Style 1: Doug has been advocating for a more traditional lineup ("positional basketball") and this team can be really good in those roles.
PG: Skyy Clark is the starting PG. He's still learning it but I think he can improve his A/TO ratio along with attacking more and I think he'll be really good. Basically he needs to figure out when to shoot and when to pass when he's attacking the basket. I don't think he's far off. I don't think Epps is really the backup PG. I think it is Shannon. He's really good with the ball in his hand and generates a lot of assists. Shannon fills the Ayo Dosunmu role in this offense where he's that combo SF/PG.
SG: Jayden Epps is your prototypical SG. If you need a bucket, he's your guy. Low assists and low turnovers, high shot volume. It's a simple thing but he's really good at it. I don't think RJ is a SG and that's the struggle. The backup SG is Sencire Harris. He has great positional size and can hit open shots. He's lethal in the open court and is a terror defending on the ball. I didn't think he could play at 160 lbs but I haven't seen any issues so far.
SF: TSJ is the SF. He's a superstar. It's simple. Backup SF is more complicated, but you need to think about it if you slide Shannon over to the PG spot when Clark is out. I think RJ and Rodgers both have traditional SF characteristics so you plug them in there. Luke Goode is also potentially a 3. All three of those guys work as small ball 4's so I'm not going to nitpick here.
PF: Mayer is a PF. I think he's a good fit there even though he's scuffled a bit. Give him a few more games to get in the flow. All the guys I mentioned as SF backups could also be PF backups. I like Goode more here because I don't really think of him as a ballhandler at all. Coleman Hawkins can also play a traditional 4 spot.
C: Dainja is clearly a prototypical C. He's been surprisingly good at it and he really is a key to this whole traditional lineup. We don't really have a pure backup traditional center (Lieb isn't good enough or he'd be that guy) and you want Hawkins on the floor so he's that guy. However, when you play Hawkins at center you really switch to the other style and that's the key distinction.
Style 2: 5-out offense, full-court trapping/switching defense with long athletes.
Who works in that style:
- Hawkins
- Melendez
- Harris
- Shannon
- Rogers
- Clark
Who fits the more traditional style:
The only catch to this is that your five starters are a mix between the two styles. I think a Shannon/Harris/Rogers/Melendez/Hawkins lineup would be optimal with Style 2 and a Clark/Epps/Shannon/Mayer/Dainja lineup would be optimal with Style 1. I think most of the guys can play either way but some of the early struggles we're seeing from RJ (not a traditional SG but a terror on defense and thrives in the 5-out) and Mayer (probably better in a more traditional lineup paired with Dainja) are from awkward lineup fits. Maybe Mayer can adapt to the 5-out.
I think Underwood planned for what I'm calling "Style 2" and didn't realize how effective his traditional lineup would be with Clark/Epps playing the guard spots and Dainja at center. I'm sure I'm missing some key points here and Underwood is a smart coach so he'll figure it all out before long. I'm sure he'll experiment more against the cupcakes.
The really good news is that all 9 players in our rotation are excellent players. No duds this year. If you can play two styles effectively with talented players then you are an almost impossible matchup (it helps to have Shannon playing like a mini-LeBron so far). Virginia out-executed us down the stretch because they knew themselves better, but that will be hard to duplicate as this team comes into its own.
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