what am I talking about ? the guys you mention are tall. that’s not what a rim protector is. they don’t aggressively challenge shots or intimidate. Cliff was a rim protector.
Goldin and Wolf are not that. No one on Iowa, Illinois or Wisky are that. Less so Goldin, but all these teams have mobile bigs who can run, pass and shoot.
That’s what we need. Our bigs are stationary clods who can’t do any of those things.
Iowa stinks. So please don’t mention them as if they are a role model for anything this season.
Your interpreting the term “rim protection” way too technically. When your average fan on here mentions it, they simply mean that we lack a big physical body down low who consistently plays solid help defense in the post to prevent easy baskets “close to the rim”. Ace is actually the closest we have to this, but he’s a frosh. If he played college ball for 3 more years he could likely be groomed into an elite post defender. But he’ll be busy making millions in the NBA instead.
Lathan just isn’t a physical style player. It’s obvious from watching him whereas the second you watched MJ as a redshirt frosh you knew he had what Lathan lacks. No amount of development is going to make Lathan tough like that on D. So if he’s our starting center that will likely mean we’re pretty bad again on D.
