re: It sounds like Will Wade got Daryl Edwards...

Is Marshall Graves going to be on the team?

Not a terrible reserve ball handler. Jenkins can also handle a little pernt.

Yea besides Corey Davis I haven't read about LSU going after any other juco PG's.

Agreed SoS. Mays is very smooth and fluid which gives a notion that he is slow. He's 6'4, can get to the rim relatively easily, and has great court vision. Very few fans allow players to develop. What he did as a Freshman on a very bad team was quite impressive.

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I think we need to get away from having to ever rely on walk ons. We should always be carrying a full roster of 13 scholarship players.

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I agree.

Its absurd.

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I agree a full roster is always nice to have. However the fact is that most coaches only go 8, maybe 9, deep when they give out playing time. So when players get injured or kicked off the team it only matters if they are one of the studs, not one of the duds.

Not a good idea to draft a marginal player just to have a full roster if he is a freshman. Sure you can take away the scholarship later but I hate to see that done. I don't see how you can build team chemistry if everyone knows that if they don't do something to stand out they may be saying bye bye at the end of the season.

Remember these aren't mature pro players. They are kids who are away from home for the first time and making new friends.

Senior transfers can be wonderful and fill a spot we really need (Camouche) or they could just be another bench warmer who contributes little. As for guards, Wade is looking for new ones based on how Mays, Sampson and Patterson played last year. They all had short bursts of brilliance and long stretches of missed shots, turnovers and lousy defense.

Now some say that is due to coaching and I certainly hope they are right. One thing I thought strange about last year was that Jenkins and Hayward didn't get more playing time during our long losing streak. You would think they would have gotten more playing time just to see if they could do any better.

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You get a JUCO/grad transfer to play a year or two to fill the spots, don't give 4 year rides to kids you wouldn't normally take. They don't have to be world beaters, but to get 5 minutes of decent PT from someone deep on the bench that has college/JUCO experience can be the difference in winning or losing.

Exactly. Getting 4 year guys just to be a warm body is how you get stuck with Darcy Malone

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I agree a full roster is always nice to have. However the fact is that most coaches only go 8, maybe 9, deep when they give out playing time. So when players get injured or kicked off the team it only matters if they are one of the studs, not one of the duds.

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But think about it. Are you more likely to find 8-9 capable players in a group of 13 or a group of 11? Again, you're handicapping yourself right off the bat not keeping a full scholarship roster on hand.

We had 11 scholarship players when Victor got kicked off last season, because Johnny Jones decided it wasn't worth adding a 13th scholarship player to start the season. On top of that, a pretty common thing happened, a player was injured and couldnt be relied upon most of the year. That was Jenkins which really meant we were left with 10 scholarship players. Now, consider the fact of those 10 scholarship players left, 3 of them were ER III, Bridgewater and Hayward, guys so bad, the walk ons were even better options at times. So really it's like we had just 7 scholarship players to give us any hope of quality game minutes.

You see how bad that is? You say we need 8-9 capable guys but with injury and a player kicked off we had 7. If we had 1 more guy on the roster, it's possible we could have had 8 capable guys instead of only 7.

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Not a good idea to draft a marginal player just to have a full roster if he is a freshman. Sure you can take away the scholarship later but I hate to see that done. I don't see how you can build team chemistry if everyone knows that if they don't do something to stand out they may be saying bye bye at the end of the season.

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The idea is to get 1 year grad transfers to fill these voids or even a JUCO guy. They will only spend 1 or 2 years max here. Still, you should always go out and find a decent freshmen if for whatever reason you cant find the above 2, because they will have a MUCH better shot of giving you quality minutes than a guy who just walks on to the team...it shouldnt be a trend though. You should easily be able to find a grad trasnfer or JUCO capable of filling a quick void over having to just grab a low 3-star freshman with practically no offers.

And yeah, it would suck to tell a guy like Hayward to kick rocks after a year or two...but at the same time you have very limited scholarship roster spots and you have to win. If you build up a roster with multiple bad scholarship players, how are you going to dig your way out? Sometimes you have to be the "Bad guy" to win. Basketball sees the most transfers of anyone too, it's like a free agency every off-season. Over 700 players transferred last year. 125 of those were grad transfers eligible immediately and only had a year left.

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The idea is to get 1 year grad transfers to fill these voids or even a JUCO guy. They will only spend 1 or 2 years max here. Still, you should always go out and find a decent freshmen if for whatever reason you cant find the above 2, because they will have a MUCH better shot of giving you quality minutes than a guy who just walks on to the team...it shouldnt be a trend though. You should easily be able to find a grad trasnfer or JUCO capable of filling a quick void over having to just grab a low 3-star freshman with practically no offers.

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Yeah, ideally you can find a grad transfer or JUCO guy to help if you have an open scholarship. But, I'm okay with holding a scholarship or 2 open if you will need them in a year or if you can't reel in a guy good enough to contribute.

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But getting a Darcy Malone for just 1 year as a transfer to fill the 13th roster spot and give us depth down low would be a great idea.

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Not if he can't play. What good is having that kind of depth if the guys hurts you when he's in the game?

I understand taking a guy like Malone out of HS. You can't teach size and you hope you can develop him over the course of a 1-2 years. You don't take transfers just to fill out the bench. You want them to be able to provide an immediate impact because they are only going to be on your roster 1-2 years at most.

Carmouch and Coleman were taken to immediately jump in an play. Same with Hornsby and Victor (after they sat out their required time). Taking a transfer just to fill the 13th roster spot is how you end up with a guy like John Odo. He was a non-factor.