These last two international players Diego and Mateo seem pretty good which gives us our 14th and 15th players on the roster. Here's the thing, there isn't a program in the country that has 15 scholarship worthy players on its team other than us. Wouldn't it have been smarter to take the NILs of Jones, Smith, and Syndor, maybe even Buca, and spent it on a single player? Let's assume that the combination of these 4 players is $2M. $2M would have gotten us one of the top transfers in the portal this year. And we would have a roster of 12 or 13 players with a couple of walkon types. It still would have been a deep team, yes someone like Wooten would have gotten a few minutes a game rather than now he is probably barely playing at all, but if you had an all B1G caliber player alongside Francis and Gurdak (who's skillset I love) along with complimentary players like Buchanan and Powers and maybe Diego, we could have had an NCAA team. Now with what we have it will certainly be better than last season but how much better, maybe we reach .500? And if it's much better that means we caught lightning in a bottle and someone like Diego is a superstar which means someone like Smith doesn't play at all. What do you think?
Are we too deep?
- Thread starter seels2662
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I like the idea of more competition, but it will be far more challenging for the coaches to evaluate properly with so many players to evaluate properly.
Pikiell having too many better than average players is a disaster. He'll over think every thing and struggle all season with who to play and when to play them.
Its weird to consider, since we aren't a final 4 contender or anything but your point is well taken.
My concern is that Pike tends to have difficulty tightening his rotation. so with a lot of options that are going to be around the same level I can see that being a problem. still it is a good problem and beats the alternative.
My concern is that Pike tends to have difficulty tightening his rotation. so with a lot of options that are going to be around the same level I can see that being a problem. still it is a good problem and beats the alternative.
I’ve thought along the same lines - we now have a bunch of GOOD players but no proven VERY GOOD or GREAT players
IMHO the $$ would have been much better spent getting 2-3 proven VERY GOOD players and fill out the roster strategically with good players as money permits
As others have said - pike has proven to be VERY POOR at putting a roster together / identifying the best possible contributors (eg, continuing to start the younger euro kid last year DEEP into the season). I mean how did he not recognize what most of us were seeing with that kid?
Now it seems there’s going to be a log jam of actually GOOD players - pike just seems particularly ill-equipped to deal with such a situation
And it’s not just a possible roster / time management problem - he also doesn’t have a real offensive “system” - where a bunch of GOOD players could be interchanged.
having this time of roster (a whole bunch of GOOD but not VERY GOOD or GREAT players) seems particularly unsuited for pike in various ways.
In all likelihood, the battle for playing time will likely be over who will play the 3 and the 4 and who will backup the 2 and the 5.
Gurdak will likely start at the 5 and Buca, Ware and Miteo will fight over who is his backup.
Mark will likely start at the 1 and Davis will likely be the backup.
Francis will likstart at the 2 and Jones, Powers and Wooten will battle to be the backup or battle to play the 3.
We really don’t know how everyone else stacks up against each other, but there will a huge battle over who starts and backs up the 3 and the 4.
Last year Pikiel clearly stuck with Badalau too long. Presumably he played better in practice than what we saw in games. Hopefully two players will step up so that it becomes clear who should start and play the majority of the minutes at the 3 and the 4. Hopefully we will see a couple of players develop through out the season like Mark apparently did.
My guess is that we will see more and more of Miteo as the season goes on because of the tremendous potential he shows at only 17 years old.
Gurdak will likely start at the 5 and Buca, Ware and Miteo will fight over who is his backup.
Mark will likely start at the 1 and Davis will likely be the backup.
Francis will likstart at the 2 and Jones, Powers and Wooten will battle to be the backup or battle to play the 3.
We really don’t know how everyone else stacks up against each other, but there will a huge battle over who starts and backs up the 3 and the 4.
Last year Pikiel clearly stuck with Badalau too long. Presumably he played better in practice than what we saw in games. Hopefully two players will step up so that it becomes clear who should start and play the majority of the minutes at the 3 and the 4. Hopefully we will see a couple of players develop through out the season like Mark apparently did.
My guess is that we will see more and more of Miteo as the season goes on because of the tremendous potential he shows at only 17 years old.
Being too deep is only a problem if everybody can actually play. That remains to be seen.
I love this. Back when Mag got hurt, everyone complained we had no depth. Now we are “too deep”. Let them sort it out on the court. Pikes didn’t tighten the rotation last year because beyond Francis and Mark (late) he couldn’t find a unit that worked so he kept going to everyone. Maybe, if Pikes has a deep rotation, there won’t be much drop off when players go to the bench for a breather. I don’t know how this season is gonna go. I hope it’s better than last year but to complain about “too deep” is it being the end of July and looking for stuff to complain about. I don’t think Miteo and Tonecj will play much. Wooten is a freshmen…Buca looked lost in offense at K State. Has Ware taken a big jump?
This is definitely off season talk. We've never seen half the team play.
Would a $2M player come here since programs with more success and visibility would also pay market value ?
The only way to get a $2M player here is to pay $3M.
The only way to get a $2M player here is to pay $3M.
to be fair / accurate - no one is “complaining” about too much depth
And certainly this team, collectively, has FAR greater talent than any team we’re had in a number of years
but i think it’s a very legitimate thing to discuss - whether a team full of a number of good players (but no obvious stars) is a line up that fits what pike does well (or not)
and his undeniable inability to decide on a roster until WELL into the season IS a concern - and this roster won’t make those decisions easy .
So yeah I see legitimate discussion about roster construction
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Definitely agree with the overall premise in the OP.
This particular roster seems pretty bloated, but on the flip side it should be easier for him to figure out a realistic rotation of 8-9 guys EARLY ON because of the lack of freshmen. And in theory sneak into the expanded tournament, which I guess is the goal?
(not that I necessarily think he WILL figure it out, based on the last few seasons...)
This particular roster seems pretty bloated, but on the flip side it should be easier for him to figure out a realistic rotation of 8-9 guys EARLY ON because of the lack of freshmen. And in theory sneak into the expanded tournament, which I guess is the goal?
(not that I necessarily think he WILL figure it out, based on the last few seasons...)
Ok. People are “worried” we have too much depth. It is way way too early to worry like this. Like you can’t have it both ways…we had superstars and no one else and people weren’t happy (in retrospect rightly) and now it looks like we have a good (but not stud) roster and we have “too much depth”. I don’t think it’s a fair concern in July. Be happy the roster and NIL funds appear better than last year
This is a must win season for Pikiell with very little time for player development.During preseason scrimmages identifying the best five player combination that can score and also defend/rebound has to be a high priority.That could be a difficult process with a roster of players with comparable average/good talent and the absence of a half court offense that creates open 3 point shots and dribble drives to the basket.
If you are trying to win the lottery, or a raffle drawing, your odds improve if you buy more tickets. We are not deep unless/until lots of guys prove it. Bring on the competition for minutes.
Have to be honest with you, this has been the greatest argument against my thought, would a top player actually play for us even if we pay them.
Here's the funny thing, we have 15 guys, and if Francis goes down, people will still say we are not deep enough.
imho the the title of the thread is misleading and is obscuring the points being made - it’s kinda like a bad headline that doesn’t match that article
Yes, worrying about “ too much depth” is absurd
but that’s not actually the point(s)being made . I think some of you can’t get past the poor/misleading heading of the thread.
I am not going to repeat the points since it seems you missed them all already.
Things to “worry about in July”. Yeah i guess
I hope y’all are right and pike is all-of-a-sudden capable of quickly discerning the best contributors early on and able to put together the best lineup early in the season (and not still be wildly experimenting well into February as he has over the last few years)….this from the guy who started the young euro WELL into the season
hope y’all are right and this is all just silly talk. I guess we will see.
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We could have 4 legit players and Pike is still going to take until February to figure out his rotations
There is some truth in that. And in the mean time the players he will be experimenting with all appear to be at least decent / good on paper. So yeah that’s absolutely a positive compared to recent years past.
I just wish there were 2-3 obvious geo/RHJ level guys coming in and all pike had to do was experiment with the back half of the starting line up and the reserves til february
I will be stunned if these “things we are worrying about in July” don’t end up being THE main topic we are discussing in February.
Agreed! The topic should not be
Are we too deep?
it should be
Does Pike know what he is doing?
Just about every addition comes with question marks, we all have guesses as to who will fill what role, but until any of these guys line up against Big Ten comp, we have no idea. Hell, the one I feel best about didn't even play last year and Darren is underaized to play 4 but seems we are going to try it. The centers are slow, unless the foreign kid can carve out time. Smith is very overrated by most and is horrible defensively so far. Couple of the other guys could be solid. Will make for an interesting OOC but we know Pike will take awhile.
Isn’t it possible we tried to land one bigger fish, but couldn’t wait for a decision? Not sure every offer is made public. So we went with numbers, thinking we’ll find the right mix to be successful.
I find the nature of this roster building to be a little weird - to give some benefit of the doubt to pike - the fact that some of our better pickups came later - it makes me think that pike got more $$ later on in the recruiting cycle so he was able to accumulate more decent talent .
What I am saying is - we have no idea what the facts are behind the scene . So while in a perfect world you’d preferably get a few bigger fish first and the fill out the roster based on need, there may be reasons we don’t know about that caused the roster that he built - other than a decision by pike along the lines of “hey let’s get a really deep roster filled with decent/ good talent but no proven stars”
What I am saying is - we have no idea what the facts are behind the scene . So while in a perfect world you’d preferably get a few bigger fish first and the fill out the roster based on need, there may be reasons we don’t know about that caused the roster that he built - other than a decision by pike along the lines of “hey let’s get a really deep roster filled with decent/ good talent but no proven stars”
I think retroactively I’d agree, but also in this market 2Mil isn’t even a guaranteed great player anymore, it’s usually a player with solid P5 experience but not a star and probably has issues themselves. I think it’d be nice to go into the season with 1-2 guys I’m more confident are for sure starter level big ten players, but we also needed to improve the talent level across the board in the program and these transfers on paper are better than some of the pedigrees we’ve been acquiring in the portal. Add in the fact we’d have to overpay for some of these types, I think it’s fair to say it’s not obvious that consolidating our resources in one or two pieces than 4-5 bites of the apple would definitely be better.
I think with Diego and Miteo the delay of adding them could just be due to the additional hoops that need to be jumped through to bring in an international player.
This team might be deep but it’s mediocre so it really doesn’t matter much. It probably would be near the top of a mid major league due to depth alone.
Pike claimed that Badalau was one of the most impressive in camp and started for a long time and who doesn’t remember Ralph Agee being a man amongst boys in preseason and Griffiths being the second coming etc. Don’t be surprised if some of the bottom of the roster starts opening day until the pressure builds and other people tell him tell him who should play. Then it will look like we improved…rinse, cycle, repeat.
Pike claimed that Badalau was one of the most impressive in camp and started for a long time and who doesn’t remember Ralph Agee being a man amongst boys in preseason and Griffiths being the second coming etc. Don’t be surprised if some of the bottom of the roster starts opening day until the pressure builds and other people tell him tell him who should play. Then it will look like we improved…rinse, cycle, repeat.
Does seem like this team is deeper than last season, but still way too early to say we’re too deep. He’s not gonna hit on all of the transfers and some will be B1G busts.
OP still trying to push this position as though he knows better than a head coach and GM what was need for roster construction. I predicted that they would go the route they did and many told me it wasn't possible to get a starting center and backup center for $2m and $1m, respectively, among other predictions I made.
This roster needed a lot in order to be able to compete. A couple of these guys are being way overvalued by many here and won't play nearly the minutes people are talking about. You'll see once the season starts.
This roster needed a lot in order to be able to compete. A couple of these guys are being way overvalued by many here and won't play nearly the minutes people are talking about. You'll see once the season starts.
Seels
sorry I’m in thjs one late
I am of the beleive we are still on roster build mode …and the goal thjs year is to find the best 8 of the 13 players that can return actually have them Return …must retain and then add a monster frosb class (I want the trifecta of Moore , Douby and Woodard )….
I think that a winning season is possible this year and there is a scanario that we can thread rhe needle and dance if we fbe find those top 8 early and then dlevelop and grow . There feels like pieces here Witb sone real upside
Do that , even if we go 16-16 , then you have a ncaa team in 2027-2028……with those additional frosh
we are on the right track , but we need sone separation on the roster …..and sone guys make the Jump and then we have the funds to retain……
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I think this perfectly summarizes the discussion
contrary to the heading of the thread - it’s not about being “too deep” - I think it goes without saying that having decent/ good depth (something RU has very much struggled with) is NEVER a BAD thing.
Further, as a whole, this roster has the potential to be more talented than we’ve had in recent memory.
those are both good things
The potential issue is the lack of a few obvious stars (which is a key to success in virtually every sport) and the ability of the coaching staff to find the best contributors early on (a skill they have been proven to be VERY VERY poor at in recent years). THOSE are the potential issues IMHO
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