Tiger81
Masters Student
Posts: 412
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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03-17-24 10:25 AM - Post#365514
In response to gokinsmen
Zach Martini is going to be the hardest piece of the puzzle to replace next year.
In addition to providing strong positional defense in the post he was a 3P threat and point center who stretched defenses and he rarely got into foul trouble.
Princeton will definitely miss Allocco’s leadership, defensive tenacity and clutch scoring, but between Scott and Davis they have good options to offset those losses and Deven Austin will provide more backcourt depth off the bench.
If they start Scott and Davis, and move Pierce to the 5 with Scott backfilling Pierce, that will be an even more under-sized lineup than this year. Matching up against Yale and Brown next year it is hard to envision a small line-up having enough firepower, especially in the wake of yesterday’s beatdown.
When Pierce went out against Yale after banging his head, Coach Henderson put Scott on the floor ahead of Huggins and Collins never got extended minutes except in garbage time. They or one of the freshman would need to take a big leap to crack the starting lineup.
Of the incoming freshman, the two biggest gets are a guard (Stanton) and a SF (Abdullahi). CJ Happy would provide more presence in the paint at 6’8” 220 lbs. but was not as highly-recruited.
Best case would be a Richmond Arririguzoh-like emergence into the starting lineup for Huggins or better yet the beefier Collins. Arririguzoh hardly played as a first-year, got into the rotation and started a handful of games as a sophomore, and then became an All-Ivy player his last two years.
As for the potential defection of Pierce or Lee (or Wolf or Mack), I would prefer to stick my head in the sand for now rather than contemplate the demise of D-I Ivy athletics.
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