NCAA Basketball 2017: Final Four cont.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

54 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Yes.  Him, RJ Barrett, and Cam Reddish.  And they all play roughly the same position.  They also have a really good point guard coming in (Tre Jones), but have zero depth.  In their game against Ryerson in Canada, Duke finished the game with 86 and Zion/Barret had 63.    Reddish and Jones did not play.

For as great as Zion was, he also was winded pretty early.  I think if you run Duke up and down the court you have a chance to really wear them out. 

Yeah, that’s Tyus’ brother He’s the 10^th ranked recruit. Getting four top 10 recruits and the top 3 picks is an insane class.

Regarding Zion, what position is he going to play, and can he do anything besides throwing down gravity defying dunks?  

[Rhom]

4 minutes ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

Yeah, that’s Tyus’ brother He’s the 10^th ranked recruit. Getting four top 10 recruits and the top 3 picks is an insane class.

Regarding Zion, what position is he going to play, and can he do anything besides throwing down gravity defying dunks?  

I think they are going to do some sort of "positionless" basketball thing, but he'll be some combo forward thing that is part 4/part 3.

I didn't think he could do much other than dunk, but in the game the other night he did hit 3 from outside the arc.    Mostly though he uses his freak size and athleticism to overpower people.

[sperry]

This Duke team is emblematic of the problem with these 1 and done all-star teams. They will look great against bad to mediocre teams, and then they'll get buried in the tournament by a team with a really good backcourt.

 

It's a weird deal where the elite guys are all ending up on a few flawed teams with very little chance at the title, while teams that aren't recruiting a bunch of one and dones are cleaning up in the tournament. North Carolina and Villanova both have been featuring teams that look like what a Coach K Duke team would have looked like 10 years ago.

 

And don't get me wrong, it's not that you shouldn't recruit one and dones. It's that you should be recruiting 4 year guys and supplementing them with a 1 and done elite talent guy every once in a while.

[Rhom]

7 hours ago, sperry said:

This Duke team is emblematic of the problem with these 1 and done all-star teams. They will look great against bad to mediocre teams, and then they'll get buried in the tournament by a team with a really good backcourt.

 

It's a weird deal where the elite guys are all ending up on a few flawed teams with very little chance at the title, while teams that aren't recruiting a bunch of one and dones are cleaning up in the tournament. North Carolina and Villanova both have been featuring teams that look like what a Coach K Duke team would have looked like 10 years ago.

 

And don't get me wrong, it's not that you shouldn't recruit one and dones. It's that you should be recruiting 4 year guys and supplementing them with a 1 and done elite talent guy every once in a while.

You mean like Shai Gikgeous Alexander who was a 4 star recruit?

Or maybe Devin Booker?  Also a four star.

Or how about Eric Bledsoe?

Sometimes you recruit guys you think will be around and they wind up way better than you thought.

[sperry]

9 hours ago, Rhom said:

You mean like Shai Gikgeous Alexander who was a 4 star recruit?

Or maybe Devin Booker?  Also a four star.

Or how about Eric Bledsoe?

Sometimes you recruit guys you think will be around and they wind up way better than you thought.

Booker and Bledsoe were both top 30 guys, so they were very firmly in the potential one and done camp. The more likely outcome, however, for a guy that Calipari recruits and doesn't live up to the hype, is that Calipari recruits a bunch more one and dones the next year so that guy knows he isn't going to get on the court and ends up transferring or just declaring for the draft to go play overseas.

 

Since Cal has arrived, Kentucky has signed 50 high school kids. 25 have gone to the NBA draft after 1 year. 11 have one to the NBA after 2 years. 1 went pro after 3 years. 5 transferred out of the program. Only 4 have exhausted their eligibility, and only one of those 4 was a real contributor (Poythress).  The remaining 4 are class of 2017 kids who are back for this season.

 

 

I will say that I like the looks of this most recruiting class with 4 guards. They need to actually stick around for it to matter, though.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

RPI is finally going away, it appears. The NCAA has announced a new rating metric that on the surface sounds eminently preferable (and less open to system-gaming) than RPI:

The new index has been dubbed the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET for short. An NCAA release said it “relies on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses.”

How does the NET differ from the RPI?

The RPI was based solely on winning percentage, opponent winning percentage, and opponents’ opponent winning percentage – and far too heavily on the latter two categories. It lacked theoretical or statistical nuance. Many schools had cracked the code and figured out how to game it.

The NET will look beyond win/loss records, breaking every game down by possession, and factoring in where the game was played.

The NCAA did specify, though, that “a cap of 10 points was applied to the winning margin to prevent rankings from encouraging unsportsmanlike play, such as needlessly running up the score in a game where the outcome was certain.”

 

 

[Rhom]

I think it’s a positive as long as they actually pay attention to it and don’t just throw it out the window to set up stories and keep Duke and UNC in the state of North Carolina until the Final Four.

[Rhom]

Michigan lost this afternoon to Mega Bemax

 

[Rhom]

Love Coach Cal

 

[Rhom]

Okay @RedEyedGhost I gotta ask now...

What is the worry level of the average KU fan with the Di Souza revelations and other general nastiness coming from the Addidas trial?

[RedEyedGhost]

Some think it's in the best case scenarios, some the worst.  When asked point blank whether coach Self or anybody on the Kansas staff knew anything about it, he said no, under oath.  I can't imagine even the scummiest of scumbags perjuring themselves to protect a school.  I'm also unsure of why Cliff Alexander's mom needed to take out an agent backed loan if these shoe companies are throwing that much money around to our recruits.  I mean he was a top 5 recruit, and she's taking out a loan for $50K.  Does not compute.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

5 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I'm also unsure of why Cliff Alexander's mom needed to take out an agent backed loan if these shoe companies are throwing that much money around to our recruits.  I mean he was a top 5 recruit, and she's taking out a loan for $50K.  Does not compute.

Devil's advocate: Some people are really, really greedy and will take whatever is thrown at them, damn the consequences.

As usual with these sorts of shenanigans I think the coaches were smart enough to isolate themselves from this process to the point of plausible deniability.  

[Rhom]

The Brian Bowen Sr stuff is all over UofL boards where they are saying “If the 20th ranked guy can get $150k; how much are these UK guys getting?”

I think for some, that’s a valid question but I think there are other kids that probably realize they are only a year away and don’t want to ruin it.

[RedEyedGhost]

8 hours ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

Devil's advocate: Some people are really, really greedy and will take whatever is thrown at them, damn the consequences.

But that was a loan which requires repayment.  Why need that when they're apparently throwing money around to anybody that asks.

 

6 hours ago, Rhom said:

The Brian Bowen Sr stuff is all over UofL boards where they are saying “If the 20th ranked guy can get $150k; how much are these UK guys getting?”

I think for some, that’s a valid question but I think there are other kids that probably realize they are only a year away and don’t want to ruin it.

If you believe that Gassnola was talking about money when he mentions having "never let [Self] down - except Deandre", then it's plainly obvious that Nike outbid Adidas.  And if that's the case then everybody is dirty.  This is definitely an all or nothing thing, so I'm not sweating it much.  I do not think that De Sousa will ever play another game for us though.

[Rhom]

Saw that KU has decided to sit De Sousa for an eligibility review.  Certainly does hurt the roster for the number one team in the country in the short run.  Probably fortunate that they drew MSU in the Champions' Classic this year and not UK or Duke.