What should we expect from Facey going forward?

[BigErnMcCracken]

Don't see how he contributes that much--if Facey plays who sits?
Hamilton? Samuals, Calhoun ?

Put the best players on the floor for most of the minutes...so then...list our best players in order.
doesn't have to be an exact science so when do you get to Facey?

8th maybe?

third guy off the bench...how many minutes does the third guy off the bench get each game? 5?

not trying to be mean..he's a good player...he's up against better & in my opinion not ready for prime time this season. Hope I'm wrong

Ollie plays a pretty free-form style and he values positionless players but I don't think Samuels and Calhoun are the guys who are going to be stealing his minutes. You can't have a lineup where everybody's 6-3 or shorter. They're not exactly deep in the frontcourt.

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

As far as the defense for Facey. How did a Daniels look on defense his freshman year? How did Phil look on defense his freshman year? If Amida wasn't such a great shot blocker his defense would've looked bad too. But the two previous guys developed a lot on the defensive end after a summer in the college weight program and coaching from KO. I fully believe Facey will do the same thing with a better body and skillset than Phil or Daniels had, especially at the 4.

 

[breezy]

I have high hopes for the Face, but agree that people are underestimating the difficulty of putting up 8/6. That's not to say I don't think he's capable, but it would be an incredible uptick in contribution.

I expect Rock to get a lot of run guarding our substantial friend McBride during the UCF games...

 

[CallMeBruce]

I have high hopes for the Face, but agree that people are underestimating the difficulty of putting up 8/6. That's not to say I don't think he's capable, but it would be an incredible uptick in contribution.

I expect Rock to get a lot of run guarding our substantial friend McBride during the UCF games...

I don't think that he has any skills deficiencies that would prevent him from hitting 8/6, as he averaged out to an 8/10 player/28 minutes. Obviously that's over a pretty small sample, but that's also not the issue. My concern with Facey, in fact my only concern with him, is will he be able to limit his fouls enough to play mid-20s minutes. If he's able to keep his fouls under control, he's going to get play because he's definitely our strongest rebounder, and he has enough offensive skills to hold his own at the 4.

 

[Clockshop]

http://www.ctpost.com/uconn/article/UConn-s-Facey-looks-forward-to-stronger-sophomore-5686598.php

 

[Hysteria]

21 years old? who knew....I want to like him, but really can't see how he contributes much this season. Only five on the floor & there are other pretty darn good ones on our squad this year.

 

[Gurleyman]

21 years old? who knew....I want to like him, but really can't see how he contributes much this season. Only five on the floor & there are other pretty darn good ones on our squad this year.

He'll get very opportunity. Someone has to rebound. Don't really want Brimah (or Nolan) trying to block shots with four guards on the defensive glass.

 

[tcf15]

21 years old? who knew....I want to like him, but really can't see how he contributes much this season. Only five on the floor & there are other pretty darn good ones on our squad this year.

Facey will be fighting Brimah, Nolan and Lubin for minutes. Playing time is there for the taking.

 

[mbt0512]

21 years old? who knew....I want to like him, but really can't see how he contributes much this season. Only five on the floor & there are other pretty darn good ones on our squad this year.

I respectfully disagree with this strongly. I like his game and believe he will contribute meaningfully, even if that means continuing to average more rebounds than points.. His attitude seems very positive and I like that he didn't sugarcoat the fact that anyone would be frustrated not playing much in his position. Go get 'em Kentan.

 

[huskyharry]

In general rebounding ability and stats tend to be more consistently replicated as a player moves up in a higher level of play. Players like Popeye Jones, Paul Milsap, Kenneth Faried were top notch rebounders at the mid-major level but this ability translated well to the NBA.
Facey averaged 1.7 rebounds in 5.1 minutes per game...over 20 minutes this would equal 6.67 rpg. So even if his rebounding rate drops off a bit, 6 rebounds per game doesn't seem out of reach. Now maybe he only averages 5 or 6 ppg instead of the 7 ppg that I predicted, he would still be a strong contributor provided he can play within the team concept, hustle and play solid defense.

 

[HuskyBballFan]

21 years old? who knew....I want to like him, but really can't see how he contributes much this season. Only five on the floor & there are other pretty darn good ones on our squad this year.

You've now expressed this sentiment 4 or 5 times in this thread. The only thing I can gather is that you just don't understand the fact that positions matter in basketball. They matter much less in college than the NBA, but they still matter.

We have 6 really good guards/wings on this team, but Kentan Facey isn't really competing for minutes with those guys. He's competing with Rakim Lubin and/or the slim chance that Nolan and Brimah can co-exist without fouling on every possession.

 

[freescooter]

On a team that struggled inside and had trouble matching up with most big front courts most of the regular season, Facey couldn't get off the bench, yet somehow he's going to be the starter at the 4 and score 8-10 point/game? Wow. I don't know. If I were a betting man I'd bet on him to play limited minutes, mostly when we need defensive stops, rebounding. Marcus White might be a good example of the type of player. Or this year's Tyler Olander. Really, though it is pretty difficult to predict. Ollie has done some good things with lesser bigs. Wolfe was a stiff early in his career and made decent progress, not great by any means but adequate, before his unfortunate incident. On the other hand, Olander seemed to regress as his career went on.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

On a team that struggled inside and had trouble matching up with most big front courts most of the regular season, Facey couldn't get off the bench, yet somehow he's going to be the starter at the 4 and score 8-10 point/game? Wow. I don't know. If I were a betting man I'd bet on him to play limited minutes, mostly when we need defensive stops, rebounding. Marcus White might be a good example of the type of player. Or this year's Tyler Olander. Really, though it is pretty difficult to predict. Ollie has done some good things with lesser bigs. Wolfe was a stiff early in his career and made decent progress, not great by any means but adequate, before his unfortunate incident. On the other hand, Olander seemed to regress as his career went on.

(a) this post basically guarantees that he's going to have an All-American season. The next time you're sanguine about a guy will be the first.

(b) Facey's weakness last year - what kept him on the bench - was defending in the half court, so I don't know that he's going to be the guy to come in for the purpose of getting stops. He's shown promise offensively and as a rebounder; no reason to think he won't be a contributor this year with DeAndre gone. I don't think Marcus White is an apt comparison at all; Kentan is/will be a much, much more diverse threat on offense.

 

[imno1]

Facey is gonna surprise a lot of doubters. I think the fact that there was no consideration of transferring tells me the staff and Kentan himself believes he can be a factor on this team. To me the glass is 3/4 full.

 

[Gurleyman]

On a team that struggled inside and had trouble matching up with most big front courts most of the regular season, Facey couldn't get off the bench, yet somehow he's going to be the starter at the 4 and score 8-10 point/game? Wow. I don't know. If I were a betting man I'd bet on him to play limited minutes, mostly when we need defensive stops, rebounding. Marcus White might be a good example of the type of player. Or this year's Tyler Olander. Really, though it is pretty difficult to predict. Ollie has done some good things with lesser bigs. Wolfe was a stiff early in his career and made decent progress, not great by any means but adequate, before his unfortunate incident. On the other hand, Olander seemed to regress as his career went on.

Last year we had DD and Giffey playing the 4. Facey taking their spot would have involved restructuring our offense in the middle of a game from a spread to a traditional 2-big lineup, and he didn't bring enough to the table to change what we were doing. This year, there are no stretch 4s to compete with, so we won't be able to play the same way, and the door is wide open.

I don't think he'll score double figures, but I could see him being a guy who can get 7-8 boards a night if he can stay on the floor with just a little bit of offense.

 

[CallMeBruce]

Last year we had DD and Giffey playing the 4. Facey taking their spot would have involved restructuring our offense in the middle of a game from a spread to a traditional 2-big lineup, and he didn't bring enough to the table to change what we were doing. This year, there are no stretch 4s to compete with, so we won't be able to play the same way, and the door is wide open.

I don't think he'll score double figures, but I could see him being a guy who can get 7-8 boards a night if he can stay on the floor with just a little bit of offense.

Giffey started playing the 4 on occasion late in the season in part because Facey couldn't stay on the floor. He played the 3 a lot more than he played the 4. Given how brutally this team rebounded for the first half of the season, the idea that Facey - the team's best rebounder - was sitting entirely because of the guys ahead of him is absurd.

The door is wide open for Facey, but if he doesn't cut his foul rate significantly, it's not going to matter, because he won't be able to stay on the court. That's the ballgame for Facey. If he can stay on the court, he's going to be playing a lot. If not, we're in trouble.

 

[freescooter]

Last year we had DD and Giffey playing the 4. Facey taking their spot would have involved restructuring our offense in the middle of a game from a spread to a traditional 2-big lineup, and he didn't bring enough to the table to change what we were doing. This year, there are no stretch 4s to compete with, so we won't be able to play the same way, and the door is wide open.

I don't think he'll score double figures, but I could see him being a guy who can get 7-8 boards a night if he can stay on the floor with just a little bit of offense.

That's not totally unreasonable, though I think we'll have a couple of guys coming in who will play the 4 and Nolan will play it too in a more in the style of Josh Boone if not as well. The more I think about it the more I think Facey might be an Ed Nelson type player...situational replacement averaging 8-9 minutes/game, 2-3 rebounds 2-3 points. Big strong kid with limitations.

 

[aceboon]

Giffey started playing the 4 on occasion late in the season in part because Facey couldn't stay on the floor. He played the 3 a lot more than he played the 4. Given how brutally this team rebounded for the first half of the season, the idea that Facey - the team's best rebounder - was sitting entirely because of the guys ahead of him is absurd.

The door is wide open for Facey, but if he doesn't cut his foul rate significantly, it's not going to matter, because he won't be able to stay on the court. That's the ballgame for Facey. If he can stay on the court, he's going to be playing a lot. If not, we're in trouble.

Giffey playing the 4 had nothing to do with Facey's foul trouble issues, when he wasn't playing the 3 he backed up Daniels at the 4 this year just like he did last year, Giffey has always been the 2nd option at the 4 after Daniels. Facey did not play because offensively he wasn't close to the options that Daniels and Giffey were, and he wasn't close to them in the concept of team defense either. It would be pretty silly to play Facey over 2 superior options just because of his rebounding, and its not like Giffey and Daniels were terrible rebounders.

 

[pj]

On a team that struggled inside and had trouble matching up with most big front courts most of the regular season, Facey couldn't get off the bench, yet somehow he's going to be the starter at the 4 and score 8-10 point/game? Wow. I don't know. If I were a betting man I'd bet on him to play limited minutes, mostly when we need defensive stops, rebounding. Marcus White might be a good example of the type of player. Or this year's Tyler Olander. Really, though it is pretty difficult to predict. Ollie has done some good things with lesser bigs. Wolfe was a stiff early in his career and made decent progress, not great by any means but adequate, before his unfortunate incident. On the other hand, Olander seemed to regress as his career went on.

Facey was a freshman behind two quality upperclassmen, Deandre Daniels and Niels Giffey. He showed considerable talent, and both the guys ahead of him have left. He's competing with Phil Nolan who is going to get half his minutes at center, and with Rakim Lubin, a freshman who is shorter and less skilled. Why wouldn't Facey get the bulk of the minutes at PF?

 

[Chief00]

Quite frankly, Facey may be one of the big upside surprises this year. As I said previously he spent time both in the weight room and gym this summer.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

As I said previously he spent time both in the weight room and gym this summer.

Thank god we have your inside access for scoops like this. Both the weight room and the gym? Good heavens. Let's not let word get out, other teams might start copying this approach.

 

[HuskyBballFan]

Quite frankly, Facey may be one of the big upside surprises this year. As I said previously he spent time both in the weight room and gym this summer.

Lol. So he has something in common with every other college basketball player on the planet?

 

[Chief00]

Lol. So he has something in common with every other college basketball player on the planet?

Actually we have had players over the years that have NOT done that. The guys who stayed in Storrs most of the summer would tell you it can be pretty boring that time of year especially if you can't afford a car. In short, you and your buddy have no clue what you are talking about. Not everyone works really hard and the guys who did this summer will improve the most this season and yes Facey is one of those guys and fortunately this season we have a few other guys who made that committment.

 

[HuskyBballFan]

Actually we have had players over the years that have NOT done that. The guys who stayed in Storrs most of the summer would tell you it can be pretty boring that time of year especially if you can't afford a car. In short, you and your buddy have no clue what you are talking about. Not everyone works really hard and the guys who did this summer will improve the most this season and yes Facey is one of those guys and fortunately this season we have a few other guys who made that committment.

The vast majority of high-major, Division 1 college basketball players "work really hard" on their games in the summer...regardless of whether they stay on campus or go home.

 

[johnhuskies95]

Giffey started playing the 4 on occasion late in the season in part because Facey couldn't stay on the floor. He played the 3 a lot more than he played the 4. Given how brutally this team rebounded for the first half of the season, the idea that Facey - the team's best rebounder - was sitting entirely because of the guys ahead of him is absurd.

The door is wide open for Facey, but if he doesn't cut his foul rate significantly, it's not going to matter, because he won't be able to stay on the court. That's the ballgame for Facey. If he can stay on the court, he's going to be playing a lot. If not, we're in trouble.

Just like how we were in trouble last year?