He might exceed the numbers and I fully expect him to do so. However, my point was on bigs VCU will have to grow their own. John's at his best will be Jamie Skeen who was very good but not really a rim protecting big.
Did Stockard graduate?
Yes. In 2021.
True thus we have Deloach coming back and Fermin coming in. The 4 position has seldom been a rim protecting position for us. What we get in Rim protecting from the 4 is a bonus. BTW, I think combined Deloach and Fermin will also surpass Wards numbers, including blocks. We will be okay inside this year.
We always seem to get inside rim protection no matter who is at the 4 & 5. No doubt Ward had an elite ability, but he also picked up a lot of fouls and didn’t always have the level of availability to match. The blocks I am worried about missing are Vince’s, and the steals, deflections, charges taken, shots altered…….Every departure from last season has been matched and arguably exceeded, except one. It will take a village, and a step up in coaching to replace Vince’s contributions.
There are many reasons both the metrics and the eye test have said our defense has been very good to elite the past several years, one of which just graduated. There was some discussion on here about what Vince was great at, what would be his calling card for the pros - Vince is a GREAT defensive player. It's both cliché and difficult to quantify, but the measure of how well he played for us was very often what didn't happen on the court rather than what did.
That wasnt the original comparison. I stated that we should grow our own bigs as we are unlikely to get a true big better than Ward to ttransfer in.
Michigan's offense, like many big 10 offenses, heavily uses single and double screens to free their shooters coming around on curls.
little considered fact is the dribbler in these pick n rolls is often just as responsible as the screener as the reason for the foul being called
You are right about the ball handler’s responsibilities, but it is hard to know who is at fault without knowing the call….like is the screener suppossed to hold the screen, slip the screen, hold and roll, etc…. Fact is, whatever the call, it was a problem in general and for Hason it seemed footwork was an issue on the perimeter and on the post. Whatever the case those types of fouls are maddening and avoidable, hope we clean them up.
