All-American Championship: UConn-bound Omar Calhoun of Christ the King had 26 points for the East.
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How good is this Calhoun kid shooting the ball? I feel like it's been a while since UConn had a knockdown three point shooter who could drop like five or six in a game. I don't think we've had one of those guys since Rashad. Do guys think Omar Calhoun could be a Doron Lamb type? Seems like their games are fairly similar.
UConnSwag11
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he looks like he'll be a big impact right away, aggressive going to the basket took a bunch of free throws, can handle the ball, good pull up
sammydabiz
I sport NewBalance sneakers to avoid a narrow path
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He didn't really show he was a 3pt specialist, he does however, have great driving ability and super sick mid-range. He can pull up for a 3, no doubt, but he's much more than that. He was the MVP for the game, and outshined every guard playing that day.
Eventhough, his freshman year was very quite (and we do seem to forget about him, myself included), I see DeAndre Daniels becoming that knockdown 3 guy as he progresses into his Huskie career (ala Mr Anderson)
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Can't take much from these types of games obviously, but Omar looked pretty good. I thought he looked smooth, had a nice midrange game, and seems to be money from the free throw line.
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I watched a recording of the game. He's a lot more versatile offensively than I though. He has sort of a Paul Pierce type of game. He's not lighting quick but finds a way to get to the basket. He sets his drive up with his quick trigger mid-range game and vise-versa. Omar seems to have a mature mid-range in that he's able to knock 'em down from just about anywhere inside the arc. A lot young players are good at taking it to the basket and maybe also shooting the 3, but it's having a consistent stroke from various distances and spots on the floor that is really hard to develop.
Omar would have been a huge piece for this years team. They lacked a player who could catch and knock it down the Mid-range consistently. Lamb should have been that type of player, but I still can't figure out how they weren't able to get him the ball consistently in those situations. I don't mean to digress, but I still think the offense they did not suit the personnel. Bazz & Boat were the only two who could successfully run a dribble drive offense. But Boat was just a freshman who was in and out of the line-up throughout the season, and he really struggled to finish in traffic both mid-range and at the rim during the latter part of the season. Bazz was pretty good early on with taking his man off the dribble, but seemed to lose that part of his game as a result of what seemed like one or two nagging injuries. Yeah, I sound like a broken record, but I think if they ran more motion offense where they spread the floor and ran multi-player screens & movements to free our shooters...not just Lamb...they could have generated more scoring opportunities that better fit the team's skill set. I came to realize that Kemba made up for a lot of deficiencies by making unbelievable individual plays. How often did he make some incredible shots in traffic and when he wasn't finishing, he was getting to the line. You take that one aspect from what was pretty much a similar team as the 2011 NC team, they turned into a team that instead of finishing 1 or 2 plays in the W column, they ended up 1 or more plays down in the L column.
I hope they don't do the same thing this coming season as they did the last one. I'm not saying that a good dose of dribble drive attack and high pick-and-rolls isn't the way to go as Bazz and Boat mature, plus Omar seeming to have more game off the bounce than I thought he had, but I think this team has a lot of weapons that could exploit the mid-range opportunities that can come via the motion offense that the 99 team ran a great deal with Rip. Though keep in mind he's not going to have the same success against bigger and more physical BE guards and Wings as he did against the soft D we saw in that All-Star game. Players that can knock down mid-range shots are Bazz, Boat, Omar, Giffey, Roscoe, Daniels, and Olander. I'm still scratching my head as to why this team was not able to run plays to create good midrange looks. If they end up losing both AD and OA, they better make a lot of those shots because I don't see a lot of post scoring nor offensive rebounding, but maybe they'll pick up some reinforcements, who along with Bradley, Wolf and Olander will surprise us in that area.
Omar would have been a huge piece for this years team. They lacked a player who could catch and knock it down the Mid-range consistently. Lamb should have been that type of player, but I still can't figure out how they weren't able to get him the ball consistently in those situations. I don't mean to digress, but I still think the offense they did not suit the personnel. Bazz & Boat were the only two who could successfully run a dribble drive offense. But Boat was just a freshman who was in and out of the line-up throughout the season, and he really struggled to finish in traffic both mid-range and at the rim during the latter part of the season. Bazz was pretty good early on with taking his man off the dribble, but seemed to lose that part of his game as a result of what seemed like one or two nagging injuries. Yeah, I sound like a broken record, but I think if they ran more motion offense where they spread the floor and ran multi-player screens & movements to free our shooters...not just Lamb...they could have generated more scoring opportunities that better fit the team's skill set. I came to realize that Kemba made up for a lot of deficiencies by making unbelievable individual plays. How often did he make some incredible shots in traffic and when he wasn't finishing, he was getting to the line. You take that one aspect from what was pretty much a similar team as the 2011 NC team, they turned into a team that instead of finishing 1 or 2 plays in the W column, they ended up 1 or more plays down in the L column.
I hope they don't do the same thing this coming season as they did the last one. I'm not saying that a good dose of dribble drive attack and high pick-and-rolls isn't the way to go as Bazz and Boat mature, plus Omar seeming to have more game off the bounce than I thought he had, but I think this team has a lot of weapons that could exploit the mid-range opportunities that can come via the motion offense that the 99 team ran a great deal with Rip. Though keep in mind he's not going to have the same success against bigger and more physical BE guards and Wings as he did against the soft D we saw in that All-Star game. Players that can knock down mid-range shots are Bazz, Boat, Omar, Giffey, Roscoe, Daniels, and Olander. I'm still scratching my head as to why this team was not able to run plays to create good midrange looks. If they end up losing both AD and OA, they better make a lot of those shots because I don't see a lot of post scoring nor offensive rebounding, but maybe they'll pick up some reinforcements, who along with Bradley, Wolf and Olander will surprise us in that area.
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Not a bad comparison, although there are some differences.
His biggest strength offensively is how good a job he does getting into the lane, and he has a knack for getting himself to the FT line - as he showed by getting 11 FT attempts in an All-Star Game (and he's been ~90% in the 3-4 games I've seen him play).
But he's a better ball handler and passer than Dyson (he plays a good amount of point, and plays it well) and a more skilled mid-range shooter coming out of high school. He isn't the athlete Dyson is, though.
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