CKS loves him some Gorham so we’ll see.
I think your prediction is likely. I’ve been waiting for White to get the start over Alley. Maybe tomorrow it happens. Brady off the bench may be a good move considering he is almost always in foul trouble after 5 or 6 minutes. Hinton, I want to start him real bad, too, but Brooks is a great rebounder, so I think I leave Armoni in for now.
Deciding who to start is a very good problem to have. The four that come off the bench, regardless of who they are, could be starters at many schools in the AAC.
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I agree with this; I don’t think it changes for Saturday either.
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I’d be somewhat surprised if White starts over Alley right now unless he starts to play better. Alley is a drastically better defender and in terms of shooting efficiency they are basically the same on the season (White TS% .463 and .421 eFG; Alley TS% .469 and .417 eFG), both low. For recency, in conference play White has been somewhat better than Alley (.389, .389 vs. .349, .318), though those are both bad.
It’s also not like White’s minutes have been creeping up. In the last 5 he’s played 11, 13, 21, 6 and 13 minutes. Alley’s played 13, 21, 8, 20, 26.
I think we’ll keep seeing similar minutes for both, unless Ced’s shooting gets better or White starts playing better D and shooting better, with Nate playing some small ball 4 at times like he’s been doing.
Unfortunately it seems like White’s foot injury really set him back. We should be much, much better at the 4 next year with a full offseason of conditioning for White, another offseason for Ced to improve his shooting, and Gorham.
I think our slow start has a lot to do with having only two outside threats in the starting line-up (Davis/Brooks), i would like to see that change, it won’t.
However, neither Brooks, Galen or Davis have shot creating ability, that’s why the bulk of their scoring comes in transition, if we cannot get out in transition, we don’t get a lot of good open looks because of the size of our starting guards, thus, Temple like results will happen from time to time. Let’s not forget we are 15-1.
I don’t know. Alley hasn’t played all that well in recent games, and White hasn’t gotten untracked at all this year.
If there was a switch, that’s the one, but I don’t think Kelvin would do that.
Honestly, after Armoni’s horrendous game against Temple, I wonder if Kelvin might start Deeky or Nate as a wake-up call. And by horrendous, I don’t mean bad shooting. I mean bad defense, bad decision-making, bad everything.
My starting 5: same as before except replace Alley with Hinton! That has our 4 best 3 pt. shooters & our best offensive 5 man. Don’t worry it will last only a few mins. before Brady picks up his second foul!
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I was just saying what I would like to see. But as for who the better player is, here are some stats broken down per minute played. I know that good defense is more than rebounds and blocked shots, but those are the only stats I have that relate to defense.
| PLAYER | MIN | FGM | FGA | FTM | FTA | 3PM | 3PA | PTS | PER MIN | OFFR | DEFR | REB | PER MIN | AST | TO | STL | BLK | PER MIN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cedrick Alley Jr. | 379 | 32 | 96 | 22 | 27 | 16 | 68 | 102 | 0.269129288 | 27 | 42 | 69 | 0.182058047 | 20 | 17 | 11 | 4 | 0.01055409 |
| Fabian White Jr. | 166 | 24 | 57 | 11 | 14 | 0 | 1 | 59 | 0.355421687 | 20 | 21 | 41 | 0.246987952 | 8 | 10 | 8 | 8 | 0.048192771 |
I think White is the better player, all around.
This isn’t going to happen but here is my starters philosophy, has nothing to do with the best players. Man we have a deep team.
CKS likes to start games going down low so the defense starts collapsing, hopefully opening up driving lanes and three pointers for our best weapons, our guards, the rest of the game. Last year it was Devin and his 10-12 footer. When that was money, the other team was usually in for a long night. This year it is Brady in the deep post. Brady has good post moves he just doesn’t finish consistently. Once Fabian finds that baseline jumper I would start him over Ced so we can get that Devin strategy from last year going again. All else can stay the same. Also Deeky and Gresham should get more minutes together, they know each other very well.
Hinton, Ced, and Deeky are energy guys and they should all get more minutes than Fabian during the course of the game. Gresham and Brady should be more even in minutes unless we are facing a Dirk/Bol Bol type of big, Gresham is a beast around the rim. I would also put Hinton at the 4 more than we have lately. It would calm him down some and make him work on defense and the boards, he’s plenty capable.
I trust CKS and Kellen though, don’t think the starters will change. Starting the three seniors and probably Armoni are non-negotiable if I had to bet on it.
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Agreed that White is more productive in less minutes. He isn’t 100% in shape yet so he isn’t ready for 30 minutes. Just basic logic, if White currently needs to sit a few minutes after every 5 to 10 minutes he plays, he gets more minutes by starting the game. In a perfect world, play 7 minutes, rest 6, play 7 minutes. Halftime, play 7 minutes, rest 6, play the final 7 minutes.
The only ready I have Brady in my prediction to start, is that Sampson’s game plan in most games has been to get Brady early inside looks to start the first half and to start the second half. I think the plan is that it opens up the outside game when Brady is effective. Not sure Gresham is ready to take on that role just yet.
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Galen Robinson
Corey Davis
Armoni Brooks
Ced Alley
Breon Brady
The same guys who have so far led us to a 15-1 record, with the only loss coming in a closely contested game on the road to a bubble team.
I agree with Jay. I think any changes are going to come in the form of increased/decreased minutes. Hinton and Jarreau should be getting more and more minutes each game. Both have been such difference makers while on the floor.
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Probably shouldn’t forget, the starting lineup hasn’t been exactly the same in all 16 games. Corey was benched for the first half of the Northwestern game for forgetting his gym bag back on campus making him late for the pregame warmups. Gresham got to start that game as well.
Coach has shown a history of rewarding players starts for practicing hard and sending players to the bench for an assortment of reasons. So whatever he has planned for the starting lineup today, could change tomorrow before game time.
We are good. 15-1 record gives us the chance to keep working in White and be patient with our Fr Alley and Hinton.
I do not want Hinton starting at the 4 because it throws off our guard rotation and I still think it is best to have all 4 bigs roaring and using Hinton there when we need him there.
The coogs are an excellent passing team. That is achieved by close and constant repetitions. Changing lineups is usually an unnecessary peril for teams with fifteen game winning streaks, unless there is some unusual problem like extremely slow starts. My guess is that they are thinking about how they pair up versus the high level of concentration and timing they need to get open for treys and jumpers. As it is, there is almost no time that they are stumped–caught holding the ball and not already knowing where they are going to pass it.
Coach has said it himself, he’s harder on Hinton than anyone else because he knows his potential and he knows he’s a great kid from a great family and can take it. Hinton won’t be starting this year unless it’s absolutely needed.
Hinton has been shooting the 3’s much better the last 3 games…and he creates better off the 3’s, i.e., can stop and pop the 2’s.
Alley is the one who needs to stop shooting 3’s and take it to the hole.
He shot 3’s really well against Temple (3 for 5), but was 1 for 5 and 0 for 4 in the two games before that. I hope it was a breakthrough that continues, but I’m not sold it is right now. I think he’s one offseason from really developing that skill at this level.
In any event I wasn’t taking any sort of position on whether Hinton is a better 3 point shooter than Alley and as to who should be shooting those more. If I was going to bet on one of them having a higher 3pt % by the end of the year it would definitely be Nate, if for no other reason than that Nate’s one really good 3pt shooting game was much more recent and he’s younger and more likely to improve. Also, Nate’s taken less so we have more evidence that Alley’s shooting percentage reflects his actual ability than Nate’s does.
The only reason I brought up Nate’s 3pt shooting in relation to Alley is because I thought the question about what makes Armoni a better 3pt shooter than Nate was completely ludicrous. Especially considering the person who posed it has criticized Alley’s 3pt shooting many times and Nate’s 3pt shooting thus far has been very similar to Alley’s percentage-wise and both have missed some threes very badly.
Wow are we still trying to have to defend why Armoni is much better, natural, consistent 3 pt shooter than any other right now besides Davis. I thought that was settled already. 
Regardless of who we start, looks like the opening line has Houston around a -11.5 favorite.