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Forum nameOkay Sports
Topic subjectOld article, as Ellis already signed with Memphis.
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=8&topic_id=2696277&mesg_id=2696287
2696287, Old article, as Ellis already signed with Memphis.
Posted by Frank Longo, Wed May-15-19 12:37 PM
Would be really surprised if Precious doesn't go there too.

It'll be interesting to see how Penny does. People assert that Duke and Kentucky have issues winning when their teams are too young, and Memphis's team will be younger than both next year. They also have four stars on the perimeter, and their bigs, Wiseman and Achiuwa (presumably), are athletic powerhouses but raw offensively.

My guess is they'll rely *a lot* on Tucker and Ellis for offense, who I suspect is sneakily five-star good, but Tucker is a bit of a black hole scorer (he's never averaged 2 APG in college to date), and Ellis is more of a small scoring guard than a point guard himself. So I wonder how the ball movement will be, how effective they will be in creating for Achiuwa and Wiseman, and just what sort of offense Penny will operate-- I imagine he'll try to run run run to mitigate some of the offensive rawness and to use their athleticism advantage, but there may be a *lot* of turnovers if they play that way.

My prediction: they're at worst a Top 3 AAC team, probably the preseason favorite in the conference (though Houston and Wichita State may both compete to be ranked next season as well imo). I suspect they'll struggle early, find their footing, and make the tournament... but if their guard play isn't up to snuff, don't be surprised by an early exit. Wiseman can't create for himself, and Achiuwa is just a wrecking ball bully kind of guy at this point. They need Ellis and Tucker to play high-efficiency basketball to make their Sweet 16/Elite Eight hopes a reality. (Which is more or less true of any super-young team-- the wings need to play well and avoid turnovers.)

After that, who knows? Wiseman, Tucker, and probably Achiuwa will leave, but I'd imagine they return Ellis and Quinones, so their sustained success will be class-dependent. It may honestly be even easier for him after OAD is done away with in 2022, because he'll always maintain a talent advantage in the AAC, so when the youth card is more or less taken off the table when players are more likely to remain multiple years, that's when Penny can really start to flex, in theory. We'll learn a lot this year about what he does when he's got a talent advantage but an insanely young roster.