Man, I was worried before about not having any big men in the next few years...now I'm scared shitless.
I'm REALLY excited about this. Other than Zach Peters I thought he was the best player at the Elite Camp. He has a very high ceiling.
Welcome to Texas, DeAndre. Great to have you on board and a part of the awesome 2011 recruiting class.
Hopefully the staff will consider redshirting Chapman this year, because if not and judging by the fact that other than Tristan we don't have a good shot of getting another 2010 bigman we're SOL in the bigs department for the 2011-2012 season. Shoot Tristan may end up being a 1 and doner and we'd still be SOL for 2011-2012 without Chapman redshirting. The possibility remains that Tristan may add a couple of inches so maybe that's playing into the staff's recruiting strategy, but the lack of depth of quality bigmen in the 2010 class looks to be a big problem.
I guess LeBryan Nash out of Dallas Lincoln is really out of the picture now...although he never seemed to like us very much anyway.
Uh...I think we're taking another player in that class. There are still two slots available --- one in 2010, and one in 2011, from what I understand. Plus, all kinds of things can happen between now and then. That said, I certainly agree with everyone's thoughts on the lack of big men on the roster by the time those seasons get here.
So I looked at the Scout list of prospects for 2010 and 2011, and I don't see that many listed at 6-10 or taller. Unless some of these prospects called a bluff like Connor Atchley's mom, I have to assume that RB knows what he's doing.
Next years assumed Roster Dogus Balbay G 6-0 176 Clint Chapman F/C 6-10 235 Matt Hill F/C 6-10 241 Damion James G/F 6-7 222 Gary Johnson F 6-6 233 Justin Mason G 6-2 194 Dexter Pittman C 6-10 298 Alexis Wangmene F/C 6-7 241 Varez Ward G 6-2 190 Jai Lucas G 5-10 160 J'Covan Brown G 6-2 190 Avery Bradley G 6-3 175 Jordan Hamilton F 6-7 210 Shawn Williams F 6-7 215 Only Chapman, Hill and Dexter are 6-10. With Pittman/Mason/James graduating we better hope there is room for a three member class with a big man being the third member with Tristan Thompson 6-9 and Daniel Bejarano 6-5 Josh Smith?
He's not the sole answer, of course, but let's not forget that Wangmene has 3 years left, freakishly long arms, and is well suited to interior play. I'd prefer a guy a few inches taller, but Wangmene does have attributes that allow him to line up against taller opponents. With all the size the Longhorns now show at 2-5, I'm not too concerned about the lack of a traditionally physically imposing center. I want the team to recruit one, of course, but look at the champions of the last 10 years: 2009 UNC--Ed Davis as their only player over 6'8" with significant minutes. Ty Zeller played less than 5 minutes a game throughout the tournament. 2003 Syracuse had the ineffective seven footer Craig Forth (2 pts, 4 rebounds, fouled out in 21 minutes against Texas in the NCAA semifinal) and unused Matt Gorman as their only guys over 6'8". 2001 Duke had Boozer (6'9") as their only effective big man. Saunders was pretty much 10 wasted minutes a game. 2000 Michigan State had AJ Granger as their only guy over 6'8" (by a whole inch in his case) with significant minutes all year. I don't dispute that between 2004 and 2008 all the champions had aircraft carriers as Al Maguire used to say. KU had Kaun and Aldrich. Florida had Horford and Noah. UNC had May. UConn had Okafor. I"m just saying that half of the champions over the last 10 years did not have a dominant presence inside, or if they did, he didn't dominate as a result of being taller.
BTW, SL, care to enlighten us a little bit more? I'd love to have Fab de Melo as a 2010 big. I'd also love to get Cory Joseph, since we have that connection now to what seemingly will be a presence in high school basketball for a while in Findlay. For the 2011 class, I was interested in Wayne Blackshear and LeBryan Nash, but it seems that we've used up all our schollies for wings so far. It seems Mike Shaw's pretty high on UT, could he be a possibility. Maybe even James McAdoo?
But my point is that having Tristan Thompson and Wangmene along with the perimeter length would have Texas playing as big as 5 of the last 10 champions. Edit: Cough. Sorry, 4 of the last 10. BTW, Warrick measured 6 feet 7.25 inches with shoes off at the NBA draft combine. 6 feet 8.5 with them on.
Well, my point is that you don't use stats like 4/10 when the 6 against you are the most recent 6. Actually not, because Maryland was big too so that's only Duke and MSU really... But, that's beside the point. I agree with what you are actually trying to say about only needing a few bigs, not behemoths, a la Wang and Tristan. That's what I was saying earlier. Personally, though, I am of the opinion that a 3rd guy is a MUST in today's game, in case of foul trouble or fatigue.
Well, like I said, I want Texas to get another big man in the 2010 or 2011 classes, but I still think UT's lineup for the next three years will be bigger or roughly equivalent in size to UNC's of this past year. You say UNC had two 6'8" guys who played bigger and Davis at 6'10" off the bench. Playing bigger than one's size can be said for James and Wangmene, and Texas has three 6'10" guys this coming year and two returning for another. The problem only looks to be the team fielded in 2011-12, when UT will have a 6'9" starter (Thompson) a 6'7" freakishly long armed senior (Wangmene), and X. And if Thompson is a one and done, then there is Wangmene and X squared. And Texas is loading up on 6'7" guys to be the X's. IF Thompson stays for a second year, Texas won't be smaller than this past year's UNC team by any significant degree. If he doesn't, then there is reason for worry, but then there is an extra scholarship to land someone. 2011-12 season is still a long way off. Look, I agree I want to see Texas recruit a big guy for the middle, but since it looks like Texas won't likely ever again be playing three guards at the same time who average 6'0", it isn't nearly as big a concern as it would have been last year.
