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Montana's Starters and Back-ups at each position

MaximumGriz2013

MaximumGriz2013

Well-known member
With the off-season making for a slow Griz basketball board I thought I might try my hand at making some predictions at our starters and bench players for the coming season. I'm certainly not a seasoned basketball coach or anything so I could be way off base on some of these. It's also a bit hard since many of our players do really play their position in a traditional manner.

Point Guard (1): Starter; Will Cherry - Pretty obvious choice here, I think everyone would be surprised to see any other player as our starting PG
Bench; Jordan Gregory - I thought about putting Keron DeShields here, but from the play I saw last year Gregory looked to facilitate ball movement a bit better than DeShields. In addition, DeShields looked to be a better shooter than Gregory.

Shooting Guard (2): Starter; Kareen Jamar - Again, I think Kareem is the obvious choice for this position, especially after how explosive he became offensively at the end of this past season.
Bench; Keron DeShields - I was impressed with Deshields' shooting abilities from the minutes he played last season. He is also a competent ball handler and can facilitate the offense well.

Small Forward (3):Starter; Spencer Coleman - This is the position Coleman played at his JC, so I'm assuming Tinkle and the coaching staff won't change that. I certainly think that Henderson is going to give Coleman a run for his money for the starting position, but I'm going to give Coleman the benefit of the doubt since he does have more experience.
Bench; Kevin Henderson-This feels like the right position for Henderson since he can step out and shoot, or take advantage of his height and length to create some mismatches at this position.

Power forward (4):Starter;Mathias Ward - I know Mathias will be on the court as a starter, though I'm not sure if he'll be the Power Forward or Small Forward given all the the offensive weapons he showed off this past year.
Bench; Mike Weisner-Mike showed some flashes of brilliance this past year, so hopefully he can become more consistent this next year.

Center (5): Starter; Marko Kovacevic - Obviously our lack of a big man was why Marko was brought in, so I have no doubt that an experienced JC Center will be our center this coming year.
Bench; Eric Hutchison - I know that Andy Martin might be a better choice here, I'm just hoping that Hutchison can learn not to punch the ball out of bounds like he has been, and can learn to not foul on defense. I would much rather see Martin red-shirt his first year so he can mature a bit.
 
I think Hutchinson will be the big guy and DeShields and Wiener are about to play a lot more minutes giving Cherry, Jamar and Ward a lot of rest when needed....This is a very good team..
 
Good topic, Maximum! This is a deep team. Don't know if i've ever seen a Griz squad where literally every/any player has the potential to develop into a major contributor.

Right now I believe Will (at one), Kareem (at two) and Mathias (at four) are locks... But that's where it gets interesting, because...

I see the character of this team as being potentially shaped (in any of several directions) by those swing players:
1. DeShields will push for minutes at both the one and two positions...
2. Nick Emerson. and perhaps Spencer Coleman (though I haven't seen him, so I don't know) could vie for time at 3 and 4. Kevin Henderson could create havoc if he takes over at 3.
3. But most interesting to me will be what the immensely talented Michael Wiesner may do to earn playing time at 3 and 4 (while being capable of also playing behind Kareem).

a deep and multi-dimensional team. Hope they jell early.
 
Beyond Cherry, and Jamar being givens, it is a crap shoot, and one of win win.

If everyone stays healthy, Wayne has a luxury of determining starters and rotation based on what we need against whoever the opponent is. With that said, I am a huge advocate of having set rotation, and with this talent, Wayne will be doing a lot of experimenting again, before conference play. He has been pretty consistent with that for a few years. His focus is the conference season. Until the Big Sky becomes more than a 1 bid conference for the NCAA tournament, why should he change that focus?

The depth of this roster gets better every year, which is a huge tribute to Wayne's abilities. I cannot argue against, or question any of these guys being on scholarship. I do think the player with the most to prove is Hutchison. He has the most ? marks, with what we need from each position.

I do feel Wisconsin exposed what we really need to improve on, against better competition. I doubt if anyone will argue this. Beyond Kareem Jamar, we need more players that can create for themselves, and teammates. Keep in mind, We lost a great passer in Selvig, too.
Will Cherry has to be the main man here, for a few reasons. (1) His team needs him to be this man. (2) To better his NBA stock, this is a must, unless he becomes the dynamic scorer Lillard was.

Gregory, made a good impression on me last year, with his limited minutes, in being more of a true PG.

Deshields, took the ball to hole almost as effortless as Cherry did, the problem was, he could not finish, and like Cherry, did not look for teammates, when he broke down a defense.

The other player I feel can do this is Henderson. This kid is a stud athlete that can be true defensive stopper, and wreck havoc in the lane. When he puts his mindset with this talent, he will be a dynamic player to watch on both ends of the court.

Secondly, the GRIZ need players to get open without the ball. Inside, do it like Strait did. Strait scored most his points before he even touched the ball. To date, the best GRIZ post player I have ever seen in doing this. Ward improved drastically last year in this, and I have a feeling he will do better this year in that. The guy can score from anywhere, and can take advantage of any matchup.

On the perimeter, we need all the players to learn this better. We have the shooters, just a matter of finding them, and hitting those shots open. Last year, we had plenty of open shots against most everyone, but Wisconsin. Wiesner strikes me as the player with the smarts, and talent to become one of these guys, and athletic enough to make Dlouhy like things in the lane too. I also believe Deshields, and Henderson are capable of doing it too. Art Steward moved well without the ball, but he was expected to be around the basket to help with inside play, and rebounding.

As for the newbies, they should all contribute key minutes. Unless Hutchison improves dramatically, I expect all the newbies to play this year. For those wanting a big to redshirt, your eggs are in Hutchison's basket. I hope it happens, but I will be surprised if he improves dramatically. He will improve some, but not enough.

I honestly feel the players that learn these things best will help themselves in minutes, in addition to unselfish play, and DEFENSE!!!! Who will do it?
 
1 - Cherry
2- Jamar
3- ????
4- Ward
5- Kovacevic
My guess is the only spot not locked up is the 3. One would think Coleman has the inside lane on it because we wouldn't have brought in a JC guy for that spot if the coaches were completely comfortable with who we have. So I would pencil him in there but I think he will be pushed.

It will be very interesting to see how Deshields, Henderson and Gregory's careers shape up. Seems like there is alot of different takes on where they fit the best. Personally I think Deshields is a PG, He is very good at penetrating and breaking down the defense and a good long ball shooter but he needs plenty of space to get the long shots off. We didn't see a lot of it but I think Gregory is a more natural scorer and he put up big numbers in high school, so I picture him as more of a 2. Next to Cherry, Henderson is the best athlete on the team. Being a lefty I would generally like to play him at the 3, but he doesn't quite have the size. I think I would be inclined to play him at the 2 also and move Reem to the 3 when he was in.

This is a very good team and I fully expect to see way more minutes from the bench this year, bye the end of last year Stockton was the only bench guy seeing any regular time, I would think we might see 5 or 6 bench guys seeing quality playing time this year.
 
i put young players into three classes: those that demonstrate immediately and irrevocably that they are going to be major players at montana--krysko, strait, cherry, jamar, to name a few. exceptional talent reveals itself early, and these guys all played major minutes as freshmen. a second class of player shows talent early on but needs a year or two to get it together, to adjust to the speed and complexity of the college game. weisner, deshields, henderson and gregory fall into this category for me. i expect one or all to make major strides this year, as did ward after his first year or two, and give us significant minutes. but after three years? nah, i'm not buying it. if in the third year a player has not made notable progress, i pretty much lose hope of further development. that's hutchison. he'll never be a starter, and will be spotty and foul-prone as a backup. he is what he is. much as i'd like to redshirt the two big incoming freshmen, with hutchsion here and reader gone, i think it's inevitable we see one or both play. rats.
 
Agreed with the projected starting lineup in the first post, with the most interesting battle to me being Henderson and Coleman at the 3 spot. That should be a great battle... I really loved what I saw from Cherry-Jamar-Henderson last year when they were working together on that 1-2-2 press. That could really do great things.

One thing that is interesting (to me, at least) is the possibility of a small ball lineup, something like Cherry-Jamar-Henderson-Coleman-Ward... 5 guys like that on the floor at once, that would be tough to stop, that's for sure. Of course, could get abused down low too, so it will be interesting to see how physical Coleman is. They will be a fun team to watch.
 
Thanks for all the replies everyone!
I definitely agree with everyone that it will be nice to see the competition for playing time, and the depth of this team come into play. Especially since last year it was mostly the starting five and stockton who played towards the end of the year. I'm really looking forward to this season, because I think next years team will be very dangerous. I also think if we can make it to the dance this year we might actually be able to make some noise. Also I just think it's really awesome that we'll have a bit of international flavor on our team next year with Marko. :mrgreen:

Also Jon it's good to see you around eGriz again. I always enjoy reading your Big Sky Basketball Blog when there's not any BSC Basketball to watch. :clap:
 
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