[Cactus Jack]

You’re right Cactus Jack, this isn’t the best game to base the starter argument on. But there are plenty others. Unless Reeves is hot, how is a lineup of him, Wagner, Edwards, Onyenso and Theiro gonna get us out to an early lead? I’m like JP, please God, make it stop.

I think it's a question of what type of team they're trying to be, how they want to play, and whether they're truly trying to make their opponent adjust to them instead of vice versa. With all of the injuries, eligibility issues, and already having to blend so many new players, it's going to be tough; regardless, it was still doable and others have done more with much less.

Dillingham, Sheppard, Reeves, Mitchell and Ivisic is going to give you the best (and most consistent) offensive line-up. But how many do they give up? When do you see diminishing returns from five scorers versus sticking a defender or two in?

Some loathe platoons, but I'm not opposed overall. I've seen great coaches who, without fail, play certain line-ups for very defined periods. I don't know that this is the kind of coach that Cal is though, at least with an eight to ten man rotation this deep but still so flawed (and more importantly, so young/inexperienced).

In theory, I think that the idea is that Wagner, Reeves, Edwards, Thiero and Onyseno start to set the tone defensively and to see what you'll get from them on offense. They don't let the opponent get hot, and you grind the opponent down before subbing and hitting another gear offensively. Until then, you just run everything on offense through Reeves while the bigs just rim-run and you feel out whether Edwards and Wagner have it that night (read: if they can hit shots that they're being dared to take). The thought is probably "well, if we're not getting anything, then let's do what we'd have done anyway and just go to the offensive line-up to try and outscore them). This works well when you get stops and see that Wagner or Edwards is getting hot, Thiero is going to be effective, or Onyenso is able to block some shots and catch lobs or clean up misses. It gets thrown on it's head when the other team starts hot, your offensively challenged players start slow (except the one you need in your offensive line-up that is in foul trouble) and you have to bring in worse defenders to try to slow the already-hot opposition.


This may be a bit out there, but I think that part of why Dillingham and Sheppard mesh so well is because defensively, you just plan on going all-out and gambling to create turnovers and easy baskets, even if you give up some easy ones. I don't think it's a terrible strategy, and it's definitely more from the new school/analytics side of the coaching spectrum, but I can see the validity to it with how much they can create havoc by gambling on defense and how well Reed compliments Rob being so ball-dominant and looking to be the primary scorer.

I don't know that Reeves and Sheppard play as well together as some may think. I do know for 100% that if you play extended minutes with a line-up with Dillingham, Sheppard, and Reeves & the other team has guards who can score, then you'd better be in a position to score in the mid-90's. Despite everything Dillingham brings, Reeves is still probably the #1 option on offense, or at least the most consistent.

If you can't play all three together, maybe the solution could be to start Dillingham and Sheppard but bring Reeves off the bench. If you tried that, how does a senior take that and is he still going to buy in? I know that we can say what we'd do or what should happen, but if Reeves gets upset and decides to mail it in, then where do you go?


I'm sure that there's a line-up with Dillingham/Wagner, Sheppard, Reeves/Edwards, Mitchell/Thiero/Edwards, and Onyenso/Ivisic that is better than what we normally use in the first five minutes, but regardless of the combo you choose, they'll still have holes (especially if held in isolation).


However you slice it up, I think that all of this works extremely well if Edwards is the player that you thought he was. His offense is behind his defense, but if he were able to defend multiple positions (better) while creating and exploit mismatches, even if it were just for 10-14 points per game, then everything that we're trying to do looks so much better. Look at his performance in our big wins as opposed to losses.

Had Edwards or Bradshaw played up to their ranking, this team could be unreal.