I don't see how Cal picks up much in portal given that he HAS to play his Freshman significant minutes. his entire recruiting pitch depends on it. Why would a really good player come here to be relegated as a role player. It was obvious Cal wanted Oscar to move on at end of season but listening to him on Dan Patrick yesterday,he seems to have modified his position on his possible return.Hated to see Ware leave,appeared to be a great lockeroom guy something that appears to be sorely needed on recent UK teams.
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He probably sees now that he needs Oscar to return, whether he wants him to or not.
If I had to guess, in the end we'll see Oscar return, Reeves return, and Cal takes one more guy from the portal (Dingle from Penn?). The roster would be set with 10 guys who can play, and compete at a high level.
Tshiebwe
Reeves
(Transfer - Dingle?)
Dillingham
Bradshaw
Wagner
Edwards
Sheppard
Onyenso
Thiero
Cal's trademark "seven guy/eighth guy doing spot minutes" rotation would be pretty clear from the jump.Comment
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I think this is why a guy like Dingle is interesting. Because there's a legacy angle in there, and also a guy like that might have no problem playing a reserve role.
The situation at the 4 is weird now if the roster shapes up like it looks like it's going to. Without Livingston potentially playing down there (which would be weird considering Cal had him on the wing most of the time last year, and his crew thinks he's a guard--and of course he might not return anyway) then you've got Bradshaw and...? That looks like a real weakness on the team. It pretty much means that Bradshaw has to live up to the hype.Comment
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If he plays Bradshaw at the 4, Cal cannot park Oscar under the basket on offense.
Which, of course, means he will.Comment
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Not with what we already have at guard. If he comes in he's playing as a back-up to somebody. With Reeves in the mix Dingle would probably be a back-of-rotation sort of player. (Unless he could beat Reeves out, which is possible.)
I still think we need a guy like that if Cal could get one. Without Dingle (or somebody else at guard) we're probably going to need Reed Sheppard to play, and I'm not sure he's 100% ready for that. I'd rather have a guy who's older. We've had success with those kinds of guys the last two years.
And also without guys like that you put pressure on somebody like Dillingham. If we have four guards total then Dillingham absolutely has to be ready from day one.Comment
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And also I saw where Kyle Tucker believes Oscar and Reeves are the only two players we're looking at now. If true I assume that cuts out Livingston.
That's a pretty tight margin for error. A lot of upside but way more what-ifs than Cal's best teams.
Probably its closest cousin would be 2011. That team had the promise of Enes Kanter inside but even with him it was pretty thin. Then without him it became basically 6 players.
I can see this team playing 6 or 7. The problem with that, looking at the recent past, is that we've been crushed by injuries recently. Teams that play 7-man rotations can't afford injuries, obviously.Comment
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Apparently there’s now talk of Bradshaw decommitting and joining Bronny James at USC. Could also be Livingston’s destination if he transfers. All of this would be because of the Klutch connections.
Supposedly this isn’t as likely now that Dickinson is going to KU, but the rumors are floating around, regardless.Comment
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^ I’d assumed that was if Dickinson had committed.Comment
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^ I understand that this is a precarious time in the sport, but my goodness. This is a bit tough for UK fans.Comment
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If that happened we could be in a situation where we don’t have enough to field a full team.Comment
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Wow, this is just unbelievable, hope it's all false rumors not true...
Again, back to my post earlier in this thread. We have have gone from on the verge of returning a super team with upperclassman to not even having a team to field, what a complete mess. Blame it on Cal, blame it on NIL, blame it on the transfer portal, who knows, college basketball is a complete mess, not even blue blood schools like Kentucky are bullet proof from all this crap...Comment
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