After spending the last couple of days looking at all of the players on this year’s Lobo Men’s Basketball Team, starting with the guards and wings then looking at the bigs and walk-ons, today we’ll cover a few other things that popped into my head when I was thinking about the upcoming season…
Starting Lineup and Rotation
At this point, the starting lineup seems to have most of the positions filled, with only the shooting guard really seeming like it is up in the air. Cullen Neal will start at point guard, Sam Logwood will be at small forward, Tim Williams will (probably) be the power forward, and Obij Aget will anchor things as the center. At shooting guard, there are several options, so it will be interesting to see what direction that Coach Neal will take. If he wants defense, Xavier Adams is probably the best bet. If he wants a good shooter, he might try Anthony Mathis or Elijah Brown (with Brown likely being a better defender). Or, he could decide to move Sam to the 2 guard and start Dane Kuiper to have a starting lineup with a lot of size. My guess is that initially, either Xavier or Elijah will get the nod with the other being the first perimeter player off the bench, but it’s really nice that there are several viable options.
As far as the rotation goes, I wouldn’t be surprised if it initially has what seems like way too many guys, simply because there is a lot of talent on the team and Coach Neal will be trying to get a sense of who he can trust later in the season. Once the dust settles and we end up with an 8-10 man rotation, it will be interesting to see who makes it. I’d count on Cullen, Sam, X, Elijah, Devon, Tim W., and Obij being part of that group, so that leaves only 1-3 spots up for grabs. Cullen will likely play 30-35 minutes a game, which means that only one of Tim Jacobs and Jordan Hunter will be in the rotation. The other, let’s say, two spots then have to come from Mathis, Dane, Joe, and Nik., none of whom I’d feel good about leaving on the bench. It’s certainly nice to have a good amount of depth (and we would have killed for this sort of depth last season…), but I already know that I’m going to be wondering why one player is riding the pine while someone else is getting playing time. Luckily, this means that the competition will be fierce at practice, which should only make all of the guys better.
Rebounding from Last Season
After such a run of sustained success, it’s hard to paint last season as anything but a disappointment. One of the toughest things about it was seeing the specific issues that the team had and then seeing three guys on the bench (in Cullen, Tim W., and Elijah) who were tailor-made to fix those problems. The biggest issues, to me, were outside shooting, interior scoring, and depth. Outside shooting took a major hit when Cullen went down, interior scoring was certainly affected by Jordan Goodman’s injuries, and depth was a problem as soon as three of your 11 eligible scholarship players are out with injuries. With those three able to play this season and what looks like a talented freshmen class, all of those issues seemed to be addressed. It is way too early to say that this team will be back to where it was before last season, but all signs indicate that things are moving in the right direction.
Schedule
Last year’s non-conference schedule certainly left something to be desired. By KenPom ratings, the Lobos had four top 100 teams on the schedule and, more importantly, four bottom 100 teams on the schedule (and even managed to lose to one!) The best team that they played in that time was Valparaiso, who ended up with a ranking of 61. That lack of high-end competition and excess of lower-end teams made it almost impossible for the Lobos to build up a solid resume for March, meaning that they would have basically had to win the conference tournament to get in. Now, if we’re being fair, the schedule was probably what that team needed. There were a lot of new faces, many of which had never seen significant playing time at the D-1 level, so throwing them in the deep end might not have been the best idea. The last thing that team needed was to have their confidence destroyed early.
That said, this season’s non-conference schedule is a little better, but not incredible. The only team on the schedule that is projected to be in the bottom 100 is Nicholls State, but there are only three top 100 teams currently on the schedule. That means that the Auburn game in the opening round of the Diamond Head Classic could be really important. If they win, they have a good chance of facing two more top 100 teams and potentially the projected 11th best team in Oklahoma. That tournament, if they manage to win it, would really go a long ways to building a solid resume for March and really help the conference in the process. We’ll see how the team looks at that point, but I think that they have a chance to be hitting their stride around then.
Rule Changes
There were several rule changes adopted by the NCAA for this season, but the two getting the most attention are the larger restricted circle and the shortened shot clock. The restricted circle is now the same size as the NBA’s, which is probably a good thing. It will definitely make it harder for guys to just camp out under the basket or try to slide under players going for dunks, which should cut down on some controversial calls. It does look weird now, though, with the women’s restricted circle remaining the same size.
As far as the shot clock goes, it will be interesting to see if it actually increases scoring or not. I personally think that it will, but I know that some, including Coach Neal, are more skeptical (My thought is simply that more possessions = more points, the other side is that speeding the game up will make it harder for offenses to get good shots. Both of these things could be true, which could end up just making scoring stay about the same.) What I do think it will do is make it harder for overmatched teams to turn games into a grind and limit the number of possessions in the game. The basic thought is this: if there are fewer possessions, there is a higher variance in the outcome of the game, which gives worse teams a better chance of an upset. If there are more possessions, then the variance of the outcomes will decrease and the more talented team will have a better chance of winning. I don’t know how much this will affect UNM this next year, as that wasn’t really their style, but it might affect the Air Forces of the world.
The other changes, I think, were all for the better and I’m especially thrilled that a timeout called right before a media timeout now just becomes the media timeout. That was always more annoying than it had any right to be. We’ll now also be able to see players dunk during warmups, so that might be fun, and some of the lesser technical fouls only warrant one shot instead of two. They also got rid of the five-second closely guarded rule, which is probably a good move as it seemed a little subjective at times. Lastly, they instituted an anti-flopping rule that could penalize players who fake getting hit to try to draw flagrant fouls. If that rule had been instituted during his seven years at UNLV, Carlos Lopez-Sosa might have gotten kicked out of the league minutes after he first checked into a game.