Borges: Yale Big Man > UConn Big Men

[Yonick]

A few short weeks ago, Ike Azotam ,of Quinnipiac, completely outplayed Mangano. It seems like NH Register sportswriters love to throw New Haven schools a bone at UConn's expense.
Funny, 37k+ at UConn football games, and between 10-16,000 at hoop games, while NH area schools draw between 1,200-20K for football, and 1,200 for hoop games. But, the NH schools get equal pub. in the Register. Hell, they are so cheap they couldn't send a reporter to cover the Cincy game.

 

[DogMania]

May be we need to send our big men to Yale over the winter break to develop their game.

 

[mauconnfan]

May be we need to send our big men to Yale over the winter break to develop their game.

Truth be told our guys love to block shots and some bigs love to ball fake and use post moves. We can be had as our bigs don't move their feet well for now. Having said that Andre is learning and there will be hell to pay in the near future around the UConn basket no doubt. Also Mangano is more skilled overall offensively for now than all of these guys but I don't expect it to stay that way! Doesn't mean he's better or I'd rather have him, just going by the discussion! Lots of fact!

 

[NOTaDIME]

I must have had too many cocktails last night. Yale/Harvard same thing...whoops.

 

[freescooter]

Not sure this is that big a deal. though I haven't seen the yale kid, Drummond is not that smooth yet and Oriakhi is more of a defensive and rebounding threat who scores on putbacks and inside the paint. But both have a better all-around game than the Yale kid I would bet.

 

[ctchamps]

If this guy thinks that the idea is ludicrous (that there a quite a few average Joe's who are more offensively skilled than either AO or Drummond) than I am quite confident he has never played or been around basketball. You could probably beat a guy like Drummond in a game of horse, but would lose to him 1000-0 in 1v1 if he wanted to played to 1000. Big difference in offensive skill and how good you are. Which brings us back to the point about Mangano. The dude is more skilled than Shaquille O'neal but will never sniff the NBA while Shaq is a top 5ish center of all time.

I'd just kick him in the nuts, shoot the basket, hope it goes in and run. Only way I'd win.

On second thought, with my height I'd need a ladder to start step one.

 

[ctchamps]

Why do you say this? I'm just curious, because I feel that we will find out who is more offensively skilled on Thursday. I would like to hear why you disagree. Also, I highly doubt any one on this board is more offensively skillful than AD, or anyone on the team for that matter. I'm not trying to flame, but the definition of skill according to the interwebz is "the ability to do something well." That being said I bet that there are many on here that have certain types of basketball skills that are better than AD. Shooting would be one of those examples, and probably handling the ball. All in all, in regards to complete offensive skill, we are talking about a top 5 draft pick so lets be careful.

I believe we are playing Harvard and not Yale.

 

[ctchamps]

Truth be told our guys love to block shots and some bigs love to ball fake and use post moves. We can be had as our bigs don't move their feet well for now. Having said that Andre is learning and there will be hell to pay in the near future around the UConn basket no doubt. Also Mangano is more skilled overall offensively for now than all of these guys but I don't expect it to stay that way! Doesn't mean he's better or I'd rather have him, just going by the discussion! Lots of fact!

No fair or fun. You are being too rational.

 

[NOTaDIME]

I believe we are playing Harvard and not Yale.

Yup you are correct, I got confused. Thanks

 

[Chief00]

Butler had some offensively skilled Bigs until our Bigs blocked everything in sight.

 

[Walker11]

Butler had some offensively skilled Bigs until our Bigs blocked everything in sight.

Nice example. Two undeniable facts: 1) Howard is more skilled than AO 2) AO flat out punked Howard when they played each other.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Reading this thread made me angry for some reason.

I need a lollypop and a hug.

 

[freescooter]

Reading this thread made me angry for some reason.

I need a lollypop and a hug.

I think people really really need to chill about this stuff. What difference does it make if its true? What amtters is how UCONN does as a team, not whether any particular player somewhere else is "better" at some facet of the game than some guy at UCONN. It is still a team game and the sum of the parts is still far more important than any individual part.

 

[Donyell]

All true free but still would like to see AO and AD start putting it together. Doing it in the same game would even be better and soon.

 

[UconnFanInNYC]

Some fuel for the big guys maybe ... Borges is at the Yale game and tweeted this:

"Yale's Greg Mangano is more offensively skilled than any of UConn big men."

He probably is...the kid made Team USA this summer http://www.usabasketball.com/bios/mangano_greg.html

Im confused by this: Did Uconn even recruit this kid? He was McD AA nominee....How/Why did he go to Yale? Did we not have a schollie available? Hes going to get drafted.

 

[HuskyBballFan]

He probably is...the kid made Team USA this summer http://www.usabasketball.com/bios/mangano_greg.html

Im confused by this: Did Uconn even recruit this kid? He was McD AA nominee....How/Why did he go to Yale? Did we not have a schollie available? Hes going to get drafted.

1) I'm not sure exactly what the parameters are, but it's actually not all that impressive to be nominated to the McD's game. I think a certain number of kids per state get nominated and this kid is from CT. Being nominated doesn't necessarily mean that you have any chance of actually being chosen.

2) If you look at his career stats in the link that you posted, you'll see that he scored 2.1 PPG as a freshman, missed his entire second year, scored 7.5 PPG his third year, then finally broke out last year. I think it's pretty obvious that he was not a Uconn-level player during his first 3 years at Yale, let alone when he was being recruited in high school.

 

[UconnFanInNYC]

Fair enough, thanks for pointing that out. I guess he is a good example of what staying 3-4 years can do for you. Hope AD stays 2-3 years.