Friday, November 7, 2014

sixth man of the year

After catching the exhibition game against Parkside there are a few things that seem clear already. This is a 6 man team. Whichever one doesn't start will likely win the Big Ten sixth man of the year award, as all 6 should get starter minutes.
I don't mean to disparage the rest of the team, but UW has 6 very good players, and 6 others that may be good someday, but aren't there yet. I had hoped that one of the young kids would make a big jump and be able to contribute major minutes this year, but that doesn't seem likely from what I saw Wednesday. There aren't that many minutes up for grabs in the first place. Brust's 35 minutes a game lead the team last year and those are all that need to be filled.
Gasser -33, Jackson-31, Dekker 30, and Kaminsky 27 all should play roughly the same number of minutes as last season. Hayes-17 and Koenig-16 both should get starter minutes even if they come off the bench which eats up 20-25 minutes. That doesn't leave much for the remaining 6, and I am guessing Dukan gets most of those. Dukan will miss the next couple games so there will be chance for one of those kids to step up and grab minutes. I don't see it happening. Dukan can hit the 3 and has big game experience. He can give UW 15 minutes a game.
The gap is big enough that both Happ, and Hill are considering taking a red shirt. Brown, Showalter, and Dearing will play, but they don't seem much better. All these kids might have got more minutes on a UW team from the past, but this is an incredible team. UW will have games that force some of these kids into meaningful minutes because of foul trouble. There will also be plenty of garbage time minutes.
This UW team has a lot of strengths, but depth will not be one of them.

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