25-26 Off-Season Countdown 1: Predict the Starting 5

Off-Season
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We are just five-ish weeks away, so time to reignite some speculation and general conversation in the final leadup to November 4.

This is exactly what the title says: predict the starting 5 or go crazy and give us the whole depth chart!

With all of the starting 5 gone from last season, this should be as open as ever. Only five players can start…who do you have? Do the Broncos try to put out a true front court with Tadjo and Bukky or Graves? Or do they just put the best five on the court, even if it means Ensminger starts at the 4? Who is point guard between Knapper, Gavalyugov, Hammond, or even Longcor? What gives as between the long wings: Mahi, Darlan, Badibanga, Normand, potentially Ensminger or even Cochran?

Lots of questions; few certainties. What do you think?

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Small Lineup:

Pg - Knapper

Sg - mahi

Sf - Darlan

Pf - Ensminger

C - Tadjo

Big lineup:

Pg - ensminger

Sg - mahi

Sf - Darlan

Pf - Tadjo

C - Bukky

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Bukki( or Tadjo alternating depending on opposition), Mahi, Graves (or Ensinger to replace either for defense if needed), Darlan at PG, and Normand at shooting guard. Cochran if Normand not making his shots, Knapper/Sashi/Hammond if Darlan not attending to PG duties. Normand and Cochran are shooters from outside, as are Mahi and Darlan. Darlan is best driver to hoop.

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To start the season, I think Herb will lean heavily on players who have been with the team already: Knapper, Ensiminger, Mahi, Bukky. The only exception to this, with the graduation of Cam, will be Tadjo. Darlan will be first off the bench with lots of minutes, and will probably become a starter by the time conference play rolls around, if not before.

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Graves and Hammond have also been with the team and are ready to go, along with six others not mentioned by either of us who would have been starters on many teams in the past and may be on this team before the year is out. This team just needs to play together to win and they will have a year to remember. Go Broncos.

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Buckets is spot on….starters we see by mid-season may be different than what we see to begin the season.

Sendek is a stickler for guys being in the right place….running the O the way he wants, satisfying defensive assignments, help rotations the way he wants, etc. This favors the guys who are experienced in the system and have started and played significant minutes in the past: Knapper, Ensminger, Mahi. Hammond and Bukky benefit as well being in the program for 2 years but they don’t have the same level of experience as the first 3 mentioned. But there is a lot of talent amongst the newcomers and several will have significant roles.

Starters, lineups and PT is more wide open than I can recall. Mahi has the highest likelihood of starting to begin the season and sticking as a starter throughout but even that is not guaranteed. You could make arguments for about 8-9 other guys being starters. There is also a lot of position flexibility with multiple players able to play several positions/roles which adds to the various potential lineups.

I’ll take a different approach and group players by: 1) forwards/posts, 2) wings, 3) guards and list them in order of most PT and probability of starting in parentheses.

Forward/posts:

Tadjo (60), Bukky (50), Graves (50), Chukwudebelu

Wings:

Mahi (70), Darlan (55), Ensminger (50), Badibanga (20) Normand (20)

Guards:

Knapper (50), Gavalyugov (40), Cochran (15) Hammond (10), Reyna,

Redshirt: Longcor

Chukwudebelu could also be a Redshirt candidate but I suspect he’ll play as we’re short on true post players and could need him against SMC and GU who are both big and deep in the post.

I see Normand, Badibanga, Cochran and Hammond all battling for the back-up minutes at the 3 and 2 spots. 3pt shooting is prioritized in Sendek’s offense so who best fills a ‘3 and D’ roll off the bench will get the minutes. All of them will not get consistent and good minutes, a few will be disappointed in their PT.

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I’ll jump in -

I think Knapper runs the point - good facilitator who knows what Herb wants. Senior leader. And you can’t sleep on his shooting ability. Darlan at the two. I think we give him the ball A LOT and he will create / initiate a lot of our offense. Match up nightmare for our opponents.

Mahi at the three. Lots of opportunities coming his way as teams try to neutralize Darlan. I see opportunities for cuts to the basket or open threes when the defense tries to neutralize Darlan.

I’d say Ensminger starts at the 4 as he was our most versatile player and opportunistic rebounder (except Cam) last year. But I wonder if he is not better off being the first man off the bench and you can’t sleep plug him in wherever needed 1-4. So I’ll go with Graves to start. Ultimately I think the center position will be by committee and situational. And I can see Graves having minutes at the 5 as well. But my guess is that he is a good defender, rebounder and seems to have a nice shot.

So, you have Bukky and Tadjo splitting minutes at the 5 and it will be really interesting to see if Chukwudebel gets some playing time.

Ensminger and Normand first minutes off the bench and Gavalyugov, one of our freshman guards (likely Longvor) backing up Knapper.

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This all got me thinking…

How deep will SCU’s rotation go this year? For most teams it is difficult to spread any meaningful minutes past 9 players, maybe 10. With Santa Clara’s talented roster, you have 10 players who have played D1 basketball or G-League, and four freshman. So, another interesting question is which of our four freshman could possibly see the floor this year? I could see the need to bring Chukwudebel in to bang bodies under the rim.

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I think Sendek will go 9 or 10 deep again, with minutes a bit hard to come by for the true frosh. I assume that Graves will get plenty of run based on reports from folks on this board and general need for anyone who can bang and chase down rebounds.

I still remain a bit dubious that Chukwudebelu will be ready for D1 ball immediately, but that’s a spotty inference from looking at what little film there is of his game and the mere fact that frosh centers are rarely ready in their first year out of high school. Otherwise, I would say he has the clearest path of the first year players since no other player has both his size and strength in the same package.

If I had to take a wild guess, I think redshirts ultimately go to Chukwudebelu, Badibanga, and maybe Longcor. Someone in the backcourt has to redshirt, and it won’t be Mahi or Darlan, and it can’t be Knapper, Normand, or Hammond (all have redshirted already). It seems unlikely that Gavalyugov would redshirt as a high major transfer, but who knows. Plus, one of Gavalyugov, Longcor, Cochran, or maybe Hammond needs to be positioned as the PG of the future and get good minutes. But I think the former two are the ones most likely to back up the PG spot, with one ultimately getting the redshirt.

Here’s what I think we see opening day:

PG: Knapper → Gavalyugov → Longcor → Hammond
SG: Mahi → Normand → Hammond → Cochran
SF: Darlan → Normand → Ensminger
PF: Ensminger → Tadjo → Graves
C: Oboye → Graves → Tadjo
Redshirts: Chukwudebelu, Badibanga

For Oboye/Graves, I think that Oboye starts but plays limited minutes–potentially as few as 6-7 min per half. I think that Graves will actually get the lion’s share of Center minutes but come off of the bench somewhat like how LMU plays Issanza to protect the rim for the first few minutes of each half.

Normand, for his part, would have the Mahi role from last year where he comes off the bench for much of the season, but plays lots of minutes at multiple positions depending on need. I’m guessing that at least 8 players start at some point during the season, with Normand, Graves, and Tadjo being most probable in my opinion.

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Don’t forget the 15th and late signee, guard Juan Reyna. 5th year senior who has 84 games of D1 experience, at 18mins/game and ~dozen starts though it is all playing for low tier SWAC type schools. I have no idea if he’ll crack the rotation or if the coaches have a role in mind for him. But he at least has a maturity and game experience advantage over the young guards.

On redshirts, given the significant # of guards I expect one of Longcor or Cochran, most likely Longcor will redshirt.

And given the lack of depth at center I’d be surprised if Chukwudebelu redshirted. By comparison, McEldon didn’t redshirt 2 years ago when we had more post depth than we have this year. May need him to come in and bang for a few minutes especially given the size and traditional centers that that teams like GU and SMC possess amongst others. Oboye is rail thin and not a banger. Tadjo is the only guy with some mass/strength, I see him reprising Cam’s role over the past several years. Graves strikes me as a 4/5 tweener a bit like Vrankic who likewise may struggle to defend decent true centers in the post.

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On Patty’s lineup and depth chart…..probably not too far off. Hard to critique given we know so little of the new guys and key transfers like Tadjo, Normand, Gavalyugov who were highly regarded recruits but didn’t play much last season so there’s no track record to go from…..of course Podz didn’t play much for the Illini and that turned out OK for all involved.

The big questions for me:

  • Starters, rotations and PT for the 4/5 spots??? Amongst Oboye, Tadjo, Graves and Ensminger you can make arguments for any combination of 2 of the 4 to start or get significant PT.
  • For Darlan and all the new guys…..how well they pick up the offensive and defensive schemes (ball screen coverages, help rotations, etc.) may play a significant role in who starts, PT, etc. Even if a couple guys redshirt that still leaves ~13 scholarship players. We only went 9 deep most games last season even though we supposedly had tremendous depth….the same will probably occur this year. Any guys who struggle to pick up the schemes will find their PT limited.

Finally, a prediction….with the depth of talent and good size on the wing combined with the relative lack of depth in the post we may see some smaller lineups with 3 wings on the floor at once, ie- Mahi and Darlan at the 3 & 4 and Normand at the 2. Remember, Mahi did occasionally play the 4 last season.

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Totally. Sendek has really bought into overall length as a key strategy and seems to love his lineups where the average height across all five spots is 6’6"+. He has erred a bit on the side of undersized centers and oversized PGs of late. Even Ensminger played a little 5 last season, albeit mostly in Moraga with basically no other options (and he still did the best defending Saxen/Wessels in my opinion).

I definitely think we see either or both of Mahi and Darlan at the 4 at times and maybe Ensminger as a small-ball 5. Depending on development, both Cochran and Longcor give options for a longer PG if the idea is to add size in the backcourt in exchange for what they might be giving up down low in certain lineups.

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My pre-season take is consonant with Patty’s; I see Normand and Graves getting lots of run at multiple positions. Obviously we’ll have a much better handle after CPH.

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Was Ensminger always listed at 6’9”? Or did he grow over the summer?

I’d like to see Sendek experiment a lot with different lineups (and zone Ds). Against smaller lineups facing centers in the 6’10 range, I’d like to see Tadjo at the 5 with Oboye at the 4.

It seems that collectively the talent is there, but with all of the newcomers, will the chemistry be there? Hope springs eternal, but I just don’t want to be Charlie Brown trying to kick that football. Again.

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I saw some commentary about Graves being the guy to fill Cams shoes. So, I asked Cam about Graves and he said “I was NOT NICE to him in practice. I was hard as nails and physically tough on him for an entire year. He is ready!” Cam also said, he cannot think of a better guy to lead the team on the inside.

Graves did spend a whole year on a practice squad having to deal with Cams physical style of play - so being taller and a longer wingspan than Cam - he should def prove to have a solid year and better success in his position - for the Broncos.

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Thanks, Femme! Glad you’re keeping in touch.

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As per Rocco Miller: WCC News: Santa Clara’s Gehrig Normand (undisclosed) will be sidelined until at least Mid-December, transfer from Michigan State.

Additionally, big man Chris Tadjo (undisclosed), is Out indefinitely and will not be back by the season opener.

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Family friend’s kid is a student at SCU and said Gehrig has been wearing a boot around campus. Didn’t say anything about Chris.

Also heard Jake took a brutal heel to the man region during practice. Was throwing up as a result and taken to the hospital

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Ugh…..that’s 2 likely rotation guys including a possible starter in Tadjo.
Tadjo is especially of concern given our relative lack of depth in the post; I think his absence virtually guarantees that Chukwudebelu won’t redshirt. It also makes it more likely we see some smaller lineups noted above with Darlan and Mahi at the 3 & 4 spots.

Normand’s absence may open the door for more PT for someone like Hammond or frosh Cochran on the wing/2, with maybe Badibanga as a wildcard.

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I think you’re right. I’m guessing Mahi gets moved to the 4 a fair amount, especially with Bukky on the floor to protect the rim. Bukky has plenty of conditioning to stay on the floor but was a foul-machine last season which limited his run–if he’s less foul prone, it will help the Broncos a lot. And no Tadjo puts a lot of weight on Graves’s shoulders.

This would be my revised lineup guess without Tadjo and Normand for some period of time.

PG: Knapper → Gavalyugov → Hammond
SG: Mahi → Hammond → Cochran
SF: Darlan → Ensminger → Hammond
PF: Ensminger → Graves → Mahi
C: Oboye → Graves → Chukwudebelu
Redshirts: Longcor, Badibanga
Injury: Tadjo, Normand

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