August 28, 2008

Ty Proffitt

Looks like Ty Proffitt has made the decision to transfer. In all honesty, it's probably for the best that he is moving on. After watching him in limited action last year, he was never really going to be a major contributor to this program. Proffitt is one of those guys who would have played in the McLeod era, but he probably doesn't belong in the Big East on an upper echelon program. He had a pretty nice shot and a steady game, but he's not the kind of guy who you want running the point in the Big East. I think the days of bringing in two star point guards like Proffit and Jimmy Dillon and even Ingelsby are probably behind us. Nothing against any of those guys, but Tory Jackson has given us a different element at the point that we lacked in the past. I'd like to see the next ND point guard in the Tory Jackson mold.

With a scholarship opening up, we probably need to get a point guard in this upcoming recruiting class. It's not a huge need for the next two years with Tory holding down the fort, but it would be nice to create a succession plan for 2010 after Tory is gone. If we pick up a good 3-4 star type recruit in the 2009 class, he would have a year to get ready to take over the point.

Just thinking about a potential 2009 and 2010 team:

2009

PG - Tory Jackson (senior)
SG - Ben Hansborough (junior)
SF - Scott Martin (sophomore)
PF - Tyrone Nash (junior)
C - Luke Harangody (senior)

Bench: Jonathan Peoples (senior), Carleton Scott (junior), Tim Abromaitis (junior), Joey Brooks (freshman), Jack Cooley (freshman)

Wow, that team will be absolutely loaded, and I don't see any major weaknesses. Looks like we are going to have two great chances at Sweet 16 runs in 2008-09 and 2009-10.

2010

PG - ??
SG - Ben Hansborough (senior)
SF - Scott Martin (junior)
PF - Tyrone Nash (senior)
C - Jack Cooley (sophomore)

Bench: Tim Abromaitis (senior), Carleton Scott (junior), Joey Brooks (sophomore) + 2-3 recruits

Bottom line is that ND hoops is in great hands these days, and we appear to have plenty of depth and talent to get a little NCAA Tournament streak going. If we can find a good young point guard, there's no reason why this program can't keeping rolling along for many years.

1 comment:

Jeremy said...

While I agree with the need for a PG for the '09 class, it sounds like from the recruiting scuttlebutt that Brey is going to wait until '10 to get a replacement for Jackson. That's counting on quite a bit if he's planning on asking a freshman to come right in and start in the BE at the point.

My guess is we get a bit of Hansborough to start off at the point to get the freshman adjusted.