26-27 Roster
- Thread starter *23*
- Start date
I think someone said Mooney doesn't count toward the 15 because he was a walk on before the rule change.
Where do you see Cook and Caldwell?
Spider17
Assistant coach
Cook probably redshirts and Caldwell gets limited minutes is my prediction.
97spiderfan
All A-10 player
100%. Dorries looks like a finense big who needs to hit the weight room a bit more, same with McAffrey at the 4. We need an enforcer/shot blocker/Darrius Garrett type of playing on this roster, otherwise, there will be teams that will push us around inside.
I hope you are wrong. Right now, I see 6 guys that should definitely get minutes. AA and the 5 transfers. Tanner, Harper, Homenick, and Richardson can all be passed in the rotation by freshmen if they are good enough. And, we should be recruiting guys that are 100% good enough to play as freshmen. I will say it right now....if any of our freshmen redshirt, I don't have much hope they will ever be factors here. It's not like we have a solid 8-10 man rotation without them.
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Under the present regime has UR ever recruited an entire class of freshman that were A10 ready? Upperclassman have nearly always had the advantage over underclassmen simply in the maturity/strength department. There are exceptions, but they are on P4/5 teams.
Mooney has already said he expects 2/3 to play so that is much better than all the recent classes.
Spider17
Assistant coach
I hope I’m wrong too but that’s something I can see happening based on our recent history. I agree with you completely that our freshmen recruits should all be players that contribute to some extent when on the court. At this point, any redshirt seems to have the writing on the wall that it will lead to an eventual transfer.
Our high school recruiting has been very poor in the past few years. I know we say this every year, but I think we’ve done a great job with the portal so far. Notably a lot of guys have 2+ years of eligibility left. I wonder how that’ll impact our incoming freshmen and our current redshirt freshmen in terms of their playing time and their decision making on whether to transfer or not next year.
Mooney is a grandfathered walk-on and does not count towards 15
sman
All A-10 player
the downside of all this portal activity is you pay a lot to these upperclass transfers and it stunts the growth opportunities of some of the young guys. we need to work them in. but you can't play 15 guys. heck, you can't play 12.
Spider17
Assistant coach
How do you think it stunts their growth? The freshmen still practice every day and have ample opportunities to show the coaching staff that they should get meaningful minutes. I think the problem is that we aren’t bringing in high school recruits who are nearly good enough at the A10 level. AA is the only one in recent history.
I’d say 8-9 get legitimate playing time most games. The problem is not only have we had no freshmen make impact (except AA) recently. Even when they become sophomores or juniors, they’re getting overlooked as well. We are then bringing in transfers in those same positions as a result, because they aren’t showing the growth or any promise.
MDSpider8
Bench player
With Seran on board, I assume we now have an interesting battle at the 2 guard spot...Stewart started at Penn State and Seran started at a 23-12 UCI team that was Kenpom #107. I can't imagine we'll play 6'6 Kaiser at the 4 given our struggles with size recently...
Starters:
AA
Stewart/Seran
Kaiser
McCaffrey
Dorries
Bench:
Stewart/Seran
Ball
Tanner
Harper
Simmons
Bench F/C from Portal?
Depth/Outside Rotation:
Richardson
Homenick
Caldwell
Cook
Starters:
AA
Stewart/Seran
Kaiser
McCaffrey
Dorries
Bench:
Stewart/Seran
Ball
Tanner
Harper
Simmons
Bench F/C from Portal?
Depth/Outside Rotation:
Richardson
Homenick
Caldwell
Cook
sman
All A-10 player
I'm saying a guys like Caldwell and Simmons would almost certainly earn game time in years past as freshmen on a 13 man roster without incoming transfers filling holes. today, it's almost unusual for a freshman to get much run. and if they don't they seem to look to transfer.
they may be good enough to win roles anyway, but it's tough for a 19 year old freshman to beat out experienced transfers. and the fact the transfers are likely getting paid a lot makes it tougher.
I think we could play Kaiser with 3 guards if that gives us our best team. It would be nice sizewise to have 6'9 MacCaffrey start with Kaiser, but he is still unproven. So, even though McCaffrey is not a guard, he could be battling guards for a starting spot. Also, I think your depth guys could certainly battle guys like Tanner and Harper for rotation spots.
Agree 100%. We were terrible the last 2 years. Most of the freshmen didn't play much because they weren't good enough. The opportunity was certainly there to get time if they were good enough.
The opportunity is there for Caldwell and Simmons this year. They should come in here from day 1 and feel that way. Why assume guys like Tannet and Harper will be in front of them in the rotation? Go beat them out.
I see AA and the 6 transfers with rotation spots. If we play 10, and in OOC play we probably should, there is room in the rotation for all 3 of our freshmen.
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Spider17
Assistant coach
The reason we have incoming transfers filling holes is because 10 of 15 of our guys this past year are transferring/graduating and only Harper and Tanner are returning with any college game experience.
I get where you’re coming from though, that it’s harder for a 17 year old kid to compete with like 22 year old transfers with 4 or 5 years of college experience but the opportunities are there for them to showcase themselves. It’s not like the freshmen are waiting there turn behind all American future NBA picks. Fact of the matter is we are bringing a lot of freshmen who received zero stars on recruiting sites and their best offers were other lower mid majors. This has been reinforced when all have transferred to lower level programs and did not produce much at a lower level either. The way I see it is they just weren’t good enough at the A10 level and that is more on us then it is on them. If Caldwell or Simmons come in and play really well in practice it’ll force Mooney to play them in games to see how they do.
It’s also not just their freshmen year. McGlothin and Robinson didn’t get any meaningful game experience this year either in their 2nd year here and we know Mooney loves the loyalty factor of guys he brought in and stay here throughout their careers. If they couldn’t get any playing time with how bad our teams were the past 2 years, then they simply aren’t A10 level players.
