The best way to look at 2025-26, is to determine what players play hard......defend and rebound, irregardless of the score on the scoreboard.
The other "factors", that I believe fans can take as a different approach is to ask yourself......
What does the team have an ability to duplicate or do, each and every possession on offense and defense on a consistent basis.
To me, rebounding at the PF and SF position should be as good as last year, despite losing Ace Bailey......Martini is not a rebounding forward and we had too many specialized players who didnt generate defense or stops/rebounds (Martini, Hayes, Derkack and lesser extent Acuff and Sommerville).
Buchanan, Nwuli, Grant and Dortch all can generate rebounds or limit teams to one shot attempt....Add in Baye Fall and Ogbole with Ware and there's literally no excuse to not rebound well this year. If RU limits 2nd shots, the chance of winning goes up much more.
The logic breakdown of Lion doesn't outline what happens if our opponent focuses 1st on Grant, 2nd on Zrno.......that means their individual stat lines may not improve......
It is a flawed and irrelevant way to measure success in basketball, by using metrics or stats that dont matter.
What does matter more is that the 3rd best player and the 9th best players can potentially change on a week to week basis.
What does that "pecking order" look like is why I dont care specifically about individual results for 2025-26......more importantly is finding out who can accept a role AND continue to work, grind and improve.
My guess on tape and knowing what I see and less of what someone else tells me is that Nwuli, Mark, Powers, Zrno and Baye Fall are probably the players in their 1st year at RU, that improve the most from June to November......still TBD in Badalau, until I see or hear more.
The other 2 building blocks are Buchanan and Grant. They are best suited in the 25MPG range, where I think they can provide 8 to 10PPG each, without having to do too much. I feel safe saying they'll both be the most impactful glass-eaters and leaders of hustle plays......who else likely joins that group (my guess is Lino Mark, JMike Davis and Kaden Powers)......will determine a lot.
Throw the stat lines out......this is about who wants minutes by defending and rebounding 1st.....the more you defend, the more minutes you pkay.......the more minutes you play good defense, the ball finds you and then points happen.
It is kinda difficult for fans to digest understanding basketball in reverse of thinking defense and rebounding 1st, then scoring or shooting percentages 2nd and 3rd......whomever rebounds and defends, is more likely to play and generate wins.......worry about stats and metrics in 2026-27, when we have a much different perspective of incoming pieces......
If this team rebounds the way I think it should, it will be WAY more successful than fans keeping saying.....looking forward to seeing what the summer looks like, but despite the doom and gloom, the indicators are there that we have a path towards success and RU is much better than advertised AND recruiting for 2026 will complete the process of fixing this program going forward.
