As our spring recruiting adds another player for the 2019 class, I thought it would be help full to run down the list of scholarship guys on our team and what positions they play. This should indicate where our holes are on our roster and what potential lineups Pitino can play with this coming season.
Because we are moving towards position-less basketball and have added guys on our roster that can play more than one position, I thought I'd first list all the guys on the team that can potentially play a given position. For example, I may list Oturu as depth at PF even though he hasn't played minutes there. I'll be very liberal in describing our position depth, so this exercise will include any player capable of playing a certain position. Projected starters will be capitalized. So...
C: OTURU/Curry/Freeman/Omersa
PF: CURRY/Omersa/Ihnen/Hurt/Oturu
SF: KALSCHEUR/Ihnen/Hurt/Williams/Willis
SG: WILLIS/Kalscheur/Williams
PG: CARR/Willis
Putting our roster in the perspective, it's clear we likely will need to add another guard for depth. Ihnen is an interesting addition in that he seems to be Michael Hurt with a much higher ceiling, a SF/PF tweener who can supposedly shoot from the outside. I'm not sure if Ihnen will be able to earn a starting spot at the 3/SF position. Under Pitino, we have mostly run a three-guard lineup and our SF/PF projects haven't really worked (Buggs, Fitzgerald, Hurt)..
I can see a lineup of Carr/Kalscheur/Ihnen/Hurt/Oturu being effective. That's some good size and hopefully some good perimeter shooting.
It remains to be seen if a lineup of Carr/Kalscheur/Ihnen/Curry/Oturu can work. I'm not convinced Ihnen will be up to speed defensively to guard B1G small forwards. I also don't like the idea of a hobbled Curry and Ihnen trying to defend together.
I do wonder where Williams finds his way. When we were recruiting Sheffield, the consensus was that Williams would be depth at SF and be more of a 3&D guy for us a la Kalscheur. But with Ihnen coming in and Hurt staying, I wonder if Pitino will elect to play our lengthier guys at the SF position.
How do you think the lineup will shape out?
Because we are moving towards position-less basketball and have added guys on our roster that can play more than one position, I thought I'd first list all the guys on the team that can potentially play a given position. For example, I may list Oturu as depth at PF even though he hasn't played minutes there. I'll be very liberal in describing our position depth, so this exercise will include any player capable of playing a certain position. Projected starters will be capitalized. So...
C: OTURU/Curry/Freeman/Omersa
PF: CURRY/Omersa/Ihnen/Hurt/Oturu
SF: KALSCHEUR/Ihnen/Hurt/Williams/Willis
SG: WILLIS/Kalscheur/Williams
PG: CARR/Willis
Putting our roster in the perspective, it's clear we likely will need to add another guard for depth. Ihnen is an interesting addition in that he seems to be Michael Hurt with a much higher ceiling, a SF/PF tweener who can supposedly shoot from the outside. I'm not sure if Ihnen will be able to earn a starting spot at the 3/SF position. Under Pitino, we have mostly run a three-guard lineup and our SF/PF projects haven't really worked (Buggs, Fitzgerald, Hurt)..
I can see a lineup of Carr/Kalscheur/Ihnen/Hurt/Oturu being effective. That's some good size and hopefully some good perimeter shooting.
It remains to be seen if a lineup of Carr/Kalscheur/Ihnen/Curry/Oturu can work. I'm not convinced Ihnen will be up to speed defensively to guard B1G small forwards. I also don't like the idea of a hobbled Curry and Ihnen trying to defend together.
I do wonder where Williams finds his way. When we were recruiting Sheffield, the consensus was that Williams would be depth at SF and be more of a 3&D guy for us a la Kalscheur. But with Ihnen coming in and Hurt staying, I wonder if Pitino will elect to play our lengthier guys at the SF position.
How do you think the lineup will shape out?
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