phil95 wrote:
CLK wrote:
Phil I hope you are right about Mahorcic. It really is a good thing that DU brought in all those seasoned front court players. I think KD learned his lesson from two years ago when, because of injuries, he was forced to play a 6'5" walk on player as our power forward. Could this really be the year?
I see/saw that situation much differently. For the vast majority of that season the only significant injury to a big was Rotroff. Tre's injury came with 4 games left; long after the season was doomed. We now also know that Gunn was not going to be of any use as a big. These issues we're exacerbated by KD's refusal to play Hima until it was too late for him to find his footing.
My point is that injuries to big players didn't screw this team, the lack of viable big players in the program & the failure to develop/play the only "extra" big available did. When you go into the season with only the oft injured Rotroff & Tre as the only post players with experience, it is not really an injury problem; it is a roster construction issue.
(Let's not forget, Hima had already been in the program & on campus for more than a year before the 21-22 season began.)
Not sure where we see things differently regarding the 2021 - 2022 season. There clearly was a roster construction issue that year.
I was responding to your original comment: "I don't get having so many viable players in the program at once." In 2021 - 2022 we didn't have enough viable players in the program, especially in the front court. This definitely was a roster construction issue. You may recall that we started the season with 13 scholarship players. We had season ending injuries to Rotroff, Williams, Gunn and Barba. Which left us with 8 viable D1 players and one former D2 player. Of the nine available players we only had three guys over 6'7": Hima, Okani and Easley. The balance of the squad of Johnson, Spears, Ayers, Bekelja, Acuff and Larson were all guards. We finished the season seeing Easley playing the 5 and Larson the 4 because after Hima got three fouls in the first four minutes there were no other options. This roster was short on experience, short on talent and short on depth.
The last two years Dambrot not only brought more experience, more talent and more depth, but overall, the team has gotten bigger with players being sable to play multiple positions. That is what I meant by Dambrot learned his lesson from the 2021 - 2022 season.
