Injuries...

[Patkran]

Re: Injuries...

One thing that will be interesting to watch this year is how Nagy's in-game coaching changes now that he has a full bench of assistant coaches to help him out.

In the past it seems to me that he has tended to sometimes forget about guys on his bench for long stretches. Also, personally, I hope he can delegate some of the foot-stomping to his assistants and develop into more of the Captain of the Ship sort of thing. I think he's always going to be an emotional guy but I also wonder sometimes if that gets in the way, too.

The addition of 33% more off-court coaching capacity is bound to help the team as well, in lots of little ways--for both the players and for Nagy--that probably won't be immediately obvious.

The bench has not changed much from last year. Coach Cooley was a GA, now he is the 3rd assistant. I am sure Coach C has some additional responsibilities, but I doubt if anyone is going see Scott change much on the bench, other than winning cures a lot of things in any program - so more wins = happier coaches and fans. That is what 22 years of coaching has taught me.

[SUPERBUNNY]

Re: Injuries...

On Kai and 3-point shooting in general:

When you have 5-6 three-point threats rather than 2-3, you get fresher looks for everybody, the other team can't come in focusing on a single shooter or two, and the offense opens up more for all shooters.
How much of our shooting over the last few years was hurt by tired guys trying to make up margins late in games? Makes a huge difference.

Playing for the first time in four years with a team that will, we hope, throw quality depth at any opponent (knock on wood with the injuries) here's one prediction that Mr. Williams will be a real shooting threat in '09-'10.

Go Jacks.

I hope you are right NoVaJack. This is going to be the best team we've had in a while and it should help for all the reasons you mentioned.

Kai is a critical piece to us being succesful. He has the ability to dominate the game unlike any other player we have. That was shown in the Oakland (home) and Iowa State games last year. Plus, he won't be forced to play the entire game which will help him keep his legs under him. Fatigue had to be a factor for him last year. We also need him to be a force on the glass and that is hard to do when you are outside the arc. With his jumping ability I would expect that he will get a lot of 10-12 foot looks this year. Sure he can pop out and hit a three but last year he spent a lot of time on the arc. His strengths are rebounding and elevating to shoot which either results in a good shot or a foul. It will really surprise me if we don't see Kai have his best season by far as a Jack.

This may be stacking things a little high on Kai but you expect this kind of leadership from him and all of your seniors. The cool thing is that in Kai and Garret we have a couple of seniors that have a ton of experience. These guys have been through a lot of wars and some tough years to say the least. They have to be so excited heading into the year because the supporting cast is deeper and better than any of the last five years.

I don't know about everyone else but I can't wait for the season to start!

GB, GB, GJ!

SUPERBUNNY

[91jack]

Re: Injuries...

Clearly we lost several games down the stretch the last couple of seasons because the Jacks players were tired. Coach Nagy mentioned it several times. On the flip side our Lady Jacks won several games down the stretch because they were much deeper than their apponent and wore them down. The men will do the same thing over the next few years. Depth is a really good thing.

GBGBGJ

I agree with everyone that depth was a serious issue the last several years. I think this year will be much different though. I think somebody said that Griffan played about 20 minutes/game last year. If he does that for the whole season, that should take about 5 minutes/game off all the starters minutes(minus AC possibly).
Rader and Pederson both can play this year. Rader should put up several minutes and Pederson can get 5-8 down low. I think he can hold his own for at least that long and let the other bigs rest.
Wolters will play a ton of time at PG. I don't know how much but it could be around 20+ minutes/game.
If Feigen is healthy, he'll play because of his size and ability. Yes, it would be nice to red-shirt him but he's needed this year. If Davis panned out, that would be another story. SDSU has a couple of quality bigs coming in next year and all 3 of them would be in the same class if he red-shirted. That's not the end of the world but not needed.
You add these minutes to last years team and nobody should be real tired-
Griffan- 10-15
Rader- 15
Pederson- 5-8
Wolters- 20+
Feigen- 15-20
That would be about 1/3 of the total minutes in each game. That should be enough to keep everybody fresh through the whole season.