Yeah - I won’t compare athleticism just because I’ve never seen Christopher outside of highlight packages doing athletic things, but I think Miller qualifies as very athletic. As you say - height is the biggest difference (I think Miller is like 6’1.5”)
Interesting. That’s not NBA SG size. Is the guy really a one-and-done? It’s tempting to view him as a two-year player, which is very attractive for us.
Actually being a one and done and a guy thinking he is are 2 very different things. Sometimes just thinking they are is enough for them to leave for the NBA after their freshman year regardless of how they performed in college.
I usually don’t mind it when a guard picks up his dribble to deliver an easy assist.
In the second clip Xavier could have gone to the corner for an open 3.
I don’t think Wagner is going to be sophomore Stauskas but I don’t understand the point of those two clips.
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I think you’re highly underrating our shooting. Franz isn’t actually a 31% shooter or whatever he shot last year, that’s almost bound to improve pretty significantly IMO. Livers is an elite shooter, and Brooks is a plus shooter. Smith is also a darn good shooter if he gets the same looks someone like Brooks gets, though I’m not sure he will since he’ll be more of a ballhandler with no Christopher in the picture.
I also think guys like Johns and Bajema have the capability to shoot really well. So while we won’t have a guy in Simpson to create open looks for us, our ability to shoot does become better with the subtraction of Simpson and Teske, and the presumed addition of guys like Smith and Bajema into our lineup, and the progression of other guys like Wagner.
All in all, I think it’s very possible that we have above average shooters 1 through 5, given that Johns plays the 5 a lot.
If Livers is back, I’d have it like this at the moment:
C - Dickinson 24 Davis 10 Johns 6
PF - Johns 24 Williams 16
SF - Livers 32 Wagner 8
SG - Wagner 24 Bajema/Jackson 16
PG - Brooks 28, Smith 12
Overall lineup wise I just don’t think there’s that many 2 guards to be worried about off the dribble to justify not starting a center in the Big 10 considering Cockburn, Williams at Purdue and other guys will be around even with Tillman, Oturu and Smith gone OR not starting Johns considering he’s got potential, versatility and played pretty well last season.
Dickinson at 24 minutes seems high but dude is huge and a top 35 recruit and guys like Wesson at OSU played 21 as a frosh and Cockburn who’s also enormous was at 27 so 23-25 feels about right.
Williams is the lowest recruit of the 3 big freshman signings but he has the strength and shooting to be a useful low usage, 4th or 5th option guy as a freshman, so I have him as the 8th man. We will need shooting to bail us out of bad possessions without a 2nd creator after Franz.
Bajema vs Jackson for 15 minutes as the 9th man isn’t the worst situation we could be in, considering both guys seem talented, if skinny, so might be bad to start but useful bench guys by the meat of Big 10 play or the tournament.
As for Smith I have no idea but it’s tough to go from Ivy to Big 10 and the track record of those guys and his size say backup. Hopefully he can be a Spike Albrecht type efficient player with more talent around him and a pure PG like that, even with defensive issues, could get 20-25 minutes for us easy unless 2 of Williams, Bajema and Jackson are ready for 15 minutes a night by Big 10 play.
It’s also possible Smith and split the PG spot after Brooks has trouble against a team that presses and figures out how to gum up our offense without a proper pure PG. Considering his size and upside and that Howard didn’t seem to love Bajema as a freshman and he’s a Beilein recruit and Jackson’s length and upside, if his strength and handle aren’t too weak to preclude him as a starter he could get there by midseason.
Other early predictions:
-Wagner hits 20 points a game
-Dickinson is very good as a freshman, 10 and 7 kind of thing
-We make the tournament as an 8-10 seed but lose in 1st or 2nd round without really quality guard play
Would be an insane accomplishment by Franz…Only six big ten players have scored 20 PPG in the last decade.
Quite a list of 6: Luka Garza, Carsen Edwards, DJ Newbill, JaJuan Johnson, Talor Battle, Jon Shurna
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My guess on a rotation:
PG - Smith (28) - Jackson (12)
SG - Brooks (35) - Jackson / Bajema (5)
SF - Wagner (34) - Livers (6)
PF - Livers (28) - Johns (12)
C - Dickinson (18) - Davis (12) - Johns (10)
Williams will get some spot minutes at the forward spot. Maybe there’s a chance he takes some of those forward minutes from Johns. But that’s probably the same chunk of minutes they’re fighting over.
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Absolutely, but to napkin it, if we score the same amount (and it is possible Simpsons’ lack of shooting means we can replace him and do that):
-Livers and Brooks only improve enough to mitigate Dickinson being a couple less than Teske
-Johns goes from 6 to 10
-DeJulius, Simpson and Wagner got 31.5 together as the 3 perimeter creators. Let’s put it down to 27.5 because of Johns improving, so if the guards like Smith and Bajema/Jackson get the 45 minutes DDJ and Simpson played combined (minus a 10 minute Johns bump) and get 7.5 in that time it would leave 20 for Wagner
-And most importantly, I think he’s far and away our best scorer and probably our best pick and roll handler. If he hit the 40 percent we thought he could (and he would need to in order to get to 20) from 3 he would have been at 13 as a freshman. A 7 point bump is big, but I’d set the over/under at the 18.6 number Winston got to, a point above Lamar Stevens and below the 20 Oturu got (not on your list).
If Garza goes pro, is Big 10 top scorer out of the question? Maybe Livers or Brooks adds 3-4 points a night as a scorer, but if not…
All I will say is Brooks got 32 minutes a game last year and with the massive question marks in the backcourt he won’t get less.
I also don’t think Franz can guard twos regularly.
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3 pt shooting will be a strength this year. It in factt might be our greatest strength offensively.
It’s a great recruiting class anyway you slice it. Did if solve what we wanted for next year? No, but it’s a very nice group and they are going to win a lot of games.
What is this deal with people thinking Wagner is going to average 20ppg? I am not sure if people realize how hard that is. Guys like Burke, Winston, and Stauskas weren’t even that close and just last year Jordan Nwora was Lousiville’s whole offense and he wasn’t even close either. Its not gonna happen I would bet my life on it.
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If Juwan adopts Paul Westwood’s old gameplan at Loyola Marymount, Franz might average 30. Has anyone tried that in the last ten years? Seems like it would be a potential plus in recruiting.
It just struck me that Livers is a perfect fit for that offense. Wagner might be too. Dickenson/Davis not so much.
I think that’s a situtational thing for me personally, as it was for Beilein – there’s got to be a reason for pursuing one-and-dones beyond how talented they are. I think Juwan may have just been given some food for thought there as well. I don’t know for sure, but it seems most folks here appreciate the value of coming down in the middle of the UK/Coach K model and the Beilein model. Bring in some five-stars; get more top-end talent, but not at the cost of extreme roster churn. Have system players.
I think Juwan gets that too, given how he went out and got Terrance Williams. Striking the right balance isn’t something he’s going to be able to do immediately, though. It may take a few recruiting cycles before Juwan really understands which five-stars to target.
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Ultimately after all that hand wringing every single recruit Juwan signed looks like a 4 year player. It’s an extremely Beilein class, and probably a little worse than what JB would have brought in. I don’t really fault Juwan for that though.
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I disagree with the notion that it’s a little worse than what JB would have brought in. JB’s best recruiting class was the 2012 one which was 8th in the country.
For comparison, Juwan’s first class here even after getting spurned by two 5-star recruits is sitting in the top 10 with Jace back on scholarship. All things considered, this is probably a better class than what JB could have done
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Hard to say what Beilein would have done in this class (for instance we prob get JAR and possibly Kessler) but certainly it stacks up well to his classes overall. I’ve seen this quantified, though I’m not finding it right now. From memory, on a relative basis, it’s also the first time we’ve had the conference’s highest ranked recruiting class since before Beilein. And if that’s wrong, there’s only one or two exceptions.
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It’s a great class. I’d set the expectations as Dickinson being a quality 3 year starter (freshman struggles or senior leaving for pro or injury let’s say makes 3 the median), Jackson a useful sophomore bench player than starter for 1-2 years and Williams being a bench player as a freshman then a passable starter for 1-2 and quality one for 1-2.
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Beilein didn’t need as good a class as Howard because he was a top 3 coach in the country in terms of Xs and Os and player development and probably also spotting lower ranked recruits. Until proven otherwise, Howard is better compared to a Turgeon but with more upside and potential as an Xs and Os guy.
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This would have been a fine Beilein class with bigs who can shoot and a talented PG to mold. I was particularly frustrated that we didn’t get strong 4s like Williams considering how much Beilein got out of guys like Zack Novak. If enough Beilein classes had looked like this we would have gotten over the hump and won a title I think.
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Zeb is currently the only guard on the roster in 2021/22, unless you consider Bajema a guard. Who’s going to be playing ahead of him?
Bajema’s a guard. He was explicitly recruited as a combo.
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