2024-2025 Roster

[Chicagojayfan]

With the return of big fred. I think it’s a sign King and IssacT will be splitting 5 duty’s next year. Yea it’s tough losing kalks D. But king showed when fully healthy he was a menace on offense. His injury and his D I think hurt his progress this year. Hopefully him and IssacT work on their defense. If they can get their D good I think we will be just fine. (Both are threats on the offensive end at the 5)

Or it can mean that he had no better offers than UCSB? And that since we will be back in The Bahamas he can get some more NIL to bank while he develops?

I think this is pretty much it. He likely didn't get great offers and didn't have teams able to figure out how to get some NIL money to him, and we saw that real 5's are hard to find, particularly ones that know that if Kalk's back they won't get a lot of minutes

I think King figured he'd have a bigger role last year and maybe that's part of what hurt his performance last year, but the kid has a ton of talent and plays hard for us. As I said about Groselle before he had his breakout season - Mac's gotten a whole lot out of centers with a lot less talent than him, so being a bit patient isn't the worst thing. Too bad we couldn't have done a redshirt year for him as I think that would have helped him quite a bit (can we find a fill in big for this year so he can RS assuming Kalk is back?)

Positives - Very physical and strong, pretty much can match up with anyone when his positioning and footwork is correct. Strong rebounder and paint scorer, blocked a TON of shots as a Frosh, but dropped off last year). Takes up a lot of space defensively to guard the paint and has long arms made for protecting the rim

Weaknesses - Still fouls way too much. Get lost on D too often and gives up too many baskets and/or fouls to try to catch up to being out of position - Still very raw offensively

Remember, King is really young for a guy going into his 3rd year (think he turned 18 after he'd gotten to campus), and on top of that he hadn't played BBall that long before college.

[SeattleJay]

So, we have 11 slots filled. Coach Mac will obviously keep a scholarship for Kalk. That is the 12th scholarship.

What will Coach do with the one open scholarship? What is our biggest need?

And, yes I saw someone suggest that he will give it to a walk on. And, yes I am assuming Trey is not coming back.

[bleedblue]

So, we have 11 slots filled. Coach Mac will obviously keep a scholarship for Kalk. That is the 12th scholarship.

What will Coach do with the one open scholarship? What is our biggest need?

And, yes I saw someone suggest that he will give it to a walk on. And, yes I am assuming Trey is not coming back.

He's given it to walk ons in the past, but also waited until the last minute with high school recruits like Vice and Knox last year. It really seems like they aren't targeting and hs kids right now so I would bet looking for wings in the portal and if we strike out on all of them we give it to a JTT or Osmani walk on.

[#RollJays]

So, we have 11 slots filled. Coach Mac will obviously keep a scholarship for Kalk. That is the 12th scholarship.

What will Coach do with the one open scholarship? What is our biggest need?

And, yes I saw someone suggest that he will give it to a walk on. And, yes I am assuming Trey is not coming back.

Thin in the backcourt a bit. Have 6 guys for positions 1-3 and 6 guys for positions 4 & 5(counting Kalk) so I could see us add a PG.

[Chicagojayfan]

So, we have 11 slots filled. Coach Mac will obviously keep a scholarship for Kalk. That is the 12th scholarship.

What will Coach do with the one open scholarship? What is our biggest need?

And, yes I saw someone suggest that he will give it to a walk on. And, yes I am assuming Trey is not coming back.

Thin in the backcourt a bit. Have 6 guys for positions 1-3 and 6 guys for positions 4 & 5(counting Kalk) so I could see us add a PG.

We probably wait to be sure about Kalkbrenner coming back, but I think you are right about maybe wanting a veteran PG/Combo guard to take some minutes and not put too much pressure on Davis early on

Will be interesting to see what they want. If Kalk is back, we have a chance to have another nice run, and will want to make sure the supporting cast is right

[#RollJays]

So, we have 11 slots filled. Coach Mac will obviously keep a scholarship for Kalk. That is the 12th scholarship.

What will Coach do with the one open scholarship? What is our biggest need?

And, yes I saw someone suggest that he will give it to a walk on. And, yes I am assuming Trey is not coming back.

Thin in the backcourt a bit. Have 6 guys for positions 1-3 and 6 guys for positions 4 & 5(counting Kalk) so I could see us add a PG.

We probably wait to be sure about Kalkbrenner coming back, but I think you are right about maybe wanting a veteran PG/Combo guard to take some minutes and not put too much pressure on Davis early on

Will be interesting to see what they want. If Kalk is back, we have a chance to have another nice run, and will want to make sure the supporting cast is right

I hope LJ and Ty Davis are both ready to go because freshman tend to leave if they don't play right away but if you could somehow talk Ty into redshirting it would open a nice chunk of minutes for a true PG. Both Ash and Pop are scoring PG's. Watching Ty's film he looks to be more of combo guard as well.

[Chicagojayfan]

...

We probably wait to be sure about Kalkbrenner coming back, but I think you are right about maybe wanting a veteran PG/Combo guard to take some minutes and not put too much pressure on Davis early on

Will be interesting to see what they want. If Kalk is back, we have a chance to have another nice run, and will want to make sure the supporting cast is right

I hope LJ and Ty Davis are both ready to go because freshman tend to leave if they don't play right away but if you could somehow talk Ty into redshirting it would open a nice chunk of minutes for a true PG. Both Ash and Pop are scoring PG's. Watching Ty's film he looks to be more of combo guard as well.

You're right that they do leave without playing time and/or without a plan to get them to where they will play. We've had some luck with redshirting guys who need some physical development. Will depend on how ready everyone is to play coming in, but if the Coaches get Kalk back they have to make sure they have the roster ready to support another run

[JacobPadilla]

Watching Ty's film he looks to be more of combo guard as well.

Would be curious to hear you expand on why you think this.

[SeattleJay]

If we're being honest, Jackson's position(s) likely boils down to where he can best be hidden on defense and rebounding, until he bulks up to a point where he slots into the most natural position for his height + skillset combination of 4.

The disconnect for most fans is that when they project a position for a certain player, they often only look at what their skillset indicates they could do on the offensive side of the ball... not taking into account the matchup that will likely exist when we don't have the ball.

So I think this would be the more accurate statement.... "where he slots into the most natural position for his physicality/athleticism + skillset"

Lots of good comments. The biggest issue that I see with our current roster is that we have 4 talented players who can play the 4 (Miller, Green, Traudt and McAndrew) and one natural player for the 3 (Jamiya Neal). So, either you won’t play one of the big 4 much or one of them plays the 3 primarily. I think that is most likely to be Miller because defensively he is probably the quickest and isn’t as much of a banger as Green or Traudt.

If Miller plays the 3, it will be interesting to see if he starts or if Neal starts. I could see Mac using Jamiya like Farabello last year, playing the 2 or the 3 and getting a lot of minutes off the bench.

I don’t think we will play much small ball - so I don’t see LJ or Knox playing a lot of 3. (I am very pumped to see LJ play but it’s probably going to be at the 2)

It seems like Coach Mac has a logjam at the 4 and it will be interesting to see how he handles it. If any of those 4 guys sits a lot, it will be hard to keep them a year from now. McAndrew could redshirt but he seems way too talented for that.

Thoughts? What did I miss?

[LJay]

Five guys coming in who have never practiced the CU system. Many, many new guys take time to grasp the system. I think the seven already here have an early leg up.