Pike: don't mess with Francis's role

[knight82]

After that disastrous start against Seton Hall, Francis has been electric as a scorer off the bench. Personally, I think putting him back in the starting lineup would be messing with a good thing. Thoughts?

 

[soundcrib]

Should be playing 40 minutes. Pure bucket getter. Only one we've got.

 

[RUfan1977]

After that disastrous start against Seton Hall, Francis has been electric as a scorer off the bench. Personally, I think putting him back in the starting lineup would be messing with a good thing. Thoughts?

Francis seems better coming off the bench. On the other hand he is arguably going to be our MVP at the end of the year so it doesn’t seem fair to him to have him come off the bench. However Pikiel as coach needs to be more concerned with winning than being fair.

When Francis comes in he gives the team a boost. Opposing coaches no doubt game plan against Francis, but I wonder if a lot of that game planning gets lost as the game goes on if Francis doesn’t come in during the first five minutes. Bringing Francis in off the bench also lets Francis play in crunch time without having him play to many minutes making fatigue less of a factor. Really just throwing thoughts at the wall as to why he seems better off the bench, but he does seem better so if it’s not broke don’t fix it.

 

[Bob Chaewsky_rivals]

A spark off the bench is nice but it is just as important to break out to a 10 point lead from the get go.

 

[bac2therac]

Should be playing 40 minutes. Pure bucket getter. Only one we've got.

I sort of agree with this...he is our rapidly becoming our best player and scorer, if the object is to win games he probably needs 35 minutes a game

 

[ScarletDave]

I like his current role. Beginning of games weird things happen. Don’t need him picking up dumb fouls, and if others come out slow then his mins are wasted. I like him coming in and being fresh, playing against the other team’s second rotation and propelling us to mid first half leads like we did against OSU going up 15 when he came in. That’s ideal

 

[BillyC80]

Stick with it until it stops working.

 

[bac2therac]

its going to be tested at Illlinois. I wouldnt be starting Kaden Powers

 

[tru2ru1]

But everyone said Francis was a wasted scholarship & he is too small to score in the B1G!!!

 

[goru7]

its going to be tested at Illlinois. I wouldnt be starting Kaden Powers

I would continue to start Powers and Zrno as you have legitimate 3 point threats in the game . I cannot pinpoint it but we look like a different team against Ohio State and Oregon and one could argue it is because Pike bringing Francis off the bench in the microwave role and letting him cook avoids scoring draughts which we suffered thru early in the year. Pike keeping Francis coming off the bench should definitely continue as he is still playing 30 minutes

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

After that disastrous start against Seton Hall, Francis has been electric as a scorer off the bench. Personally, I think putting him back in the starting lineup would be messing with a good thing. Thoughts?

I don’t mind Francis as a spark off the bench, but what happened against SHU had nothing to do with being in the starting line up. Francis does a lot of good things, but the one thing he’s just not is a primary ball handling PG despite his height.

One of the more subtle changes Pike made against Oregon is that his rotations finally seemed to focus on surrounding Tariq with the best options possible to make up for this implementing schemes where our height disadvantage would be least damaging as possible. Well coached game.

But back to the point - I don’t think Francis’ success vs Oregon compared to SHU had anything to do with being a starter.

 

[ancienthooper]

Love bringing points off the bench.