Unpopular opinion: I don't think Rock plays meaningful minutes.
Not calling him a bust. He's still very young, at a position that requires the most experience.
Joshua Jefferson has committed to Iowa State
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Not calling him a bust. He's still very young, at a position that requires the most experience.
I am not jealous of the job Otz and staff have ahead of them managing minutes and the rotation. I think Heise is good enough to play 15-20 minutes on a team as good as Iowa State will be.
But at the same time, I don't see the minutes going significantly down for Lipsey/Gilbert/Jones. I think MM could improve quite a bit, becoming more well-rounded offensively and improving physically, so I don't see his minutes going down much. In my opinion, Jefferson will be better than Tre King, so my instinct is to say that he will improve on King's 23 minutes in conference play. Watson chose to stick around and certainly will have a rotation role if his offense improves at all (and probably plays at least a bit even if it doesn't). Then you have 3 big men competing for time instead of 2, and 2 of those guys are transfers who probably expect to play while the other is a highly-touted recruit who the staff wanted on campus a year early to get him more ready to play as a redshirt freshman and sophomore.
If Jefferson is really 6'9", 240 lbs, as he said, I might be talking myself into Jefferson playing 5-8 minutes a game at the 5 to create available minutes at the 1-4 spots. If that happens, it probably means that either Rock or Chatfield is the odd man out.
But at the same time, I don't see the minutes going significantly down for Lipsey/Gilbert/Jones. I think MM could improve quite a bit, becoming more well-rounded offensively and improving physically, so I don't see his minutes going down much. In my opinion, Jefferson will be better than Tre King, so my instinct is to say that he will improve on King's 23 minutes in conference play. Watson chose to stick around and certainly will have a rotation role if his offense improves at all (and probably plays at least a bit even if it doesn't). Then you have 3 big men competing for time instead of 2, and 2 of those guys are transfers who probably expect to play while the other is a highly-touted recruit who the staff wanted on campus a year early to get him more ready to play as a redshirt freshman and sophomore.
If Jefferson is really 6'9", 240 lbs, as he said, I might be talking myself into Jefferson playing 5-8 minutes a game at the 5 to create available minutes at the 1-4 spots. If that happens, it probably means that either Rock or Chatfield is the odd man out.
My guess is 8-10, which I would think would be valuable experience
With similar player availability and DNP rates as last season, I’ll toss out in terms of min/gm for games played:
29 Gilbert
28 Lipsey
25 Milan
25 CuJo
23 Heise
25 Jefferson
25 Jackson
15 Chatfield
10 Watson
5 Rock
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Minutes per game is such volatile stat. There's no chance he plays 8 minutes in each of the 30+ games. (And I know that's not what you're saying.)
Omaha avgd 7.5 minutes per game, but that was 147 minutes over 20 games. He didn't play in 15+ games. And if you take out his 74 minutes from the first 5 games, when TJ was trying to make it work, he only avgd 5 minutes.
I'm predicting Rock's game log will look similar to Omaha's in conference play: a good chunk of DNPs.
When we predict minutes per game, the question really should be, what is the minutes distribution in the games against Kansas, Houston, Baylor and Arizona?
Lipsey 33
Gilbert 28
Momcilovic 27
Jefferson 24
Jackson 25
Jones 30
Watson 15
Heise 15
Chatfield 3
???
Lipsey 33
Gilbert 28
Momcilovic 27
Jefferson 24
Jackson 25
Jones 30
Watson 15
Heise 15
Chatfield 3
???
Agree. And imo fluctuation in minutes played will be greater next year for several spots in the rotation
To exemplify this, due to injuries to Ward and Lipsey, plus some DNP, the sum of average minutes played per game (played) was 216 last year.
Rock, Nojus will see their averages boosted from other guys being unavailable or blowouts. Maybe Watson, too
Since we're doing them, here's my gut as of right now on conference MPG, and comparing it to this season.
Don't pay too much attention to the positional minute allocations for guys like Jones and Heise, I just did that to help think through the distribution.
Realistically, I think one of Chatfield or Rock will take the large majority of their combined minutes by the time we get to conference play, but I don't know how that'll play out. I was also hesitant to give 10 guys minutes. But when I was looking at the stats from this season, I was surprised to notice that 9 guys played in every regular season Big 12 game except for KU at home when only 8 played (if I was looking at things correctly). I think Otz plays a deeper rotation than I've maybe realized because usually guys like Pav who played 5 minutes don't stick in the memory.
If I have to guess where this will be wrong, I think it's probably underestimating Lipsey/Gilbert/Jones/MM's minutes. I cut them each down a bit to be able to bump up Heise, maintain Watson, and put Jefferson where I think he'll be at. But realistically, someone will be the odd man out--likely Heise, Watson, Chatfield, or Rock getting minutes cut.
Don't pay too much attention to the positional minute allocations for guys like Jones and Heise, I just did that to help think through the distribution.
Realistically, I think one of Chatfield or Rock will take the large majority of their combined minutes by the time we get to conference play, but I don't know how that'll play out. I was also hesitant to give 10 guys minutes. But when I was looking at the stats from this season, I was surprised to notice that 9 guys played in every regular season Big 12 game except for KU at home when only 8 played (if I was looking at things correctly). I think Otz plays a deeper rotation than I've maybe realized because usually guys like Pav who played 5 minutes don't stick in the memory.
If I have to guess where this will be wrong, I think it's probably underestimating Lipsey/Gilbert/Jones/MM's minutes. I cut them each down a bit to be able to bump up Heise, maintain Watson, and put Jefferson where I think he'll be at. But realistically, someone will be the odd man out--likely Heise, Watson, Chatfield, or Rock getting minutes cut.
I understand nobody is going to nail this exactly. But in what alternate universe would you have 2 posts each playing 8 minutes a game?
Agree re: Heise, he will play more than people think to keep the other guards fresher.
I agree. The good thing I think is TJ has seen him practice and didn’t tell him he should hit the portal. So they must be seeing his potential in practice and think he has something
I mean I did say that one of the two of Chatfield and Rock would probably take the majority of their combined minutes, I just wasn't sure how it would play out, so I split them.
But I also don't see why that's so crazy? We don't know much about Rock, but if they give you slightly different skillsets (like if Rock has the shooting he had in high school and Chatfield's shooting doesn't return to his 22/23 numbers), then it's just a way to give the opponent different looks and keep guys fresh.
For an example, in the first Big 12 tournament game last year against Baylor, Robert Jones played 14 minutes, Osun Osunniyi 12 minutes, and Hason Ward 11 minutes. Otz likes keeping his big men fresh to be at 100% effort.
Ok but 8 minutes isn't enough to break a sweat. It's possible one plays over the other due to matchups and this could change game to game. Best case for us is Chatfield starts the season getting almost all available but this gradually sways to Rock eventually to the point where he's pulling from Jackson.
Just my opinion but that seems best for our future.
That's fine I'm not looking for an argument. When you make a graph the fine print doesn't always get read. Usually it doesn't.
Arizona is going to be in for a rude awakening imo, Houston has obviously adjusted well but mostly because of their style of play.
Have you seen him play? Sounds like coaches are happy with his improvement. (From his parents). I guess we will see, but size inside makes up for a lot of missed defensive assignments.
Bring up Fran's contract / retirement / hot seat, or ask about transfer portal activity.
"We got that blonde girl from LSU!!"
