Coach Johnson on Gurley and Slawson
Does this mean Gurley is moving to the post?
If Pugh and Bothwell make good progress and Clark gets more consistent, we could be pretty good.
Interested to see which of the freshmen have an impact. I’m guessing Kenney is the likeliest one.
Interested to see which of the freshmen have an impact. I’m guessing Kenney is the likeliest one.
Gurley played the post all year for us...started at the 4 and backed up Rafferty at the 5.
That may be a little over simplification. Rafferty had only 239 minutes when he was not on the court including OT games. Williams and Slawson had 245 minutes between them so if Gurley played the post it wasn't much. Regardless who played the post we struggled to score when MR was not in the game so there is a lot of work to do. Lot's of minutes, points, rebounds, assists and steals to replace besides the things you can't measure.NCPaladin22 wrote: ↑Sun May 19, 2019 6:59 pmGurley played the post all year for us...started at the 4 and backed up Rafferty at the 5.
There is no question at this point we will need one of the 2 freshmen bigs (Lawrence or Beeker) to step in and contribute efficient basketball early on for us even if off the bench
There is no question that the parts of the offense that were emphasized this year involved using Matt's unique skills, and we struggled when he was out.
What I expect next year is that our same basic offense will be tweaked to more resemble '16-'17 when Rafferty basically missed the whole year and we had no interior scoring or passing presence (Acox)and the offense was more G oriented.
Also expect us to find ways to use Gurley's skills...his quick first step and shooting ability give him some interesting matchup advantages.
I think we will be fine on offense. Need to coach up the bigs to defend the basket without committing excessive fouls. From memory believed Gurley and Slaussson led the team or were close to leading the team in fouls per minute last year. Their development in this area imo will be the key to success. Excited to see their progress!
I think the team is a little more equipped with an inside presence compared to 16-17. We have 3 skilled players (Mounce, Gurley, Slawson) down low compared to 1 (Acox) in 16-17. None of them are true centers, but it'll be nice to not be so reliant on one player for the entire offense.