Friday, August 14, 2009

Kammeon Holsey Out For The Year

Georgia Tech incoming freshman Kammeon Holsey is set for season-ending knee surgery to repair an ACL injury suffered about two weeks ago. Holsey is an athletic forward who can play both the 3 and 4 positions on the floor, and is rated the 63rd overall recruit in the '09 class by ESPN, 82nd by Rivals.com, and the 30th best power forward by Scout.com.

As long as Holsey can be fully recovered for 20-11, I don't think this is a huge problem for the Yellow Jackets, but it's still a problem. Georgia Tech will still be very good on the inside, with Gani Lawal and Zachery Peacock both back, along with superfrosh Derrick Favors (arguably the top recruit in the nation). Those are three excellent interior players - but after that it gets a bit thin. Daniel Miller can play the 4 or 5 positions, but I wouldn't expect to see too much of him as a freshman. If Holsey played he most likely would have started at small forward, but now the only legitimate small forward on the roster is D'Andre Bell, and he's got to be a huge question mark after missing all of last season with a spinal injury.

D'Andre Bell will play, but if he's not totally healthy and back to his 2007-08 form then expect Georgia Tech to play a lot of three-guard lineups. They can get away with that with the three excellent big men that they've got, but it stretches the team so that they become fairly thin. The ACC schedule is grinding, and a team that wears down is more likely to lose a lot of close games, as the Yellow Jackets did last season (Sagarin's ELO_CHESS rated them 113th last season while the PREDICTOR had them 93rd, and Pomeroy gave them a luck rating of 340th in the nation).

I have rated Georgia Tech as 5th in the ACC for the upcoming season, with a 5 seed in the 2010 Tournament - calling them a "dark horse" for the conference title. This injury doesn't dramatically change that - I still think they're 5th in the ACC, and they're an outside contender for the conference title - but it's going to make things tougher. They are now going to be really dependent on the full recovery of D'Andre Bell, and the quick development of Daniel Miller.

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