PJ Washington is not a good rebounder. Every big on Duke was rebounding at a higher rate per minute than Washington last year (Bagley, Carter, DeLaurier, Bolden, Vrankovic, White). Also, Bolden and DeLaurier rebound at a higher rate (Jack White, too) than Reid Travis... Kentucky will have advantages over Duke, I'm not disputing that. But I don't believe rebounding is one of those areas.
Couple of things I want to point out:
1. PJ Washington played a pretty good chunk of the 2nd half of the season with a broken finger, so that didn't do him any favors.
2. Bolden, DeLaurier, Vrankovic, and White were hardly on the floor long enough to draw any kind of substantial statistical analysis from. Advanced statistics are all well and good, but how a person can conceivably determine that two players that will play on next year's roster, but only played 5 and 6 minutes per game, and didn't average over 1.5 rebounds a piece, are better rebounders than a guy that averaged 6 rebounds in 27 minutes (and 7.2 rebounds over the last 10 games of the season, in 29 minutes per game) from the power forward position, I'm not a fan of.
At the very least, I question Bolden's ability to even stay on the floor. Every time I've ever seen him, he slogs around, seems incredibly out of shape, and just doesn't seem like the sharpest basketball mind.
EDIT: Reid Travis also averaged 11.2 rebounds per game over the last 10 games at Stanford, and had 12.4 rebounds per game over his last 7.
I would take the proven production of Travis and Washington over the projected production of the Duke bigs.
Who has more muscle than Zion on UK? That being said UK probably wins this early in the season.
Reid Travis. Zion is a big dude. Bit of a lardo though, which is fine. If I could jump that high while being 265 pounds, I would keep that weight too. That's not indicative of strength though. Travis is a bull though. Not that it matters a ton, they'll rarely go against one another. I figure Washington will be the dude against Williamson, but Washington is also a bull inside. It's going to be a very, very physical game.
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