Everybody knows that Derrick, Tre, and Oscar are expected to be major contributors, and that Kendall will be relied upon to be our zone busting sharpshooter from deep. Anthony Marshall, of course, as a highly rated recruit and Nevada Player of the Year last season, is expected to get big minutes as well. But apparently Justin Hawkins, the freshman from Taft HS in LA, is impressing the coaching staff as well.
Our depth at guard looks to be ridiculous going into the season with the six mentioned above probably ALL getting minutes early on. Kruger has even stated that senior Chopper Jones will see some court time as well.
Chop Jones has looked pretty solid in practice so he will get some playing time. The coaches have indicated that Derrick and Oscar will be in the game together quite often, and when that occurs they will both be bringing the ball upcourt. No true point guard, whichever of the two who happens to get the ball in the backcourt will run the offense on that possession.
The coaches have indicated that Derrick and Oscar will be in the game together quite often, and when that occurs they will both be bringing the ball upcourt. No true point guard, whichever of the two who happens to get the ball in the backcourt will run the offense on that possession. The sense I've gotten is that once the team is in a halfcourt set, Derrick will be the trigger man, the facilitator. Oscar has been shooting the ball so well in practice, I think the coaches are going to go out of their way to get him as many open looks as possible.
I see a lot of Derrick getting into the lane and popping out to an open Oscar for 3 this season.
The last few years UNLV really relied on blue collar workhorse type players. With the exception of last season, our lack of size and depth wasn't something that hurt us often. Eventually though it became abundantly clear that without a deep roster or bigs who can be consistent we were doomed to be amongst the dreaded Not Invited Teams. Taking nothing away from the players that worked so very hard to establish the program again, (Wink, Joe and Rene) we're about to see what hard work added with serious talent and size can achieve.
The Big 4- Derrick Jasper, Chace Stanback, Tre'von Willis and Oscar Bellfield have the potential to be an amazingly potent offensive group for us. The days of struggling to reach the 60 point plateau are long behind us in my opinion. Derrick Jasper is a facilitator the likes this conference has never seen. His leadership, size, rebounding, athletic prowess and basketball IQ will have our offense runnin' at a level not seen at the T&M since coach Kruger was still in Manhattan. I see him being a double double threat night in and night out. A couple triple doubles wouldn't shock me either. Chace could be that offensive juggernaut that this team has been needing. He can shoot from anywhere and he's athletic and long. I've heard him compared to a right handed Ed O'Bannon, but i think he's more like Danny Granger. I hope he steps into the power guard spot like Wendell White did. Being able to hit a ton of mid range jump shots and ripping down boards will be of the utmost importance for Chace in this offense. Tre'von is going to be a new man playing off the ball. Coming off a redshirt and playing out of position last season Tre' was still our 2nd leading scorer. He was huge on the glass with 5.1 rpg in MWC play also. He'll be able to attack the basket this season much more and he'll get a lot of wide open looks with Chace, Derrick and Oscar attacking and dishing the ball out. Tre' could score between 15-17 ppg this year. Oscar Bellfield is going to have a breakout year in a BIG way. Oscar will be what we all hoped Wink would be. He'll be able to play the 1 and 2 spots seamlessly. His shot is greatly improved and he can handle any situation on the court. His defense and his overall offensive game will be an invaluable asset to this team all year long.
Between Shaw, Lopez, Massamba and Santee we should have enough of an inside presence for Jasper, Stanback, Willis and Bellfield to carry us back into the NCAA Tournament. Add them with the insane depth that Wallace, Marshall, Hawkins and even Chop provide, we should have a season to be proud of.
The days of struggling to reach the 60 point plateau are long behind us in my opinion.
I have to say we should be very capable of scoring 80 plus points in everey game. I hate when defenses like AirForce and Utah get tons of credit for how great they play defense when in reality all that happened was we beat ourselves by poor shot selection, or not rebounding, or missing open shots or free throws. If we score under 80 all we will be doing is letting teams hang around and give them a chance at the end of the game, if we are 80 or better the majority of the time the game will be put away taking away that chance that the teams that we should be winnning we will win. I know there will be games when we play legitimate defenses or top notch teams like Louisville or we will have an off game so that we don't score 80 points but I would say that we should be 80 plus points in about 22-25 of our regular season games with the offensive power on this team. And we should be averaging 80 + points a game for the entire season.
I agree with Runninrebl, and thats why I think the Rebels will be so good next year. Chace, Jasper, Bellfield, and co. will have a full year of playing together and that will be huge, throw Q. Thomas in the mix, and possibly Cory Joseph too and your looking at a team that can make a serious run in the NCAA tourney. I just hope the big men contribute.
If we can't lock up CORY JOSEPH then we need to go out and get a big man, we are loaded at the guard position. I also think that with all of the guards that we have on the squad that JUSTIN HAWKINS should redshirt, that would be best for the UNLV basketball program.
