I am not disagreeing with what you say so give it a second. The more you think about it most of what you say is very true. But Knight, Jake, Sellers, Thabeet and the obvious Okafor did and I am sure I am missing someone. Others have not, and Boone may be one. But he was already very much a huge reason they won a title, not just an "and one" either, I mean rebounds, blocks, passes, tip ins and really good defense throughout his freshman year with steady confidence growth if not game. It would seem he reached his best immediately and somehow didn't get a lot better I would agree but he had less room to get better. And our 2 bigs who have shown little improvement, had lots of room to grow to be honest, and little has to do with coaching and that's obvious. It's repetitive but true, they both lack IQ for the game, natural skills which are required to reach the ceiling. Heck both elite athletic guys who just don't have the feel so far and the reality is the expectations are low that will suddenly show up ext year, I hope so but don't see it.
Well I basically agree with everything you have said. My position is we've never been great at developing big men, we've just brought in less talented big men lately due to the many various recruiting restrictions we've had to deal with. Guards and wings are the players that improve here, and I hope it continues that way, because that strategy works consistently in the tournament.
Boone was a total revelation when he showed up as a freshman. Just amazing in terms of defensive positioning, moving within a team defensive scheme, blocking out, and finishing put backs. Personally, I don't really think our coaching staff was most responsible for that. I think Josh Boone was most responsible for that because he just showed up knowing how to play basketball from the first game, which is kind of my point. Brimah, Facey, and Nolan didn't show up really knowing how to play basketball. They're just talented at some basketball skills.
I also agree that Brimah has a low bball IQ, which is why I don't get you ripping on him all the time. He
has improved as a player. He shot 57% from the line as a freshman, and 82% this year. Off the top of my head I can't think of any of our big men making a bigger improvement than that ever. He committed 7.1 fouls per 40 minutes as a freshman, and 4.9 per 40 minutes this year. Now, no one is happy he's committing 5 fouls per 40 this year, but that doesn't change the fact that it
is improvement. He's marginally improved in getting position, catching the ball, and other basic skills. The freshman year Brimah couldn't have played a game like he did against SMU at home this year if he was given 1000 tries. The guy is top 300 recruit, who, when has been able to stay on the court , has changed the course of many games with his ability to block and alter shots. He's valuable. He's also most likely never going to do the things high bball IQ players do.
Knight's a really good example of improvement, and Jake is decent too, although imo Jake was fairly solid immediately, he just fouled a ton. I really don't give us any credit for Okafor, 1. Because he was really, really good when he showed up, and 2. He's just a total outlier as a human. People with his intelligence, determination, drive, focus, and character always improve. He would have been great wherever, we just lucked into him.
