Future

[shocksrbest]

Thinking about the schedule next year. Who is going to be competitive in the MVC? League was very senior dominant this year. UNI & ISUr will be competitive, but anyone else going to do anything? I still see the league as WSUs to lose, by a wide margin.

Despite what we lose, Evansville will be crushed by who they lose...DJ, Moch and now Brzoja. ISUred will be good and UNI always seems to come around late in the year. I think we will be more balanced but will lack the degree of leadership we have been accustomed to these last few years. Lots of talent but we need a rudder on the boat as well.

[im4wsu]

HCGM clearly thought Ty was enough of an option to play him significantly when Fred was out. If we were in a position to lose 15 games this year, this may have paid dividends later in the season. I think this was a Rick Ankiel situation and Ty got too much on him too early. We'll see what happens, but the kid definitely has talent and skills.

Ty played 48 minutes against USC and Alabama, had 7 assists and 2 turnovers. Ball handling and passing were not limiting factors to Ty's playing time. In those two games he was 5-25 FG and 0-10 3-pt. Who knows how many assists he overlooked as he was jacking up those shots.
In the games following the Iowa game, in 68 minutes, Ty was 10-31, 6-14 from three with 2 assists and four turnovers.

even though this is not addressed to you, sorry proshock, more facts.

[AndShock]

One of the most important things for next year is to continue to carry the Road Warrior mentality, it will help separate us from the rest of the conference and keep us up there as one of the top 25 teams in the country. We could be quite a bit worse next year but as long as we don't lose @ Evansville or @ Loyola or @ Drake we still have a high likelihood of winning the conference because you know ISUr is gonna drop at least one of those types of games.

[WUpigsooie]

Excellent point... I think what most people fail to recognize was a behind the scenes deal that was made between 3G baker & Fred, they only coming back to be able to help wsu win and to be featured in the offense and defense. Everything ran thru them, and one of them had to be on the court at all times.. Next year it will be really balanced , we could even be as deep as this year, depending on how Frankamp, Allen, Smith & Willis do, that with Shamet, McDuffie, Morris, Brown, Keyser, Reaves, Hamilton, Nurger

Anybody ever heard of the Ewing theory?

I think it will apply greatly to next year's squad.


http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1193711

[Shock Top]

Offensive numbers will go up, Defense will go down. Whatever happens, it'll be fun to see how the torched is passed on.

Remember, the last "rebuilding" year led to a Final Four. Sky is the limit.

[AZ Shocker]

I wonder had Shament made the trip to Providence if Gregg would've pulled the red-shirt and put him in during that "flat" first 10 minutes. Lol

[proshox]

This year, we have been weaker at the 3 than last year. Brown did some nice things but he was never as good as Cotton last year. He may have been as effective on defense (not better), but offensively, last year, Cotton was a much better option on offense (both driving the ball to the basket and shooting from 3 point range) than Brown and better than Duff also. There is no doubt that the ceiling on Duff is higher than anyone, but for effectiveness this year, we struggled on offense with the loss of Cotton and Carter.

Next year, we won't be as good at guard as this year, but Landry will be close and Duff will have to pick up a lot of the slack. We will see how much weight Duff can put on and increase his effectiveness both offensively and defensively.

since the 35-0 season we got worse at three of the five starting spots:

We lost an absolute handful at the four in Early.

We lost scoring punch and intimidation at the five. Fred really missed the pick roll partnership he had going with DC.

We lost Cotton - the most dynamic athlete on the floor in every game.

Next year we will lose arguably the best point guard and shooting guard the program has seen.

I think the trend reverses next year. I fully expect to be better via experience at the three, four and five spot.

I think MM can become that impossible to deal with stretch four. I think RK will improve to a limited degree.

I think SM and RN are fully capable at making big steps forward.

I think the three improves via experience in Brown, and a possible offensive upgrade in Allen.

I think we can expect LS to play as well on offense as Baker did, but we will go backwards on D and in grit.

I expect our offense to diversify with CF at the point. The offense will have a much different feel, but it will put pressure on the defense by shifting the point of attack throughout a possession. The juco point guard is being brought in as a defensive tool since you can't find Fred's ability to disrupt in any of the returning players.

HCGM should be excited about the upcoming challenge of reinventing what Shocker Baskerball looks like. We will probably be a top 30ish defense and hopefully an efficient offense with an upside of being top 30ish as well. If we have a breakthrough newcomer we will be a top 20 team.

[Ricardo del Rio]

Anybody ever heard of the Ewing theory?

I think it will apply greatly to next year's squad.


http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1193711

http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1193711

[Ricardo del Rio]

Anybody ever heard of the Ewing theory?

I think it will apply greatly to next year's squad.


http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1193711

An entertaining read and perhaps a foretelling of what to expect in 2017.

[CBB_Fan]

Anybody ever heard of the Ewing theory?

I think it will apply greatly to next year's squad.


http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1193711

That's a good read, and while it doesn't apply perfectly to this year's squad I think it will be very applicable to the next. This year we thought we would be contenders because of Fred and Ron, but I felt throughout the post-season our big problem was that they tried to do too much themselves. They weren't great college basketball players because they were the best 1v1 or 2v2 scorers in the nation, they were great because they were the best defensive backcourt in the country, were good scorers, and because they got everyone else involved. IMHO the best year for that was our undefeated season. This year they couldn't play to their biggest strengths because they and their teammates knew that it was "their year."

Nest year, it is nobody's year. We don't have a senior, we don't know where anything will come from. Any success will just gravy, because we know the year after that should by all rights be a better squad. That is both a challenge and an opportunity. We've only briefly seen what it looks like to have McDuffie as a primary scorer, and it was actually one of the few bright spots of the Orlando trip. I'd have loved, even for one game, to see what Conner looks like when he's allowed to shoot like he did at North High. A brief anecdote; I was watching the shooting in the Miami game as the team warmed up for the second half. Conner didn't miss a single shot while I was watching, just looked incredibly in the zone. Ron and Fred were shooting about 50/50. Conner didn't take a shot until the score was 57-63 with 0:22 remaining.

Maybe next year we'll have our equivalent to Virginia's 1984 season, after Ralph Sampson finished his career with 3 straight POY trophies the team the following year went as far as Sampson ever carried them.

[jdshock]

since the 35-0 season we got worse at three of the five starting spots:

We lost an absolute handful at the four in Early.

We lost scoring punch and intimidation at the five. Fred really missed the pick roll partnership he had going with DC.

We lost Cotton - the most dynamic athlete on the floor in every game.

Next year we will lose arguably the best point guard and shooting guard the program has seen.

I think the trend reverses next year. I fully expect to be better via experience at the three, four and five spot.

I think MM can become that impossible to deal with stretch four. I think RK will improve to a limited degree.

I think SM and RN are fully capable at making big steps forward.

I think the three improves via experience in Brown, and a possible offensive upgrade in Allen.

I think we can expect LS to play as well on offense as Baker did, but we will go backwards on D and in grit.

I expect our offense to diversify with CF at the point. The offense will have a much different feel, but it will put pressure on the defense by shifting the point of attack throughout a possession. The juco point guard is being brought in as a defensive tool since you can't find Fred's ability to disrupt in any of the returning players.

HCGM should be excited about the upcoming challenge of reinventing what Shocker Baskerball looks like. We will probably be a top 30ish defense and hopefully an efficient offense with an upside of being top 30ish as well. If we have a breakthrough newcomer we will be a top 20 team.

You had me until you said LS would play offense as well as Baker did. I think some on here are overly negative about him, and then others are overly optimistic. Baker always got teams' best defender and he still had the ability to completely take over games. Freshman LS will probably be good, but I don't think he will be an offensive upgrade over All-American Baker.

[shockmonster]

An interesting read and maybe it has some merit.

But the aspect to this years team that makes it a difficult year to evaluate

.............when Fred was hurt, Landry followed close behind, then Anton, and Conner was not eligible for a good part of that period of time, our team chemistry and cohesiveness could never totally develop into a hard binding glue. We had our ups and downs but we never became as good as we were capable of. We were still good, but did not develop and progress like we wanted to.

[giskard]

I wonder had Shament made the trip to Providence if Gregg would've pulled the red-shirt and put him in during that "flat" first 10 minutes. Lol

I thought I saw him in one of the locker room pictures I saw from the game coverage, so I think he was there.

[Shock Top]

I know he didn't play much this season, but it's hard to to look forward to seeing what Eric Hamiltion can do going forward

Eric would more than likely play the 4-position, so here are his numbers over this season compared to Wessel's

MPG | PPG | RPG:
Wessel - 21.2 | 3.5 | 3.1
Hamilton- 6.1 | 3.4 | 1.7

FG% | 3P% | FT%:
Wessel - 32.1% | 26.7% | 46.7%
Hamiltion - 52.3% | 36.4% | 65.6%

I am not saying that Eric will come in right away and be better then Wessel, nor am I trying to negate what Wessel contributed to this team and program. What I am saying is the talent and athleticism is there and that he could be an improvement in the near future.

[mjbaker84]

I thought I saw him in one of the locker room pictures I saw from the game coverage, so I think he was there.

yep he was there, they showed him in warmups practicing before games.