Depth

[BigTime]

I will admit that I thought we were going to have more depth/better depth last year than we ended up having. Some of it, I think, was due to the fact that LK wanted to play a senior laden team as many minutes as possible (which worked as evidenced by making it to the final four). I believe that guys like James, Odomes, Buford, Manyang and McNeace would have been better had they gotten more run in the nonconference/early conference season.

What are your thoughts on the depth for next year?

Like prior to last season, I think that depth on paper looks to be really strong for this team (maybe the best that I can remember). I also believe that LK will play a bunch of those guys early with fairly equal minutes in order to see who ends up being most ready to contribute during conference play.

Pretty impressive to me on paper:
PG: Woodard/Strong/McGusty?
Wings: James/Odomes/McGusty/Grandstaff/Doolittle?/Buford? (not likely unless he gets much quicker on both ends)
Posts: Lattin/Buford/Manyang/McNease/Freeman/Doolittle

It will be interesting to see if Freeman or Doolittle redshirts this year...

 

[perryj74]

Those guys you listed did get quite a bit of run during the early non-conference portion of the schedule.

There's no way Freeman redshirts. He's already given up a semester there's no way he's giving up two more.

 

[SoonerTraveler]

Freeman has already redshirted. He has been practicing with the team since January. He is eligible to play in games from the start of the 2016-17 season.

Granted, all of this is due to the timing of high school graduation in New Zealand, where Freeman graduated at the end of the New Zealand school year, which was the start of the second semester of the USA school year. The New Zealand school year runs from the beginning of February to mid-December

Nevertheless, the "redshirt effect" is the same, even though Freeman's redshirt season was not a full season.

 

[tmeyer3307]

Woodard will play 35 plus minutes a game.. James will play 30-35 and Lattin hopefully can stay on the court and play 28-32 minutes a game.. So I feel like we are going to rotate at a wing position and the pf position quite a bit.
It would be nice to play 8/9 guys a lot next season..

 

[ArdmoreSooner]

Its hard for a coach to play too many players. You generally end up with one guard sub and one post sub. With all the breaks they get during a game. I know it adds up during the year but in a tough conference its hard to just have games where you can sub a ton. I thought he did a good job against the OSU, Tech, TCU games getting minutes but those games are few and far between.

Next year I agree that early season will be establishing a line up. Wonder if they can go oversees to get some more playing time early. I know there are limitations on how often you go but this would be a great year to do it.

 

[Larry72]

Freeman will play.
I hope that Strong healed and has a great summer. Woodard is going to need some rest.

 

[CMSOONER]

PG: Woodard/Strong
SG: James/Grandstaff/McGusty
SF: Grandstaff/Buford/Odomes/Freeman/Doolittle
PF: McNease/Freeman/Buford
C: Lattin/Manyang/McNeace

 

[tmeyer3307]

I would like McNease or AK to start with Lattin, but I just don't think any of them have the foot speed to keep up with most 4s in the big 12 and we couldn't switch everything like we did this year!