boomstick

Steven Williams will start game one at catcher and will catch Greenhill. Not sure if that's an all year thing, but that's how it will start. Also, sounds like Tyler Miller and Garrett Farquhar will start at 1B and 2B, respectively. Not sure who will play RF with Williams behind the plate and not sure how that will impact the DH role.

Pretty fired up about the season. I think we have enough depth to field two quality starting 9s without any crossover. The hardest part about this season is getting the 12-14 really good position players enough reps to keep them ready. I think the offense is going to be explosive this year. The pitching staff under Butch will always be solid, but we have a chance to have a really really good staff this year. I have some questions about the bullpen and who closes, especially now that Owen is out a couple weeks with a dislocated finger and Barnett likely stepping into his weekend starting role, but it does give us an opportunity to get more guys work to see who can be that second closer on this staff. We will need one or two to rely on besides Barnett IMO.

We're not in Anselem's final three. That's LSU, Bama, and UGA. Sotto is opting to sit out next year to train and not go to college. Who the heck knows what Maker is going to do. I think he's eligible for this year's draft. Cardwell, Kuminga, and Sanogo seem to be the three we'd focus on.

Sounds like Anselem is trying to reclassify to the 2020 class along with Kuminga and Sanogo.

Ramone got Okoro’s brother’s ear.

Yeah, I think it was Jhead who said Bruce wanted to fill this class with HS recruits if he could.

From his side, yes. His camp has talked about several different avenues for him to get to the NBA quickly. OAD or prep school for a year and enter. They're under the idea that he's a OAD. And he may be. If he is and we can land 1-2 of the remaining two, we're going to be LEGIT next year. I'm not sold on him as a OAD. I think he needs to fill out more and could use a year in college before leaving as a Sophomore. And if my timeline is accurate, he would be two years from being able to enter the draft. Some mock drafts have him in the 2021 Draft. So there may be something out there that I don't know about that would make his situation more clear. I do know that several insiders hinted at his ability to qualify and enroll as part of the 2020 class was still very much up in the air, and that was 2-3 weeks ago. So, I still think there's a lot to work through with Thor before everything is clear.

So, I'm trying to get some clarification on Thor's age and when he's eligible for the draft. This article says he left Alaska when he was 14. Guessing he moved to West Virginia and enrolled at Huntington Prep the next year, which would make him 15-16. But Huntington played him and schooled him as a JR. And when he moved to Norcross to play this season, he played as a SR although he was 16-17. He's waffled back and forth between being in the 2020 class and the 2021 class. There's even been talk about him taking a prep year for 2020-2021 and entering the draft. But from what I can find, if he's 17 right now, he's not going to be eligible for the 2021 draft. Now, there's a timeframe we don't really know about, the time from leaving Alaska at 14 to entering Huntington Prep last year. And you can't really find any info on his age right now. But he was originally a 2021 kid for a reason (I'd assume age). So, him reclassifying to 2020 can't really speed up his age clock because he has to turn 19 int he year of his draft. It's possible he has a really late-to-the-calendar birthday where he'd turn 19 in December of 2021 (which would make him 2021 draft eligible), but that's about the only way I could see this working.

Typically yes. The only concern I would have with anyone announcing their commitment to us soon would be Green announcing to us then signing to go pro. Doubt that would happen, but that would be the likeliest flip/decommitment/change type of situation that would/could happen.

Not that we don’t want him. We want a big in this class. But I think we’re targeting a different style at 5 ideally. A long, rangy, athletic stretch player would be ideal. If we can’t land that, I think we’re happy to take Cardwell.

I think it was Jhead. And I definitely trust his info. I think his prediction was Green, Thor, and DC. From what he wrote, we're looking for a combo guard, a big, and a best available. Green is the CG, DC is the big, and Brown or Thor would be the best available. DC's spot might hinge on Brown's decision.

Sounds like we're only planning to take one big in this class. And if we haven't already made an offer/taken his commitment after missing on Omoruyi, it tells me we have someone else we're currently after that we think can play the same position and is higher on our board. The only one I can think of is Thor. Size wise and skill wise, I think Brown would fit the mold of a stretch 4 or 5 in our system, but I can't see us recruiting him at that spot, given how much he's talked about wanting to play 3 and not being interested in playing 4 or 5. I think most are recruiting Thor as a stretch 4, but I think he fits our system very well as a stretch 5. He's tall, long, very athletic and explosive for 6'10" and has some shooting skills. IMO he fits the mold of what Bruce really wants in his bigs right now. Same with Stretch Akingbola. McLemore was a little shorter version of that. Cliff would've been a bit of a hybrid in that I think he had the physical size that Stretch and Thor don't but also had the ability to step out a shoot a little. Reminds me of Emmitt Williams at LSU. Wiley is probably the exception to the 5 position for Bruce more than the rule. And IMO Cardwell is more like Wiley, a back-to-the-basket guy.

I think we go after Cardwell and a transfer who can play immediately. I think we will start seeing our name pop up in more big man transfer names like Goodwin from Wofford.

I’ll be interested to see how Davison does on the summer circuit (if there is one this year). He really struggled at that level last summer.

Probably just referring to the season and not getting to play in any tournaments (aka the real season).

Sounds like Auburn leads for him. He's trying to get back to visit campus again ASAP.

I'm not hoping anyone leaves and don't think anyone ought to leave. Don't believe I ever said that. And I don't think they should leave because of "maybe recruits." But I do think those recruits are an indication of where the coaching staff sees weakness in our roster. So if you're a returning guy and we're recruiting a 5* at your spot, you have some thinking to do.

I don't think anyone is wanting to push current players out. We're just looking at the roster construction next year and what we project as needs and trying to determine who we can/will sign (and who might leave if we sign certain players). The problem some of the current roster guys could have is the amount of highly talented youth players we're bringing in to compete for or at their respective positions. Jamal Johnson is a perfect example. He will be a redshirt Junior next year, and we have signed one freshman SG and are HEAVILY recruiting possibly the best SG in the nation in Jalen Green. Where are JJ's minutes going to come from? Does he want to sit behind at least one freshman, possibly two? Would he want to go to a smaller school and have a chance to start there? Also, there are needs on the roster right now. IMO we need another PG, SG, and C. We are recruiting all three of those spots right now. We have 3 open roster spots and need at least one guy from each of those three positions. Plus, we're recruiting some elite talent at some other positions as well, which makes the numbers get a little hectic.

There's only two "older" guys who will be returning next year. So, if you're talking multiple upperclassmen, the list isn't long. We have 5 seniors leaving (JVon, Samir, Danjel, Mac, Wiley) and 2 RS Soph (Jamal and Javon Franklin). The other six are Freshmen (Okoro, Flanigan, Cambridge, Stretch, Turbo, Jaylin). If we lose 8 guys off our roster after the season, Bruce will have his a super tough job next year.

His season and career stat line are pretty dirty too. He might be too high profile a player for us to pull with Sharife coming in. It's going to be difficult to land a highly coveted PG because plenty of other places will offer a better playing time opportunity.

Don't know much about the situation. I think recruiting in that area is pretty prevalent, and I think that's part of the frustration with this situation. Other competitors in the area had kids transfer in without penalty and McEachern feels like they weren't held to the same stardard.

What are everyone's thoughts on how we finish with this class? Let's assume, for this exercise, we have 4 spots available because Okoro leaves and one player transfers out. I'll start: Green Cardwell GT big: Someone like Patrick Tape' at Columbia or Salif Boudie at Arkansas St GT PG: Someone like Mike Smith at Columbia or Tobias Howard at Towson or Brendan Barry from Dartmouth

Cardwell transferred to McEachern but was ruled ineligible for his senior year. Transferring in the Atlanta metro area seems like a pretty common occurrence, but for whatever reason, Cardwell wasn’t cleared to play and had to sit all year. Sounds like the team that beat them this weekend and the team they beat the previous round both had transfers that were cleared.

Cardwell is a guy we’re looking at, but we have some other guys higher on our board right now. Rivals posted a few weeks ago that he was a tier-2 player to keep an eye on. I believe it said he has mentioned wanting to play with Sharife and is waiting on an offer. I also think if we take Cardwell we need to take a grad transfer big. Cardwell is a little raw but has upside. Stretch is still raw. I don’t think you can man the 5 with just those two next year. If we land Cliff or Brown, I’m not sure we will go get a GT big.