Right now, the staff has not committed to allowing the best 6 to 7 players to play on the court, so they can get cohesion and used to how the others will anticipate plays happening.
The starting backcourt I envisioned after the portal additions and subtractions was.
Dylan Harper
Tyson Acuff
Ace Bailey
Dylan Grant
Lathan Sommerville
1st guard off the bench, JWill
2nd guard off the bench, Derkack
3rd guard off the bench, JMike
1st forward off the bench, Bryce Dortch
2nd forward off the bench, Martini
1st big man off bench-Ogbole
Hybrid forward/guard in specific situations PJ Hayes.
There are limited options to play well, because the guards are not good shooters or playmakers outside of Harper and Acuff.....JWill passes up more open shots than Mulcahy did, which is hard to do.
In terms of Derkack, he is the one player who should actually shoot open corner 3s....he keeps turning those shots down and driving into baseline, looking for foul calls and the refs have adjusted and refuse to call the fouls when Derkack is driving. It's almost as if the refs have been asked to swallow the whistle.....he is most negatively impacted by his inability to hit perimeter shots, so the drives are less frequent and don't appear to be bail out calls to send him to the line.
Ironically, the only path to success this year, is to burn Dortchs redshirt and commit to finding another wing defender and length guy, that can help on screen and rolls....it is a LOT to ask Bryce Dortch to climb over screens and alter a shot attempt of a Braden Smith, or John Blackwell (Wisconsin), John Tonje (Wisconsin).....we just started playing Grant and there should be TWO options to defend from the wing and paint, to help Dylan and Ace.
if you split 40 minutes of time between Dortch and Grant, I feel fairly certain we can find 12 to 13PPG and 8 rebounds between those two freshman.
16 PPG Bailey (14 shots)
16 PPG Harper (12 shots)
12 PPG Acuff (12 shots)
7 PPG Grant (6 shots)
7 PPG Sommerville (6 shots)
6 PPG Dortch (5 shots)
5 PPG (JWill/Derkack (6 shots)
3 PPG JMike/Ogbole/Hayes/Martini(5 shots)
RU is averaging around 65 shots a game, but the biggest problem isn't talent.....the rebounding and defense are issues....right now, it's empty possessions because of turnovers.
Derkack arrived with a HIGH turnover track record and that's translated exactly as it did at Merrimack.....JMike is not a shooter or playmaker, he's more of a bring the ball up and hope the defense makes a mistake if he drives to the hoop.....while being a below average FT shooter, it's difficult to find a solution by playing Derkack and JMike major minutes.
The ONLY option at this stage is to play Dortch and ask him to harass opposing guards like Loyer, Tonje and let him play on the wing as a guard. He has "some" guard tendencies on tape and if you're going to suffer with poor shooting, you might as well get better length and size on the perimeter and let Dortch play defense like Caleb McConnell did.
The 5 freshman will cut down on perimeter shots by opponents, help clean the glass and offer some offensive rebounding and size.
Anything short of 70 minutes from Dortch, Grant and Sommerville is a no chance to win formula on either end of the court, scoring, rebounding and defense.
Commit to these 5 freshman the rest of January and the results will be much more cohesive on defense and allow Acuff to find more shots and passing opportunities.....he has found Grant on lobs and dunks, two straight games, just on a simple curl to the foul line. If you add Dortch as an option on the court, they can find easy layups or shots at the rim.
