With doolittle returning

[Soonerlover12]

I read a lot on here, but I don't post much.I see lots of questions surrounding this team, and minutes. I see people running down odomes because his points are down. I want to speak on both and give my opinion. Doolittle returning is a huge plus for this team. Having his scoring coming off the bench will be huge in conference play. Manek will continue to start, unless something drastic happens. Manek has earned it. He is playing beyond what I thought he was. Of course I had not seen him much. Doolittle coming back will hardly affect manek's minutes. It will slightly of course. Doolittle will probabl play the 3, 4, and 5 at times, especially with how lattin has played in the last two games. regarding odomes, he playes such good defense, his points don't matter. Yes his scoring is down, but that will happen when you have a trae young and manek in the lineup. He scored 10 ppg on an 11 win team. On a 20-25 win team with great scoring, he just needs to play defense and rebound. trash buckets occasionally. then you have cj and mcgusty. odomes will never be a scorer with these guys.it is going to be interesting to see lineups going forward. so many possibilities. Our 2nd team will consist of Doolittle and mcgusty. our two best scorers last year. that's incredible. I honestly believe lattin should be in the 2nd group with them, not because I think jamuni is so much better, but because I feel jamuni's defensive presence fits well with the first team. I am not here to gripe though. I just wanted to talk about all of the amazing possibilities we have going forward!

 

[OUGenius]

Great post...I, too, read a lot on here but rarely post.

I also see the starting lineup remaining intact and totally agree that you can’t look at Odomes’ scoring numbers as relevant to his effect. I love the 5 guards for the 1, 2, and 3 spots and especially appreciate Lonny’s use of Shepherd later in games. So those five (Trae, James, Odomes, McGusty and Shepherd will continue to get minutes and I see Odomes starting but sitting more depending on Kam’s game to game performances. Doolittle will, I believe, get little shortage of minutes as he will play a lot at the 4 and 5 along with Manek and Lattin and Jamuni...I see Doolittle getting 15-25 min a game and depending on how each game goes I think we’ll see all of the top 9 (other than Shepherd who will get more like 10-15 and Trae who will get 30-40 min) getting that amount of time. Hopefully Shepherd’s tremendous development on top of the team depth will let Trae play no more than 32-34 min a game as that would be better for him and the team in March.

 

[inoref]

I would think it would take a few weeks before KD can get back in the system. I believe LK starts these guys coming back like this at the bottom...Yes/No?

 

[sperry]

It's just going to depend on how much he has improved in the offseason. Guys often take huge leaps from freshman to sophomore year. If that's the case, he could easily end up starting again. Or, he could show up out of shape and in the doghouse for the whole year. We won't know until he gets out there, although I suspect it will be closer to the former.

No matter what happens, we don't have enough minutes for the quality players we have here. Which is a good problem to have, although it's going to be tough for Lon to manage egos.

 

[usedtobe1]

I mentioned in another thread that Bob Przybylo from Sooner Scoop was at the Sunday practice and took a few pictures. Doolittle is ripped. He hit 14 3's in a row in warmups. He's been working out with the St Mary's coach who used to be an OU GA. He's in great shape ..... maybe not game shape.

I bet he plays at least 10 minutes against Northwestern State tomorrow, and maybe more against Northwestern on Friday. He will be one of 3 best players on the team and Kruger knows he needs to get him ready for B12 play in 12 days. We need his physicality and work on the boards. Remember he averaged almost 10 ppg and 7 boards a game in B12 play as a true freshman.