I am not normally a proponent of having that long of a rotation, but it seems sort of inevitable this season. We will likely see 13 guys in these early games but as the rotation settles out, I think 11 can be manageable.
JBo 30 / Cmac 10
Moss 25 / BE 10 / Baer 5
Wagner 11 / Baer 19 / Nunge 10
Cook 18 / Pemsl 18 / Nunge 4
Garza 20 / Kriener 12 / Cook 8
So that gives us on average:
JBo - 30
Cook - 26
Moss - 25
Baer - 24
Garza - 20
Pemsl - 18
Nunge - 14
Kriener - 12
Wagner - 11
BE - 10
Cmac - 10
Really our top 7 guys would make up nearly 80% of the minutes, which is roughly what our top 7 were last year.
The “bottom 4” guys each bring something a little bit unique to the table. Remember those are just average estimations, but depending on the game their 10-12 minutes might get stretched out to 15-20 minutes. For instance there may be nights where we need Wagner’s defense to slow an opposing team’s top player. Maybe against Purdue and UW we want Kriener out there to pull Haas and Happ away from the basket. I’m sure there will be a couple nights where JBo gets in foul trouble and we will need more Cmac. On the other side there will be nights when the guys in front of them have hot hands and these guys don’t see as much court time.
So is it ideal playing 11? Probably not, but I just don’t know how you could justify keeping any of those guys off the floor. If done correctly I think it can be manageable, with each individual game determining who gets more/less floor time.