With the NCAA Tournament starting this week, I wanted to take a look at our rotation considering all the injuries.
Good News: Most Teams shrink to a 7-8 man rotation come March. Playing their best players the most minutes.
Bad News: Injuries have ravaged our team, we don’t have 7-8 players we can consistently count on. Only our starters are good enough to know what they’ll bring in the tournament
We are essentially running a 7 man rotation of…
PG: Shead
SG: LJ Cryer
SF: Emmanuel Sharp
PF: Jwan Roberts
C: Francis
6. Malik Wilson
7. Damien Dunn
8: Cedric Lath (Scarce Minutes… why I didn’t include him)
In order for us to win this tournament, not only will we need our starters to play a lot of minutes, they’ll have to play as good as they have all season to compensate for our lack of bench.
To me, Cedric Lath & Dunn are our wildcards. If lath can provide 5-10 minutes off the bench, it will help with our lag of bigs and size.
Dunn can also score. But he needs to be more efficient and better with his shot selection. I like Wilson a lot, he has been the most consistent. But none of these 3 players are certified rotation players… but we need them to step up big to help us against teams with size
What I think gives us as good a shot as any is we have Shead, Cryer, & Sharp as our jumpshooters and can knock 3s down consistently and explode for 15+ points. We haven’t had that the last few years outside Sasser, and if our 3 point is falling, along with our defense… we can make a final four run
He said an outside chance, but he’s not counting on it. If he can play it would be welcome, but how rusty would he be? I don’t remember what his injury was.
Mylik Wilson has looked good. He was 4-7 with 9 points and 6 rebounds against Tech. He led the team with 10 rebounds against Iowa State. And he had 8 points and 5 rebounds against TCU. I think he’s a quality reserve.
We will roll over Longwood, but unless we get red hot with big contributions from the bench, i.e., Wilson, Dunn, and Lath, we will be in a fight for our lives vs. A&M or Nebraska. A&M is much, much better with Radford, who was not available when we played them in December 2023, and Taylor is on a roll. If we can get to the Sweet 16, whoever we get there will be a toss-up. One game at a time. Now or never for Dunn. I believe in him, so I’m optimistic, but we really need him to show up and show out.
Without knowing all the information I am thinking Walker Jr. can play the 2nd weekend. I’d hope we didn’t even use Roberts vs Longwood. I am thinking we use him the 1st half only and as long as we have a comfortable lead he can sit all 2nd half. That 2nd game is scary but if our guys have an average to good game we win.
It’s not like Texas A&M has this really good record and is under-seeded. if anything they were over-seeded. This is the same team that lost 5 games in a row a month ago
Since missing our game Radford has played in 22 games. A&M is 12-10 in that stretch.
Can A&M beat us? Yes 100% its possible, but at the same time I like our chances and still think we have a damn good shot at getting to the E8
7 Likes
WheelerBoy
(Stick it in your pipe and smoke it!)
12
We would have to suffer our worst loss of the season to not reach sweet 16
We are not the same team that we were in December when we held on to beat A&M by four points. We got up big and then Taylor went nuts in the second half. Now, we don’t have Jo-Jo Tuggler, J’Wan Roberts has one good arm/hand and one good leg, and no Arceneaux. I think a rematch vs A&M would be a toss-up and we would need one of our better efforts to get past them. Of course, if we get a red hot Shead or Cryer with some help from Sharp and our bench, then I’d take Houston to roll into the Elite Eight. I’m just worried that J’Wan is too banged up and Shead will not get enough help from Cryer, Sharp, and our bench. Also, when the bench comes in, we’ve got to play better defense and we can’t turn the ball over. That’s were Damian Dunn can shine. Better defense, no turnovers, and stop pump faking…just pull the trigger and shoot the open shot. Here’s to J’Wan Roberts healing up. He’s been a warrior all season playing with injuries. We need him. He’s our only scoring threat in the post. But, his leg injury on top of his hand injury look to be wearing him down. I love the guy…I’m hoping he has a full tank of gas for the tournament, but I can’t fault him if he doesn’t. He’s banged up.
I think walker will likely be cleared after the 1st weekend. Just a guess
Sampson has probably refused to acknowledge it because it would somehow insinuate that we are guaranteed to make it past the 1st weekend. Sampson is too superstitious to say we’ll get a player back, when there are season ending games before that expected date
And I guess A&M has remained the same. They can put up some points, and if only one or heaven forbid none of our “lights out” shooters are on (as if that couldn’t happen) then this assumptive Sweet 16 appearance could get derailed. And it’s not like Nebraska played in the Ohio Valley. Short bench and foul trouble added to the mix are not a good recipe for success.
We just need the bench to compete and not lose when they are in the game. We don’t need huge contributions and A&M or Neb isn’t likely to get huge contributions from theirs either.
The advantage UH has in the tourney is that you don’t know what to expect. Advantage UH. It’s the best defense around.
Aggies have played us and know what to expect.
SigEpCoog2005
(SHAUN - Bill Yeoman needs to be honored with a BOBBLEHEAD!)
20
We need to look at this one weekend at a time. We need to come out strong against Longwood and rest our studs the second half and pray for a boxing match between Nebraska and A&M so they come out exhausted.