
Griffen
Mgbako
Agee

That might be something never before seen in Aggie basketball.

I also don't love the idea of giving up easy buckets when pressing. That's where Federico is super valuable.

Even if they break it, make sure they shoot a sped up 3 or a pull up on the run...those are tough shots. You just can't give up easy buckets at the rim. I suspect federiko can distract shots at the bucket pretty well.

Watching highlights makes me think the longhorn transfer might also be able to play that backstop role.

My guess

Lane
Isaacs
Griffen
Mgbako
Federiko

5-6 min in Subs:
Agee for federiko
Hill for Griffen
Holloway for lane

Next subs (2 best players need rest too)
Hinson for Mgbako
Lane back in for pop

Not sure about clemence. Prolly need to squeeze him in, and I think he can help offensively. Problem might be defensively where he's not as good protecting the rim and can't really stay in front of guys on the sing.

Yeah I kinda like Vinson as a project. Don't know that we can expect a lot from him next year necessarily but he's got some intriguing tools.

Isaacs
griffen
Mgbako
Agee
Federiko

Bench:

Lane
Hill
Holloway
Whoever is better between Clemence and Vinson


McDermott
Green


I like idea of a bigger starting 5 and then you can play bigger or smaller matchups if needed. Hill would be my 6th man and I do like Lane's game but want to see it translate to the SEC

Pressing things

Federiko never goes above the volleyball line. We'll give up the pull up on the run but not straight line to the rim.

Backside wing has to work extremely hard to prevent true 2 on 1 when we get beat…and we will get beat off the dribble extending the defense against any self respecting team. Backside wing has to somehow get some kind of piece of the ball or distract the 2 on 1.

Rotating more players more often can lead to more team wide buy in and excitement if you're doing it well. You play for shorter spans at a faster pace, but everybody has to be flying the entire time they're in the floor or else forget it.

If they play the system that all of Bucky's former players say they will play you have to have at least 10-11 guys playing 10 mins + imo and that's what his past teams stats suggest. To me if you get key guys playing significantly more than 25 mpg in that sort of system they are going to get fatigued and that leads to low shooting % and probably less than optimal defensive pressure.

I think a lot of it is going to come down to how good of defenders Griffen and Mgbako can be in space and I don't think we have any way to really see that yet because of the systems they previously played in.

At least one of them is going to need to be really good or else they're going to be hard to play together.

I like size too but starting Agee, Mgbako and federiko scares me with defending the dribble. That's a lot of big guys trying to stay in front of the ball.

There's no question the bench is going to play a lot, I think the question is more whether we'll see more of a line-change-esque system with groups of players or just constantly rotating one or two guys in and out for short stints at most dead balls.

Of yeah and I forgot Griffen.

If u have Griffen, Mgbako, Agee and federiko on the floor at the same time that's a whole bunch of long guys trying to defend the perimeter.

I don't think that would work very long at all unless they're all solo types. And they're not.

I'd be willing to bet it will be 2-3 at a time.
Playing that style effectively will have guys wanting a break.

From what I've seen they did some exotic stuff on the press but once they fall back into the half court Samford tended to run a much more traditional man to man defense. So it's not like we're going to be asking Federiko or Agee to guard point guards in the half court like Buzz's system did sometimes.

But staying in front of the ball is a potential concern against smaller teams for sure.

Though there's potentially a trade off there that we'd take if they can't guard us either. If they're blowing by us and getting to the basket but we're raining threes over the top of them we'll probably live with it.

But that's obviously a huge mentality shift from what we're used to.

Our bigger guys on the perimeter are going to have to learn how to back up half a step to lessen getting beat off the dribble while hopefully being long enough to still distract jumpers.

That's something that frustrated the heck out of me w Payne fouling so much on the perimeter this year. I kept yelling at the tv for him to back up, give him some room, then use your size to distract the shot

I went back and looked at the Basketball portal thread Luke did on the Premium forum and I definitely he has got it.

Quote:

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Here's how I see the roster shaking out so far with a ton of flexibility with guys like Agee who can play the 4 or 5 and Mgbako who can play the 3 or 4.

Back court:
Starting guards: Pop Isaacs, Marcus Hill
Starting wing: Rylan Griffin
Back court depth: Jacari Lane, Josh Holloway (I could see Jacari Lane starting, but I like Hill there for now with his Power Five experience)
Limited role: Jeremiah Green

Front court:
Starting big: Mackenzie Mgbako
Starting center: Federiko Federiko / Rashaun Agee (I can't pick at the moment, but both will play a ton)
Front court depth: Jamie Vinson, Zach Clemence
Limited role: Chris McDermott

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So, I am going

Isaacs
Hill
Griffin
Mgbako
Fede Fede

I went Fede Fede over Agee b/c he is so much better at defending with his length and he shoots at a much higher level (FG % at 74) and can step out and hit a 3

Quote:

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I went Fede Fede over Agee b/c he is so much better at defending with his length and he shoots at a much higher level (FG % at 74) and can step out and hit a 3

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Federiko has never even attempted a three in a college game and his percentage is 74% because about 94% of his shots are at the rim. Per the pbp stats on Torvik he only even attempted 6 shots that weren't at the rim all of last season and three of them were in the same game.

Which is fine, not everyone needs to step out and make it rain.

The good thing is that a player like Agee makes you really flexible. If we're scoring just fine and need rim protection then Federiko is the play, if we need more scoring options then Agee is the play. Agee at the five (theoretically...) makes us extremely hard to guard, but you're giving up a little bit defensively.

taylorswift13_ said:

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Jinx us again Method Man

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You're welcome

He's trying to get Bucky to reveal his whole hand,