Rotation

[Bird75]

What is going on with Selby and Lewis? They’ve not played poorly and appear to be 2 of our better shooters.

[UltimateVUFan]

Still haven’t figured out defensive rotations as well as the upperclassmen.

Last night Manjon shot the ball uncharacteristically poorly but dished out 8 assists with no turnovers.

Thomas had 13 points, 5 rebounds and actually stayed with his defensive assignments pretty well. He also didn’t commit a turnover.

Despite only shooting twice last night (because he was being hounded defensively - i.e, fouled - on his drives), Lawrence played a pretty complete 20 minutes. 4 reb, 3 ast, a steal and a block against only 2 turnovers. He also defended well.

Lewis started the game at point and despite only being credited with one turnover in his 4 minutes, the team was all sorts of disheveled and started the game in a turnover fest. He isn’t quite there yet to run the offense.

Shelby has to work on his handling and defense. Sure, he seems to be a capable shooter. But at this point that is literally all he brings to the table. And I know a lot of people seem to criticize Thomas and want to see Shelby taking some of his minutes, but Trey actually has better FG and 3PT percentages than Shelby on the season, while taking a higher volume of shots, not to mention a larger percentage of contested shots since he spends some time at the point. He has also committed very few turnovers this year (15 all season) despite playing the fifth most minutes and handling the ball a fair amount. He is a far more complete player than Shelby at this point and puts the team in a better position to win games.

[ymtn64]

I may be one of the guys you are referring to Ultimate when it comes to minutes for Shelby, and also not typically pleased with the amount of minutes Trey gets in most games. I don't want to try to speak for anyone else, but let me try to clear something up. When I'm talking about this, my main point is that how can Shelby improve from the bench? Now I realize every player in the world at some point gets taken out of games, even pulled from a game to make a coaching point to the player. I honestly have zero issue with that happening to any of our players including Shelby. It seems obvious to me, especially in light of having less bigs, and most of the time having to play a smaller lineup, that we need spacing. Robbins creates spacing typically(as long as he stays near the basket and doesn't get overly 3pt shot happy), but that isn't an option for awhile. In some ways Dort creates spacing because of his ability to be an inside presence on the offensive glass. With those 2 guys playing, we need outside shooters, but without them playing? We will not win many games without getting shots off from 3, and I mean good shots with feet set, coming off screens ready to shoot etc(fading away 3's are typically not a good choice/drifting too far left and right on the shot). Shelby seems to be the most pure shooter on the team, so why not get more minutes is my question?

I realize the defensive weakness of some of our players, especially magnified in the younger players often times. Trey seems the easy one to point out(I agree with you, against A&M he had a pretty good game). Oftentimes, Trey is guarding a quicker player than himself, and he either gets beat off the dribble, or he provides way too much space and allows players to get virtually uncontested 3's. By no means do I mean he is the only player that struggles with this, matter of fact except for Manjon almost all of our players struggle at times with this similar issue, except probably the bigs. This makes my point though, I don't really care whose minutes he takes, but not playing your best pure shooter because he is making Freshman mistakes on D, and his shot selection needs to improve seems like a weird excuse when I believe we could make that point out of every guard on the team!

Last night, I would of played Trey lots of minutes also because he played well. Our guys ran out of gas from 3 in the 2nd half it felt like. Maybe that was just for some stretches, but once the refs started determining the winner(oh how I hate that type of officiating!!!), we needed someone else to step up and score. How would it of hurt to insert Shelby for a few minutes, see if he is "on" from 3, and honestly if he wasn't I can understand not playing him lots of minutes. I would probably think Trey typically should be exactly the same because most of the time, if he isn't hitting from 3, he doesn't contribute much else. Last night, I might of played Ty less, he didn't seem to be as aggressive on offense as he has been during most of the SEC games. That could of been something A&M was doing defensively. I just know that if Shelby is shooting well(and confident in his shot), he can nail 3 or 4, 3's in a matter of minutes. I am certain of this, none of our players will score more points while sitting on the bench. Stack knows things I sure don't know, and he seems to have our guys prepared most games, and they respond pretty well typically. I just can't understand why pick on this one player more than the others?

[OldDude]

Oddly, two different points of view, but I like both of the above posts. Nice to see good, informative discussion on the board without vitriol. Thanks guys !

Edit - would like to see a little more of Shelby, but, without a strong rim protector inside , any defensive breakdown on the perimeter leads to easy inside baskets. Please Liam get well soon !

[charlestonalum]

Nashville is a lot closer to Lyon than Lexington and Vanderbilt is a more prestigious University: 2 reasons to come to VU.

[Jason94]

Still haven’t figured out defensive rotations as well as the upperclassmen.

Last night Manjon shot the ball uncharacteristically poorly but dished out 8 assists with no turnovers.

Thomas had 13 points, 5 rebounds and actually stayed with his defensive assignments pretty well. He also didn’t commit a turnover.

Despite only shooting twice last night (because he was being hounded defensively - i.e, fouled - on his drives), Lawrence played a pretty complete 20 minutes. 4 reb, 3 ast, a steal and a block against only 2 turnovers. He also defended well.

Lewis started the game at point and despite only being credited with one turnover in his 4 minutes, the team was all sorts of disheveled and started the game in a turnover fest. He isn’t quite there yet to run the offense.

Shelby has to work on his handling and defense. Sure, he seems to be a capable shooter. But at this point that is literally all he brings to the table. And I know a lot of people seem to criticize Thomas and want to see Shelby taking some of his minutes, but Trey actually has better FG and 3PT percentages than Shelby on the season, while taking a higher volume of shots, not to mention a larger percentage of contested shots since he spends some time at the point. He has also committed very few turnovers this year (15 all season) despite playing the fifth most minutes and handling the ball a fair amount. He is a far more complete player than Shelby at this point and puts the team in a better position to win games.

Thomas may be a better player now, but is pretty close to his ceiling. Shelby has a higher ceiling and playing time is quite frankly what he needs. I've said it before, but does anyone really believe that Thomas is a 25 MPG (starter) on a tournament team? He has some good games, but can get shut down completely by taller, more athletic players who focus on him (which is most every opponent in the SEC). So comparing a pretty close to fully developed Thomas to a relatively raw Shelby (who just shoots at any opportunity) will tend to have Thomas coming out a bit ahead, though it is pretty close. Shelby shooting indiscriminately is not that far off from Thomas being selective. You also have to remember that Thomas was coming off the UK game where he scored 0 points in 19 minutes.

So while Thomas give us a better chance of winning games this year, we haven't been winning games very often. We are a below .500 team with our best player on the bench, so what it the point of playing someone who gives you a marginally better chance of winning a game vs. developing a player who is raw but has a much higher ceiling.

This is a bit of a mulligan season - it is now very unlikely that we will make the tournament, and any sort of postseason play is more and more difficult. Why not give valuable time to players like Shelby, Dia and Smith who are the future of the program? We did this in 2020 and saw players like Wright and Disu really struggle, but come back the next season ready to play and completely understanding what it took to compete in the SEC.

[charlestonalum]

Jason do you trully believe "Shelby is our best player" or do you mean he has the potential?

[OldDude]

Jason do you trully believe "Shelby is our best player" or do you mean he has the potential?

Suspect he was referring to Robbins and his injury.

[Jason94]

Jason do you trully believe "Shelby is our best player" or do you mean he has the potential?

No, I was referring to Robbins being out. Sorry for the confusing wording. What I meant is that we are not a team with a good record and we don't have Robbins, so what do we have to lose by playing Shelby? It isn't like the difference between playing Shelby and playing Thomas is a tournament berth.

I like Shelby a lot, but the most talented player on the roster is probably Dort. Robbins is our best player. But with both our best and most talented player (at the same position) out simultaneously in a season where we are 10-11, I would play for next year, which I think that CJS should be back for.

[charlestonalum]

Jason do you trully believe "Shelby is our best player" or do you mean he has the potential?

No, I was referring to Robbins being out. Sorry for the confusing wording. What I meant is that we are not a team with a good record and we don't have Robbins, so what do we have to lose by playing Shelby? It isn't like the difference between playing Shelby and playing Thomas is a tournament berth.

I like Shelby a lot, but the most talented player on the roster is probably Dort. Robbins is our best player. But with both our best and most talented player (at the same position) out simultaneously in a season where we are 10-11, I would play for next year, which I think that CJS should be back for.

Got it, thanks. I think, but certainly don't know, but think Stack is such a competitor who is focused only on winning the next game. I suspect, perhaps to the longterm disadvantage, he plays the players who he thinks get us the W today not tomorrow. It will be up to him to not only keep all the players but develop them to get the program back where all if us, including him, want it.

[Versus75]

What is going on with Selby and Lewis? They’ve not played poorly and appear to be 2 of our better shooters.

Lewis played poorly at the start of the A&M game. He was okay at Georgia and versus Kentucky (35 minutes combined), but those teams didn’t press like A&M.

Lewis could not handle the press and needed to sit down.

Shelby has a completely different set of circumstances.

[Nashmann]

I agree Shelby needs PT however I am sure he gets a lot in practice. if he is not showing much in practice against
our folks then I can see him sitting. I would like to see him get a few minutes in a real game though. He seems to need more work on his ball handling and not sure how you do it but quickness. Can you imagine if Manjn could hit 3's like Shelby and if Shelby was as quick as Manjon? Maybe one day we will sign a guard that is. I don't know much about West....