Demo

For the pure X’s and O’s geeks of the world, St Mary’s-Wiscy is a hell of a day 1 game. Randy Bennett is destination tv for me.

There’s a lot of reasonable minds can disagree stuff in this post. I agree with some of it, disagree with some. But 1 point rates a mention. If you genuinely think that Bitadze was a wasted pick, I really don’t know what to tell you other than you’re just flat wrong. 20 year old 7’ kids with a skill set that high and that complete who can also see the game and mentally process it as quickly as he does this early in their careers just aren’t common. He’s going to have a long, productive career. Zero doubt in my mind.

One of these days someone needs to explain to me why so many sports media types constantly talk about Adrian Martinez like he’s any good at all. Maybe he will be, but he’s not now. Would take Penix over Martinez all day long.

Plummer with a Mayfieldesque shuffle pass int in the Purdue-Nebraska game. Then Martinez almost does the same thing on the next freaking play. Great stuff.

Love it. Though the Hardenesque blatant walk before the release is a little bit of a problem

I really like the fit with what Underwood does offensively. Not sure the kid’s long enough or quick enough laterally to fit that extreme denial defensive structure that he runs.

Denver finally plays Michael Porter Jr last night. Scores 15 in 20 mins and is the only Nugget with a positive plus/minus. Wonder if Malone will make any effort at all to find minutes for 1 of the most physically gifted kids on the planet. Rhetorical question. He won’t.

Why did Johnson not throw a block?

This is a really good piece of video. Dainja is a top 50ish kid going to Baylor and he gives Garcia all he wants. Not just a highlight clip, shows some stuff that Garcia will need to work on, particularly lateral movement and core strength. But, man, is he a skilled kid. At 1:15 he takes a rebound and throws a full court outlet dead on the money with his off hand. Don’t see that every day. Shows range, handle, can pass off the dribble. Love him.

Nice pic. But isn’t Garcia supposed to be something like 5 or 6 inches taller than those kids?

Agree. When they play Jarreau, Hinton and Grimes together that is going to be some serious length and activity on the perimeter. Even with Watts, they should really be able to pressure.

Usually skip conversations like this one, but sometimes it’s just unavoidable. Philosophically, Archie has never tripped my trigger. Have always preferred 2 guard fronts, motion and pace offensively and aggressive denials and forcing iso’s defensively. And Archie is obviously a pack line guy who runs pretty conventional ball screen stuff on offense. He’s a pretty connect the dots coach. Can’t remember many, or really any, times in the last couple of years where I ran a play back because something Archie ran made me think “woah, what was that?” He’s no Beilein or Randy Bennett or McKillop or one of the elite x’s and o’s guys. At least not to me. But to suggest that he can’t coach offense is just dumb. If what you run gets the ball where you want it and creates an opportunity you’re happy with, then what you ran worked. What the player does with it is on the player. They were pretty successful getting the ball to the block for Morgan or Davis and getting it to Langford in attacking spots. The fact that teams could just clog or double off of guys like Smith or McRoberts isn’t a function of bad offense, it’s a function of bad offensive players. This team probably would have been better offensively with Beilein or Randy Bennett, but they wouldn’t have been good. This team will be an interesting test for Miller. I like this team’s offensive potential better than most on here. I think there is some interesting versatility and the potential to create a lot of favorable matchups if Archie is willing to get creative and stretch a bit.

As much as I like this kid, A&M makes a lot of sense for him. Williams’ style of play feels like a great fit. Plus, the closest thing they have to a PG is TJ Starks, who just isn’t very good. Diarra would just walk in and get the keys.

Dre Davis decommitted from Nebraska. Liked his fit in Hoiberg’s system.

https://basketballrecruiting.rivals.com/news/usa-basketball-khristian-lander-recaps-visits-talks-reclassification Fairly interesting little read. Not really a lot on the schools involved unless you REALLY like parsing words. But he talks reclassification and it certainly sounds like a legitimate consideration.

Well, if there is 1 thing as inevitable as the tides, it’s our ability to somehow turn a win into an unpleasant experience.

Agree that he has the traits and experience to help defensively. But I just see a glaring misfit with Archie’s offensive philosophy. Just don’t see a role on that end. At all. I would like his fit as a 4 in a really high tempo style with a lot of player movement, like Eric Musselman’s system. Maybe what Smart does. Would have been fine with Crean. In an open court game he could absolutely be a problem. But Archie’s tempo and the stuff he runs, or at least what he was running last year, really minimize Smith’s strengths. I actually think transferring would have made a ton of sense for him. Since he chose to stay, I really hope the kid finds a niche. But I don’t see it. Love to be wrong.

Agree. With this roster, other than Green, you probably don’t run that action with the specific intent of getting that look, though I like it a lot for him. But what I love about it is that it mitigates the post defender’s ability to either hedge the baseline runner or to front the post. All he can really do is deny baseline side. So you’ve really got 4 options: 1) the catch and shoot 3, 2) the slip, 3) if the baseline defender is trailing there is an open driving lane middle, 4) if the baseline defender is able to stay close then you’ve got a clean post feed. Very cool.

https://mobile.twitter.com/hoopvision68/status/1167083458772066304 https://mobile.twitter.com/hoopvision68/status/1166857446066982913 This is some stuff that Wes Miller ran at UNCG that I would think it likely that Mike Roberts would have brought along and Archie could easily work into some of his base actions. Green, maybe even Hunter, running the baseline with any of the 3 bigs executing the pin down/slip, though I think it fits TJD the best. Great action to keep the post defender from over aggressively fronting. Love it. But, ya know, Wes Miller is a mid major Coach. So what could Roberts have really learned from him?

Just watched the scrimmage video at ITH. Hunter with the 17ft 1 footed fade-away turnaround wing banker. How old school is that! Dating myself in the extreme, but Roger Brown had that move. Love the kid even more.

You want to talk lip service? According to Borzello, Love said that he’s trying to recruit Cade Cunningham to UNC. A kid who made clear that he wanted to run a team recruiting easily the best on ball guy in the class? Yeah, ok. It sounds super invested, though, doesn’t it?

Heard a long time ago that UNC was where he wanted to be. Also like it as a system fit. Has some Colby White to his game, though not that aggressive and not as good.

I was talking about Archie

I guess since I’ve never met or been close to CAM I tend to lose sight of it. But in the basketball world the dude really is a homunculus.

Likes are up to 2400. But, really, 49 is nothing to be ashamed of.