Salley

[ER3]

I'm not a Salley fan, by any stretch...because I think there are a lot of limitations that he has as a player...
However, he deserves the minutes he is getting simply because our other bigs are far more limited than him and/or haven't done anything to prove they deserve to take some of those minutes away from Salley...
- Singh can give you good minutes against teams that don't have any athleticism in the post (i.e., MSU...)...but he simply cannot play when we are facing teams with guys like Matt Howard, Eric Coleman, Randal Falker, etc...so you can't simply say 'give alll of Salley's minutes to Singh...'
- Collins has the most physical potential out of our bigs to take Salley's minutes, but he simply looks lost right now...and you can't give 20-30 minutes a game to a guy that doesn't appear to have any idea where he is supposed to be within our offensive and defensive sets...
- Egolf really isn't a true 'big' at this point in his career, so you certainly can't give Salley's minutes to him...
- Austin has shown at times that he can, at the very least, be a physical presence in the post...but I don't see him as having much of an offensive game right now, and I would guess that he is still trying to figure out how to fit into our overall offensive and defensive schemes...I'm all for giving minutes to Austin to see what he can do, but I would suspect that if he got 30 minutes a game instead of Salley, we would all see what Les sees in practice that causes him to continue to play Salley over all of these guys...

Pure and simple, our big man rotation is a mess right now...Too many guys with limited athleticism, limited offensive skills, too many guys that are soft, and too many first year Division I basketball players that simply aren't ready to give us 10 to 20 DECENT minutes a game right now...

Salley almost wins the minutes by default...unfortunately.

[bu fan 9]

The problem is we don't have a center.Salley is a 4 Wilson is more of a 3 Auston is a 4 so right now everyone is playing out of position and trying to do the best they can.

[ER3]

The problem is we don't have a center.Salley is a 4 Wilson is more of a 3 Auston is a 4 so right now everyone is playing out of position and trying to do the best they can.

I would agree...Salley would be much, much better suited to get minutes as a 4...but our bigs are so iffy (the most generous that I could come up with to describe them) this year that I can't imagine it would be a good idea for Les to give extensive minutes with two of them on the floor at the same time. It's been hard enough to get any production out of one of them at any given moment in time...
If DC could make significant strides, this might be a possibility...but he needs to get things going in the other direction in a hurry...

[Beninator]

but our bigs are so iffy (the most generous that I could come up with to describe them) this year that I can't imagine it would be a good idea for Les to give extensive minutes with two of them on the floor at the same time.

ER, I agree with your posts for the most part, but I really think that we need to try MS and DC at the same time...

[ER3]

ER, I agree with your posts for the most part, but I really think that we need to try MS and DC at the same time...

Actually, I'm in agreement with you (in theory..)...I think this combo would be "the perfect world scenario" for this team as well...(if Collins were progressing and playing up to his obvious physical potential)...I'm just basing my statements on the fact that Collins really seems to be in a funk right now...and regressing rather than progressing...
If DC could start to show that he is 'getting it' as far as understanding where he needs to be offensively and defensively, I would love to see him and Salley on the floor together in some matchups...

[ph]

Actually, I'm in agreement with you (in theory..)...I think this combo would be "the perfect world scenario" for this team as well...(if Collins were progressing and playing up to his obvious physical potential)...I'm just basing my statements on the fact that Collins really seems to be in a funk right now...and regressing rather than progressing...
If DC could start to show that he is 'getting it' as far as understanding where he needs to be offensively and defensively, I would love to see him and Salley on the floor together in some matchups...

I'm starting to believe the lack you (and I initially) see in DC and MS together is more of a coaching than playing ability issue. If the coaches put DC and the other bigs in situations / schemes that enhanced their strengths and minimized their weaknesses, they'd seem to play much better.
Too often (even inb past years) we get "killed" by teams playing seemingly slow/un-athletic or not extremely talented bigs that got put in the correct position to suceed.

[Dub]

David Collins hasn't shown us much...to that we can all agree. HOWEVER, at this point in the season, with very little to lose, I feel we should give him significant amounts of Sally's minutes and expose him to a trial by fire crash course on being a center. Make is simple for David and send him in there for 20-25 minutes per game for the next 3-4 games. Reevaluate his performance and progression at that time.

I feel our potential is very limited this year with Salley (and without David), and predict that late in the conference season we will be wishing we had done what I just said.....yet it will be too late. We need a post scoring threat, a shot changer, and a rebounder down low to do anything this year. We need it sooner rather than later.

[Beninator]

Actually, I'm in agreement with you (in theory..)...I think this combo would be "the perfect world scenario" for this team as well...(if Collins were progressing and playing up to his obvious physical potential)...I'm just basing my statements on the fact that Collins really seems to be in a funk right now...and regressing rather than progressing...
If DC could start to show that he is 'getting it' as far as understanding where he needs to be offensively and defensively, I would love to see him and Salley on the floor together in some matchups...

Understand your point ER3 and I think that our opinions on the situation are fairly close... My hope with the two bigs on the floor would be that this would help get DC out of his funk while making Salley a little better with DC's presence. It's a gamble I know, but a gamble we need to try.imo

[SpfldBUAlum]

I wonder if part of DC's problem is that as soon as he makes any kind of mistake Les yanks him out of the game. Not only does it not give him a chance to get into the flow of a game it also seems to make him timid as well.

[ER3]

I wonder if part of DC's problem is that as soon as he makes any kind of mistake Les yanks him out of the game. Not only does it not give him a chance to get into the flow of a game it also seems to make him timid as well.

That certainly could be a factor...but I think DC's major problem lately is that he seems to make multiple mistakes within the first 11 seconds that he is put into the game and he doesn't seem to be learning from those mistakes from game to game...
If he'd start to show any signs of progress, I think Les would give him a bit more latitude.
...and I'm just speculating, but I'd have to assume that he has not been practicing well either to get moved down so far, or completely out, of the rotation...