Post play, rebounding...

[reeder]

OK - the season is about 5 weeks away, team practice starts in about 2 weeks and I wanted to get some thoughts on which big men might step up.

 

To some extent, Jordan, Zoellner and Levi may have been underappreciated (by me anyway), I think they all worked hard on the boards and even though Levi and Jordan were undersized they both had decent post games.

 

This (post play) may be the biggest area of opportunity this year.

1. Brent is a perimeter player.

2. Covington might evolve into a top notch post player but I think he struggled offensively in the post and fouled a lot trying to defend in the low post last year.

3. The freshmen - all unknown. Maybe Gifford or Yocum can step up as freshmen. Maybe we have 15 fouls to give at that position trying to defend Klimes and the big kid from BU - I forget his name, the one that gave Covington such a hard time at BU last year. Maybe the freshmen become good at just taking up space, getting easy put backs and standing their ground - I think that was pretty much what Yocum did in HS with his 2 ACC teammates

 

In addition to post play by the big men, there may be a drop off in rebounding by the guards as well. Not sure if any of the returning guards are going to be big rebounders. Jamar and Lillis will get some boards, but Siggers and Iati are perimeter players for the most part. Maybe Ross and Knight help out in that arena.

 

Will be interesting to see how this evolves.

[Patch]

1. Look for Covington, Yocum and Gifford to rotate at the 5 according to who is practicing/playing well

 

2. Siggers will rebound well from the 3

 

3. Look for Connelly to be much improved.

 

4. Lillis is like having another solid 3 on the floor as far as rebounding is concerned

 

Def Rebounds from last season compare mins to def rebs.

1. Jamar 1116 min 127 def rebs

2. Brian Lillis 648 min 101 def rebs

3. Kirsten 800 min 99 def rebs

4. Brent 973 min 94 def rebs

5. Lu 815 min 67 def rebs

 

Like last year, UA will rebound by committee again this year - but even last year Lillis was our most productive defensive rebounder when you consider min. and rebs.

[Dane Pound]

I'm actually more concerned with post defense this year than anything else. For two years Zoellner took care of that and hopefully one of the candidates for that postion will be able to fill that hole. Other than maybe Adeleke last year I don't think we really had to double-team anyone in the post until the UConn game.

 

On the bright side we won 20+ games last year without a post-up player on offense. I think Covington has more of that element to his game and hopefully gets a chance to show it. If he or Gifford can supply that, combined with four other guys on floor who can score it should put a lot of pressure on opposing defenses. If not, as Reeder said hopefully we can get some rebounding out of that position.