Bleed Green said:
A team that shot 80% from the FT line for the year missed 10 FT's and the OP thinks he knows ball... definition of idiot. Probably a media guy who Drew blew off.
I would love to see us have more multi year kids, but with the portal like it is, that is not a done deal even if you stay away from the 1 and dones. Also, if you asked every college coach if they would want Keyonte or Jakobi on their team even knowing they will only be there a year, 95% would say yes. Of the 5% that would say no, 0% of them have won a natty. Probably less than 10% have been to a sweet 16.
My opinion of our biggest weakness this year was at the PG position. RayJ is a quality player and carried in moments. But I believe his desire for the lob pass hurt. Ally oops are fun to watch and can occasionally provide a boost, but frequently when he was throwing a lob pass (many that didn't get ooped) there were guys wide open on the 3 pt line. i think he had 9 games with 5 or less assists, 4 games with more TOs than assists, and one of the worst Asst/TO ratios of the top 30 PGs. He is great to have on the team, not a bad player, but I don't like him as my primary PG.
Missi bought into the hype. He is still young and has a lot to learn. I will stand by my comments on another thread that he shouldn't go pro yet and shouldn't be a lottery pick. He has tons of potential, but tons of growth needed.
Jakobi is an incredible talent. I think his biggest growth will be emotionally. He seems to get in funks and have trouble getting out of them. I think he will be a G leaguer who takes a year or two to grow.
Love was greatly missed down the stretch. I hope that kid gets healthy because i think he could be a very good player.
Bridges had a great year that I think could have been better with better guard play.
Nunn came around from what I thought was a slow start but then disappeared vs Clemson.
Fun group of guys who obviously loved each other but I don't think it was the right balance everywhere. I know they had the talent to get to the final 4 but rarely during the year did I feel like they would put it together enough. Should have been in the sweet 16 but they pressed on FT's and killed their chances.
What kills me about Missi is while I agree if he came back he would have a chance to move into the lottery quite frankly unless he's going to come back and develop an outside shot, he's really only got a much larger chance at hurting his draft stock. He's being projected where he is because sky is the limit not because of how he plays right now. The more of his draft evaluation moves to current ability vs projection the worse the more potential he has to slide into the second round.
I completely agree with Dennis, great guy love to have him in the program, but we saw the limits of his game this year, he's no question a power 5 player, but I thought his 3rd team big 12 rating was stretch to be honest, he had so many horrible turnovers. He would have been a wonderful Macio Teague (don't get me wrong his game doesn't hold a candle to Teague), but if he had been the 3rd guard who could shoot and distribute he would have been in a lot better position as a player. I also think he had trouble early adjusting from being the best guy on the court every night for both teams like he was last year, to being no where close to that in the big 12.
I would challenge a bit on Nunn as to when he disappeared. He really came on early on after Langston Love went down, but then faded back to obscurity before the end of conference play. By the time the Texas tech game rolled around he regressed to the same bad player he was at the beginning of the year. His development arc this season was really bad.
I also agree on Jakobe, a lot like Missi he would be a lot better player if he came back for a year, he's going to get better development in college than in the G league, the problem is that will likely destroy his draft stock, because again any talent evaluation is based on his AAU and High school career, anyone projecting him as a lottery pick based on his college performance is a bad evaluator of talent. If he puts another year of tape out like this one, the mask will be off and he would slide out of the first round if not the draft.