jrn19 wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2023 9:10 am
Wheels wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 8:49 pm
Without any portal attrition, you have 10 offensive players with a lot of experience to fill 9 spots.
Siracusa wouldn't come back unless he's playing.
So you have Malever, Erksa, Kelly, Koras, Brennan, Maltz, Whittier, Spanos, Siracusa, and Murphy.
The Spanos/Whittier/Siracusa combo has a ton of chemistry. Murphy mixed in all year with Koras and Brennan. I wonder if the coaches will want to do much tinkering.
I think Tills will looks for a couple of shorties and a LSM in the portal.
I mean, respectfully, the offense wasn’t good enough to just keep it as is. Koras and Brennan and Long as a unit wasn’t good and Murphy mixing in for Brennan was better but it wasn’t a successful unit. If you have an offense that ranks where it did, you should be open to tinkering. Doesn’t mean wholesale changes, as Malever, Erksa, Spanos, Whittier and Kelly involved in some regard is a pretty set 5, but after last year some tinkering should be on the table. I don’t think the lineups were as optimized as they should have been; for example by the end of the year Spanos should have been running attack or at least taking both shifts at MF.
No inside information here at all, but I'd be surprised if one or two players didn't hit the portal. It's either going to be guys who've graduated or guys with at least 2 years of eligibility (i.e., academically, a transfer will work). The first MF line suffered when Brennan went into his season long shooting funk. For whatever reason, Brennan literally couldn't shoot high-to-low...even when he tried to. So he goes into a funk. Long pressed a lot, and let's be honest. Several of his turnovers this year wouldn't have been turnovers last year because throwing passes into the middle to Donville and Khan or throwing to where DeMaio and Wisnauskas would have been didn't work well with younger, less experienced players. But he did force things, too. But his TO numbers suffered from not playing with a bunch of PLL draft picks. Koras had a period during the season where he dealt with the death of girlfriend's mother. You can probably literally see when that happened when looking at his scoring numbers from week-to-week.
The deal with Murphy is that he's incredibly talented but can be hard to play with. Not from a personality perspective but from a predictability perspective. He'll carry when he should pass. He'll pass when he should carry. He'll shoot when he shoot pass. He'll pass when he should shoot. The way the offense works is that guys react to whatever their teammates are doing. Murphy made it hard at times for people play off of. When all he had to do was stand at the top left of the box and fire bombs from 12 yards, everyone knew what to expect and knew where he'd be.
The offense would have been better if Malever wasn't injured. Would it have been Top 10? Probably not. Would it have been Top 20? Most likely.
In terms of shooters, one of the things we'll all see more of next year is Spanos's shooting. Go back and watch his Malvern highlights. The guy can shoot it. He thought too much this past season and wouldn't shoot it much from 10+. That's going to change. Siracusa can also really sling it from 10+.
With Erksa and Malever next season, you'll have the Shellenberger-Moore set up. All of the sudden, Kelly will have more opportunities from the wing. Koras will get back to finishing inside. Things will naturally look different. Word on Malever is that he's quicker now than he's ever been. Got stronger and dropped a little weight. He's not wearing a brace at all and is back to full speed reps.
