Sampson’s philosophy places high emphasis around rebounding and defense. He believes these two areas keep you competitive in any game and the record shows he is correct.
Because of the energy drain from the defensive demands our team can have worse shooting percentages and that’s why he preaches offensive rebounding to make up for the lower shooting percentages.
Francis’s good qualities are shot blocking and rebounding. Francis’s bad qualities are fouling, struggling to make the correct rotations and perhaps being to thin. So far what we’ve seen from Francis is the bad outweighs the good, so much so that coach almost completely stopped using him during the tournament.
So if we want to say in CKS we trust then we have to admit to ourselves CKS didn’t think very highly of Francis’s abilities just 2 months ago. CKS also said we lost a potential player to NIL which means he wanted to improve the position. If you want to trust CKS, then trust his actions are telling you he doesn’t think Francis is starter level yet.
So we shouldn’t trust CKS track record of development? Francis won’t be who he was this season. I don’t think we know which of the other bigs maybe ready to play. Lach or McFarland may see more time than we know along with Tugler
Harris didnt go from bad to great over night…
sampson is an elite developer but he isnt a magician.
we have had gradually progress for all our guys, we’ve never had doesnt trust at all in important games, to 100% dependent on a few months later
the progression i was hoping for was barely trusted last year to 1st big of the bench next year, playing atleast 15mins every game… then the following year be the starter… in our program we lose starters and stars all the time but its never an issue because the guy behind him is not that far behind.
an example if tramon had stayed… tramon wasnt a superstar this year, but imo he would have been had he stayed, it would have been the natural next step … francis natural next step is just being a regular in the rotation no matter the opponent… it isnt star big that we’ll be dependent on, undisputed starter
Do you think CKS wasn’t thinking about where he believes Francis will be, development wise, when he was pursuing the other player he lost to NIL? Of course he was. Even considering where he felt he would have developed Francis’ abilities by the fall he still felt the need to recruit over him.
Knowing, and executing, defensive rotations is huge to CKS, and if you struggle there he tends to not want to play you. I think that might be the biggest issue he has with Francis. I’m sure that the staff will be spending every possible moment working with Francis and hopefully it will give us a Francis that can stay on the court for 25 minutes and be in the right place at the right time. We are all hoping he gets there I think getting him to where Roberts was 2 years ago would be a huge improvement.
I think it is reasonable to worry but I think the board is in true offseason worry mode some. I think Francis biggest jump will be this year. I have faith in the staff and program to make it work. I think we need to really see another leap from Jwan. Is he good enough to be a #1 low post option in the big 12?
On a side note, some of you guys have to realize the actual cost to get these big transfers. I have an old teammate who is on a big ten staff and the #s he told me for avg to barely above avg bigs is crazy.
You can see here that he received more minutes in valuable games like Kentucky. He had some low minutes against other teams and averaged about 11.2 minute per game. About 1 minute more than Francis. But would Francis have been trusted to play against that same Kentucky squad for 21 minutes if he was on the 19’ team?
It could be entirely possible that Francis is a complete different player next year. I remember at the beginning of the 2018-2019 season, Harris looked lost everywhere. And then he turned out pretty well in 2019-2020. But he also gained minutes as the 2018-2019 season went on unlike Francis. Francis’ minutes are more similar to Harris in 2018. Harris play only 7.4 minutes a game but played decently throughout the season but didn’t play in the tournament at all really.
Hopefully Francis improved from all the work he’s putting in. Sampson said Francis and a few other guys were here working while the team has its break.
Some are making way too much about Francis not play much the second half of the season.
He played more early because he was playing too well to keep off the floor.
He sat because he was still a developing player and we had a SR leader who could take the minutes.
Shead played 4 minutes in the NCAAT outside of our first round game with Cleveland St. during the final four run. The next year he carried us to the elite eight, playing all but 17 minutes in four games. You just never know how guys will develop over an offseason. Or how they might handle a new role. I’m keeping the faith with Francis.
the 2 notable difference with shead is that the reason he didnt play was becuase there just wasnt minutes for him to play…we were stacked at guard…
and secondly was that shead wasnt designed to start, he started from injury… the preseason before that season he noted the core 3 of that year would be sasser, mark and fabian… with the original planned starting 5 as sasser, mark, edwards, fabian and chaney… with sampon noting he had faith in sasser to run pg… marks preseason in, subsequent in season injury and sassers injury are what gave him the starting spot. and inability to score pushed carlton above chaney
if we brougt in a notable big and francis beat him out, we’d all be happy
im just worried becuase we already bet on francis once and it bore no fruit…after we lost lofton, sampson in interview kept noting how francis was going to have a dominant season last year… that never happened … he was supposed to breakout in sampsons own words… (those unfamiliar sampson never wanted jwan at the 5, he noted he was only moved there becuase after the secret scrimmage it was obvious he had to play the 5)
Development isn’t always linear and sometimes it’s a small step forward before a big step. If the frontcourt ends up not being good enough then it’s on CKS. We really need somebody in the know to understand the staff’s thinking on this completely.
Sure there are lots of differences between Francis and Shead. Only point I was making is that guys can take big jumps in the off-season and that the playing time they received at the end of the year isn’t always a great indicator of whether or not they can make that jump. For the record I’m not against bringing in a big but if we don’t I’m still optimistic about what Francis can be for us.
i think you noted it earlier… i genuinely thinks the staff just has faith that they can develop him to be “good enough”
i think the staff is aware that it will be weak point, in sampon noting that the roster has flaws and the fact that we reached out to a few centers and had jones visit… but i think they are accepting that weakness and hoping to Francis to hold it down as best he can now
I think it is reasonable to worry but I think the board is in true offseason worry mode some. I think Francis biggest jump will be this year. I have faith in the staff and program to make it work. I think we need to really see another leap from Jwan. Is he good enough to be a 
