(09-09-2018 05:34 PM)Muskrat Wrote: It's been a long, long time since I have looked forwards less to a basketball season than this one. I see a really poor season coming.
I'm not an expert, but I'm not expecting too much from this season either. I was expecting a lot more going into last season, and was disappointed.
At forward, we replace De La Rosa with Whittington; Pippen, Duling, and Frederick return. Pippen is recovering from an injury. Frederick wasn't able to earn a lot of time last year. I don't see improvement here.
At guard, I think Avery will be one of the top point guards in the MAC. Last year, I expected Walker to make a big jump and become a 1st-team All MAC player, but I don't think he showed much improvement. Mitch Peterson is the only other returning guard. We only have 6 players back from last year.
The rest of the roster - Kain Harris, CJ Williamson, Antonio Williams, DeAndre Gholston, and Anthony Roberts - are all shooting guards. (OK - Verbal Commits calls CJ Williamson a point guard). Since we only have 3 or 4 healthy forwards, we might be playing with 4 guards on the floor a lot. Back in the 2016 MAC Championship year, we played 6'3" G Deon Edwin as power forward a lot - it worked because of Edwin's skills, but I don't think it's a good plan going into a season.
One of the new SGs might be a solid contributor - I'd think Harris might be the best bet - but none look like guaranteed successes. Gholston and Roberts might have good careers at KSU, but I wouldn't expect a lot of minutes as true freshmen.
So we need one of the forwards to take over De La Rosa's production, and another to contribute 8-10 points a game; we need Avery and Walker to improve; and we need one of the guards to come out of nowhere and replace Zabo's 13 ppg. And that would just get us back to 17-17. I don't see much hope that this season would be better than last season.