Three Starters out due to Injury?

[blueheretic]

Who are these magical, mystery tour "three starters"?



In so far as I can tell, we lost one starter (Lowe) and one role player (Kam) to injury.

One players has been out, by design, all season. Design, of course, was only the first part of the season. Yet, JQ was always a question mark and never a starter.

Why are we rewriting history?

• PG: Jaland Lowe (Junior, Transfer from Pitt)
• SG: Denzel Aberdeen (Senior, Transfer from Florida)
• SF: Otega Oweh (Senior, Returning)
• PF: Mouhamed "Mo" Dioubate (Junior, Transfer from Alabama)
• C: Brandon Garrison (Junior, Transfer from Oklahoma State)

That's the starting five as i remember it from preseason.

Four of those five are uninjured.

I've been wondering where these "three injured starters" thing originated.?

Starters now are:

• PG: Denzel Aberdeen (Senior, Transfer from UF)
• SG: Varies night to night but Chandler, I guess (Sophmore)
• SF: Otega Oweh (Senior, Returning)
• PF: Mouhamed "Mo" Dioubate (Junior, Transfer from Alabama) some nights. Jelavic other nights.
• C: Malachi Moreno(?) (Frosh) with Garrison getting significant minutes most nights.

?PG/SG nearly interchangeable most nights.

I'm confused most nights as to who the starters are to be honest.

[bucsrule8872]

In a perfect world, where no one is injured, and JQ comes back 100%, Lowe and Quaintance were suppose to be starters. Williams, was projected as a starter by some publications that I saw preseason. I believe ESPN had him projected to start. Also, Williams was starting when he was injured.

Regardless, do you not think we lost three of our top five or six players coming in to the season based on expectations?

You can dislike Pope all you want, but never had a full complement this season.

You can nitpick all you want about starters or whatever, but losing three of your top players hurts and being able to weather that storm is tough.

[bucsrule8872]

On3 preseason projected starters.

https://www.on3.com/news/way-too-ear...ected-lineups/

[blueheretic]

Way too early guess. I'm talking about reality. Kam started for a game or two but there have been 24 different starting line ups. By this measure, if anyone on the team gets injured we're down a starter.

I don't dislike Pope. I simply think him over his head. He seems like a great human being.

It is tough. No need to embellish. It is a tough situation made more difficult by poor recruiting decisions and worse team management.

A problem is that I see no improvement. I see nothing that warrants a belief that anything will change.

I don't see a single recruit for next year. Not one. Not a single one.

[blueheretic]

As of February 3, 2026, Mark Pope has zero committed high school recruits for the 2026-2027 season, despite offering scholarships to over a dozen top prospects.

I googled it.

[bucsrule8872]

Way too early guess. I'm talking about reality. Kam started for a game or two but there have been 24 different starting line ups. By this measure, if anyone on the team gets injured we're down a starter.

I don't dislike Pope. I simply think him over his head. He seems like a great human being.

It is tough. No need to embellish. It is a tough situation made more difficult by poor recruiting decisions and worse team management.

A problem is that I see no improvement. I see nothing that warrants a belief that anything will change.

I don't see a single recruit for next year. Not one. Not a single one.

You can see it the way you want to see it. We lost three of our best players. Our top three Portal recruits.

Quaintance(#10 overall)
Lowe(#36 overall)
Williams(#42 overall)

Most people projected Lowe and Quaintance to start once healthy. Some (like On3) had Williams starting. Everyone expected all three to be major impact players.

Before the season started, very few people expected Chandler, Jelavic, and Moreno to be starters.

Give Pope some credit, he may be in over his head but the plague of injuries he has faced would be enough to make even the great and powerful Pitino (in his prime) flinch.

[bucsrule8872]

I googled it.

Recruiting issues weren’t really what I was talking about.

Pope does have a long way to go in that aspect of the game.

But managing injuries? Dude has a Ph.D in that aspect of the game after last season and this season.

[blueheretic]

But managing injuries? Dude has a Ph.D in that aspect of the game after last season and this season.

No, he does not.

Recruiting plays a part in this as well.

No PG back up when the PG goes out to injury. That's part of the problem.

[WeWant9]

No PG back up when the PG goes out to injury. That's part of the problem.

I agree with this, two years in a row without a true back up pg. I do not remember the timeline, but when Lewis decommitted the staff should've gone all in on finding another pg.

I will give Aberdeen credit, I think he has done the best he can in taking on that role.

[bucsrule8872]

I agree with this, two years in a row without a true back up pg. I do not remember the timeline, but when Lewis decommitted the staff should've gone all in on finding another pg.

I will give Aberdeen credit, I think he has done the best he can in taking on that role.

Agreed.

He could have done a better job getting a backup PG.

[bucsrule8872]

No, he does not.

Recruiting plays a part in this as well.

No PG back up when the PG goes out to injury. That's part of the problem.

I’ll give you that. He probably should have had a better backup PG this year.

Last year he had Kriisa, who got injured. Both PGs were injured. Third string PG (JRob) also went down. Can’t blame him for that.

[blueheretic]

At what point does the pattern of injury become something other than "can't blame him for that"?

Is there no responsibility of a coach in injury awareness, prevention, etc?

I still think JQ was a mistake for Pope.

For a team that hadn't been injury ridden, ok. I get it. For a team that has the personnel that allows the luxury of waiting for a guy that might not ever be healthy...ok. I just can't help but imagine that that NIL money could have gone to someone like Wilson at UNC. Wilson was a Kentucky lean from all I've read. UNC swooped in and nabbed him with higher NIL offer. The JQ nil spend was a waste of money.

Pope made a huge mistake with JQ. I'm wonder if he understands risk assessment.

[WeWant9]

I’ll give you that. He probably should have had a better backup PG this year.

Last year he had Kriisa, who got injured. Both PGs were injured. Third string PG (JRob) also went down. Can’t blame him for that.

Dang, I had forgotten about Kriisa. That is the type of back up they need to make sure is on the roster going forward.

[bucsrule8872]

At what point does the pattern of injury become something other than "can't blame him for that"?

Is there no responsibility of a coach in injury awareness, prevention, etc?

I still think JQ was a mistake for Pope.

For a team that hadn't been injury ridden, ok. I get it. For a team that has the personnel that allows the luxury of waiting for a guy that might not ever be healthy...ok. I just can't help but imagine that that NIL money could have gone to someone like Wilson at UNC. Wilson was a Kentucky lean from all I've read. UNC swooped in and nabbed him with higher NIL offer. The JQ nil spend was a waste of money.

Pope made a huge mistake with JQ. I'm wonder if he understands risk assessment.

I can see your point, but we are 10-3 over the last 13 games, and that’s being without three key guys for most of that stretch. You have to give Pope some credit.

If we were just missing JQ, I could see your point.

Our inside depth isn’t really an issue. We have been okay there with Moreno and Garrison.

The biggest issue was PG. You have a legitimate gripe there. We needed a better backup option.

Losing Acaden Lewis was killer. We probably wouldn’t miss Lowe at all with Lewis running the show.

And you can plan all you want for injuries, but when you only have 15 spots, and you take away 3, and not just any three, three of your top five or six guys, then all the planning in the world can’t save you.

Last year, Pope had two legitimate D-1 P5 starter level PGs in Butler and Kriisa. Both went down. Heck, his third option (JRob) went down.

How do you plan for that?

I want to see what Pope can do with a full roster, though.

But my concern is more about roster makeup rather than injury depth.

Why does a Coach that wants to shoot 35 threes a game, whose system is all about spacing, go out and get guys like Dioubate and Quaintance? Those guys can’t shoot outside of five feet from the rim.

You can’t really guard against injuries. You get the best guy you can get at each position, then you get the best backup you can get at each position, and you hope no one gets hurt.

But if you are a coach that likes to shoot threes and needs a big man that can pass in the high post, why didn’t you load up on shooters and go after the best passing big man available?

Just my 2 cents.

But I still feel like Pope is done a good job managing a roster that has been decimated by more injuries than anyone could have foreseen.