bierce

Or he's getting more hype by the minute. A bad game or scouts deciding he needs to work on perimeter offense puts him right back in college for another year. I'd love to add him to our roster, but if he stays in the draft, then I hope we have another plan. I really don't think Shedrick, Onyema, Codie, and Kent is enough to go through a season at the 5 and 4. If we don't land another 5/4, then may Codie be healthy and productive from day one and Onyema a much more reliable player than he was in 2023-24.

Buyuktuncel was hurt for most of the year. NBA teams are still quite interested in him down the road. I don't really see a problem with adding Toppin to Shedrick. Both have shown decent midrange and out to the arc shooting, so both on the floor together can allow one to abuse the smaller defender inside while the other draws the longer defender outside. Shedrick has never averaged as much as 21 minutes per game in his career. I doubt he'll become a 30 minute a game warrior for us. That leaves plenty of minutes for Toppin and Kent, more since there will be those games in which all 3 play for a few minutes at the same time. We would have a much bigger problem if we didn't add Toppin and lost either Shedrick or Kent to injury.

And Mark knows better than anyone about any of it (with the possible exception of Brazile), so I suspect that Mark has told the staff whether or not we should take a prophylactic approach.

Sometimes it takes guys longer. Sometimes it takes guys to find their niches. Dylan has been a 40+% 3pt shooter every year in Europe but one.

That was a lot of nonsense originally floated by Missouri fans.

Terry is smarter than me when it comes to basketball, and he knows players and his team's needs better than me. I will always concede these points. However, I have reservations about Buyuktuncel. I know he's young and likely to improve. I know he's new to the American game and power conference level of play. But for a guy who is lauded for passing ability for a man his size, is anyone else weirded out by the fact that his last assist came on February 1? Steals are supposed to be another strength according to the highlight reel of him dominating against small international players, but they were a similar no-show at UCLA. Just 4 in 424 minutes. Just 9 blocked shots. High foul rate, poor ft shooting, and rather pedestrian rebound numbers complete the picture of a guy who is going to be really good at . . . what, exactly? Being a volume shooter stretch four? 30% 3pt shooting isn't uncommon for freshmen, and the 34% in FIBA U19 action is a little better, but it came in a small sample, so I don't have a lot of confidence that Buyuktuncel won't prove to be another Osetkowski--a guy who is bigger than a typical perimeter player and who wants to play on the perimeter a bunch, but who isn't a plus shooter, a plus passer, or a plus ball-handler, and a guy who doesn't show a lot of quickness or elevation on defense. Buyuktuncel looks a little more mobile than Osetkowski and was playing at a higher level as a freshman, so maybe he will have a completely different career arc, but his stat line at UCLA is remarkably similar to Dylan's first two years at Tulane.

I was pushing for him big time two years ago, but iirc he came off the board quickly.

Shedrick was insanely good before being knocked to the floor a dozen times by Louisville.

I'll take a wild guess and suggest no Julius Marbles.

Toppin seems a perfect fit IF he stays in college. We won't know for sure about that for a month.

Time to look at JT Toppin. He also declared for the draft, so his status will be uncertain for a month, but he's a near perfect combo of length, hops, mobility, rebounding, shot blocking, and offensive range.

I can see wanting either a big man with greater offensive range or a big man with better shot blocking, passing, and ft shooting, but I'm very curious who that might be.

I sure it was intended as nothing more than a Reiki treatment.

Arkansas grabbed Aidoo, so I guess Garrison is down to Texas or OU (or maybe he'll still visit Kentucky). FWIW, OU is a mess right now with everyone bailing on Moser. There should be plenty of minutes for Garrison there, but when the entire backcourt decides to flee, you have to think there are some problems in Norman, where Moser has yet to make a tournament appearance and is 20-34 in conference over three seasons.

I can't see Presley accepting a walk on role. He was originally offered scholarships from a bunch of power conference programs including Houston, Texas, A&M, LSU, Oklahoma State, Arizona State, Mississippi, and TCU. He'd be given a scholarship again somewhere. We now have 11 committed to scholarship if all our guys who aren't in the portal return and the incoming class remains intact. But I am curious of what his role would be. He was supposedly a defensive stalwart in high school, but if he can't get something going on offense, then he's not going to play much. He shot terribly from the arc for Vandy, but it was too small a sample to make a call about whether he can shoot from there. HS senior 28% doesn't bode well. He didn't rebound much at all on the defensive end, but he was pretty good on the offensive glass. Got to the line a lot because of it, but he missed more than he made from there. So we have the room on the roster but unless he finds a role on offense, I think he's going to be buried on the bench for a year. There are a bunch of good sfs in the portal, and Presley doesn't seem to address our real needs, so this is kind of weird. Maybe Pryor is leaving and this is a depth move. Maybe it's a long term projection. Maybe it's getting a defensive stopper to make our guys work harder in practice. Maybe it is to get a lockdown defender on the perimeter. Maybe it is to put him and Pryor in a basketball version of a cage match for a year to make them both much better players. I really don't know what this move is about. But I don't think Terry grabbed him just for the sake of grabbing him. I suspect there is a reason.

Meah isn't so much of a done deal to follow Pondexter that he is passing up taking visits. He's visiting Nebraska this week.

I'm game for that, but who is a potential target?

No, but we weren't on Omoruyi's list of 12 possible destinations.

Double digit scorer or rebounder? I was thinking more along the lines of Codie playing 15-18 reasonably effective minutes a game.

Again a guy whose primary value is as a perimeter offensive player than as a rebounder and interior defender. With Pope, Larry, Mark, Johnson, and even Kent, we have perimeter weapons, and I think Weaver will improve as a mid-range to long range shooter, and he's already a guy who can attack the rim from the perimeter. So Williams could be a Petraitis replacement, but Petraitis didn't really fit our biggest area of need, no matter how wonderfully he would fit into a spread offense with 5 moving parts.

Patton from San Diego of the WCC, not San Diego State of MWC. He could work even if he is very thin and perimeter oriented, but as you say, there hasn't been any other mention of him.

I wonder who we might be chasing now other than Garrison. We have 10 projected counters. Pryor and Onyema contributed too little last year for us to think they will help much this year, so that means we have maybe 8 reliable contributors. That is as many as we had in 2023-24, but it assumes Codie is rehabbed and ready to contribute at this level and Shedrick stays healthy. So obviously we still need another big man or for Onyema to give us a lot more and considerably better minutes. Until I see Codie play for us, I'm reluctant to anoint him as a plus factor at either end, so another forward with some length, mobility, rebounding chops, and shooting prowess would also be nice, but I don't know who is left who fits that description. I heard noise when the portal first opened about Xavier Amos. He's a very good shooter but not particularly great at rebounding. If there are others we are chasing, I'd love to hear about it. I doubt Jaylen Wells is about to call, but I'd love it if he did.

Still wishing we could have landed Keanu Dawes.

He would have been extremely useful in a spread out offense with lots of moving parts, but who would he cover on defense?

I think he would rather start than play a more limited role on a team with tournament aspirations. Or maybe he was promised opportunities to pilot the team plane on a bunch of those coast to coast flights.