natetheskate wrote:
The discussion of a 4 puzzles me as we run a 4out one in line up....essentially 4 guards and 1 center....it really helps when one of those 4 guards has some of the qualities of a traditional 4 like Donte Ingram....so the question for Welch is does he play in or out? does he have the quickness and ball skills to play out or does he have the skills to guard the low post and post up....then he can be an in....what we would love is if he can do both......Frank does not have the ball skills to play out as one of the four guards...he is only a back up to Krut....but if you want to talk a 4 it is the person who has the ball and shooting skills but can also play defense against a traditional 4.....so to me the hardest position to recruit for LU is that guy who can play the guard offensively but play the traditional 4 defensively if required....so Ingram, Ugak, Hall and to some extent Williamson and the hope is that Welch can do that as well.although I have not given up on Welch as being able to play the 5. So really we usually only have two true centers on the team......if Hutson does not red shirt this year cuz of how the final interpretation of this new rule is , we will have 3 and if you consider Welch as maybe a 5 you have 31/2.....Hutsons biggest development will come on the practice floor this year.
As we got later into last season we started to play Welch more at the 4. I think the plan was for him to be a traditional 4 who had the ability to play as a small ball 5 when needed as he added bulk. With Frank going down early last year he was immediately thrown into a position he probably wasn't equipped for, especially on the defensive end. I did think he had a few promising showings in short stints, but he definitely wasn't ready for a full time role. That all said I thought he really showed promise at the 4, and he didn't take many but had a nice looking shot from deep (he finished the season 2-6), and his spin move near the rim was really polished for a freshman.
All in all, i'm pretty excited about the roster. I really feel like players like Welch and Pax would have played a ton of minutes on the 18-19 team... and still could this upcoming year, it's just a testament to the depth we've built up.