ConnHuskBask
Shut Em Down!
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We banked two this season if I recall correctly and while the injuries were hopefully an aberration, it wouldn't have killed us to have a few extra bodies in there.
Eric Cobb commits to UConn
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We banked two this season if I recall correctly and while the injuries were hopefully an aberration, it wouldn't have killed us to have a few extra bodies in there.
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I get what you're saying, but this kid fills a need. No more Wagners or Northeasterns.
He's our 5th or 6th big and he'll play his role for two years while KO continues to stabilize the roster.
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Two Ollie criticisms making the round over the past two days --
1) He saved scholarships when he should have anticipated injuries and brought in more players for depth, and
2) He's wasting a scholarship by bringing in a player for depth.
1) He saved scholarships when he should have anticipated injuries and brought in more players for depth, and
2) He's wasting a scholarship by bringing in a player for depth.
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Seems logical when you compare them to so many of the other criticisms.
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I must be missing something on this one. Without having seen him play, as I imagine none of you have before this thread, what is the tangible evidence to suggest he is any good at basketball? Seriously, I'm all ears.
I swear this board has a fetish for anybody who looks like they can host Monday night raw - even if he and Lubin are different, the same things were being said about Lubin ("nice to have somebody with muscle for a change!") as if it had never before occurred to the staff that muscle was important in basketball.
"Filling a need" is nonsense. We have gaping holes all throughout the front court and exactly zero proven players. You fill a need when you already have good players, not when you're in the process of throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. This is really about this boards collective frustration with Brimah. Anybody That's Not Him is going to draw rave reviews from this crowd, whether it's a dude that's a small scrapper or a big guy who looks like a bouncer.
"Knock Gary Clark on his ass" is a nice sentiment that makes fans feel better and does nothing else. We need guys who can play, and if we're looking for somebody to "fill a role" than look no further than Steve Enoch. What this move really does is occupy a ship that we can't use in the grad market to bring in somebody who is actually, you know, good. There are 1,000 of these kids out there, but hey, we had Shonn Miller one time and we didn't win a national championship with him, so who wants that? I'd much rather take a kid who might develop into a 5-10 minute guy by his senior year.
I swear this board has a fetish for anybody who looks like they can host Monday night raw - even if he and Lubin are different, the same things were being said about Lubin ("nice to have somebody with muscle for a change!") as if it had never before occurred to the staff that muscle was important in basketball.
"Filling a need" is nonsense. We have gaping holes all throughout the front court and exactly zero proven players. You fill a need when you already have good players, not when you're in the process of throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. This is really about this boards collective frustration with Brimah. Anybody That's Not Him is going to draw rave reviews from this crowd, whether it's a dude that's a small scrapper or a big guy who looks like a bouncer.
"Knock Gary Clark on his ass" is a nice sentiment that makes fans feel better and does nothing else. We need guys who can play, and if we're looking for somebody to "fill a role" than look no further than Steve Enoch. What this move really does is occupy a ship that we can't use in the grad market to bring in somebody who is actually, you know, good. There are 1,000 of these kids out there, but hey, we had Shonn Miller one time and we didn't win a national championship with him, so who wants that? I'd much rather take a kid who might develop into a 5-10 minute guy by his senior year.
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It's no secret, Ollie has been miserable at recruiting and developing bigs. He went after Abu, Stone, Brown, Bamba, Obiagu and others and failed to bring in anyone. He's tried but I agree it's been a failure. I'm not expecting much of anything from Cobb but I don't have a problem with filling out the roster with a widebody. At a minimum he will help in practice and be 6 fouls in a game. I'm really getting sick of never having a full roster, don't see the point in it.
H
huskymagic
Brimah has been the most mismanaged and worst utilized player we have on the roster. To have a beast like Brimah and to utilize him so poorly and have the team be so bad is crazy. Calhoun would have had Brimah turn into a lottery pick.
PS: We don't need warm bodies who are 2 years from being 2 years away. We need guys that can contribute right away not practice players like Roscoe, like Lamb, like Napier, like Boat, like Brimah. Cobb is terrible and will not trouble Enoch or any of our bigs. Ollie needs to look for fit, which he has no idea how to do instead of looking for height and size. This is his biggest weakness on the recruiting trail not understanding what players would mesh well with the team. Use scholarships on defensive stoppers or knockdown shooters that's it.
PS: We don't need warm bodies who are 2 years from being 2 years away. We need guys that can contribute right away not practice players like Roscoe, like Lamb, like Napier, like Boat, like Brimah. Cobb is terrible and will not trouble Enoch or any of our bigs. Ollie needs to look for fit, which he has no idea how to do instead of looking for height and size. This is his biggest weakness on the recruiting trail not understanding what players would mesh well with the team. Use scholarships on defensive stoppers or knockdown shooters that's it.
UConnSwag11
Storrs, CT The Mecca
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WTF??
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If Cobb can be Okwandu or Mike Hayes then it's worth it. By no means do I expect him to come in and fortify the front court. But you do need some big bodies to bang around, set screens, and play some D.
Of the "big" men, Enoch should be our starting 5 next year and there's really no excuse for him not being a minimum 10 and 6 guy, Durham will see major minutes at the 4, Diarra, we simply have on idea about. Carlton, while I like his game and potential, may be a year away from real contributions but I believe he'll be a player. Larrier and Jackson balance the 3 and 4. We need someone who can spell Enoch for 10 minutes a game. Cobb was a solid recruit coming in (3* by 247, 4* by ESPN), committed to a P5 school and had other P5 offers. This is not the same situation as Lubin.
Everyone chill out...
Of the "big" men, Enoch should be our starting 5 next year and there's really no excuse for him not being a minimum 10 and 6 guy, Durham will see major minutes at the 4, Diarra, we simply have on idea about. Carlton, while I like his game and potential, may be a year away from real contributions but I believe he'll be a player. Larrier and Jackson balance the 3 and 4. We need someone who can spell Enoch for 10 minutes a game. Cobb was a solid recruit coming in (3* by 247, 4* by ESPN), committed to a P5 school and had other P5 offers. This is not the same situation as Lubin.
Everyone chill out...
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A number of us watched game film (it's available on youtube) when our interest in this kid became public knowledge two months ago.
As @Fishy mentioned elsewhere, he has quicker feet in traffic than you seem to realize, and knows how to box out. He hits his free throws and can pass the ball (though sometimes he thinks he's Bill Walton, to his team's detriment). He's not a program-changer but he's a P5 player.
In the last 3 classes he signed two 5-stars (Durham & Brown), four 4-stars (Carlton, Polley, Diarra, Enoch), and one elite postgrad (Miller). In the previous three classes he signed zero 5-stars, one 4-star (Kentan), and had zero significant big-man transfers. So I think you're using the wrong tense wrt his ability to recruit bigs.
I also disagree w/ your assessment about big-man development, with Facey as the most obvious example. I can't imagine how it's possible to look at that kid's season and say "Ollie hasn't developed him!"
tykurez
For Your Health
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Peak Boneyard
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He has a .5 AST/TO in JUCO. Don't expect many assists.
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He looked pretty immobile on defense, but made a very nice interior pass for an assist. I choose to believe that he will be a good addition with better conditioning. Its nice to have a big other than Enoch who doesn't have the life is good build.
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KO deserves credit for Facey's emergence this year just as much as he deserves blame for Brimah barely improving over 4 years.
But look at the overall picture. How many seasons' worth of great big-man play have we gotten?
We've gotten 1 year of Miller and let's say 1 year of Facey.
We've also gotten 4 frustrating years of Brimah, 4 years of Nolan who largely regressed rather than develop, 3 non-entity years from Facey prior to this one, 2 underwhelming years from Enoch, 2 years of Olander regressing, 1 non-year of Lubin, 1 year of Durham who didn't do much, and Diarra who has yet to play.
Circumstances considered, that's still not a very good ratio.
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I don't know why you keep saying composite 3 stars are 4 stars. All it's doing is tricking people who don't follow recruiting into having higher expectations than they should. It reminds me of @sdhusky referring to every top 50 recruit as a 5 star when he talks with his Orange buddies.
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He is probably going by ESPN recruiting rankings and not 247 composite, either way the point that KO is doing just fine recruiting bigs stands.
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Brown was never going to play here, teams had backed off of him and his stock was dropping for a reason. It took Facey 4 years to become a 9 point 7.5 rebound per game player. Diarra was ranked #127 and has yet to play for us. Carlton is ranked #182 and Polley is ranked #139 and is 6'7 190 lbs. Enoch was top #100 but 3.4 pts and 2.3 rebs per game is embarrassing for a sophomore. Durham is the most intriguing but he did nothing his freshman year averaging 1.6 points and 1.7 rebounds.
I'm amazed you find that to be UConn level recruiting and player development out of our frontcourt. Our frontcourt has been a joke for several years now and is the main reason we have been so disappointing and get eaten alive by teams like Cincy and SMU.
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Matrim is impressed.
Doctor Hoop
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I bet you'll find that Carlton earns himself a fair amount of PT at the 5 next year.
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Go ahead and call me clueless but i honestly think that we could have used Lubin this year. That kid had very very few garbage minutes but here's what I saw: He had long arms, decent hands, took up space, wouldn't' get pushed around, and could make a layup. The addition of Miller deep sixed him but I believe he would have been useful. Now someone tell me what he did this year so we can all have a good laugh.
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If you have watched game film and feel some of what he has done at the lower levels can be extrapolated into an immediate role here next year, then I can respect that. My hunch, though, is that the majority of people - not you, necessarily - are projecting a bit with comments like, "let Cincinnati and SMU bounce off us for once." The problem I have with that mentality is one, it's clearly an indirect shot at Brimah where I don't feel one is warranted, and two, to the extent that muscle mass has been a missing component from the most recent prototype does not mean we need to start cornering the market on chiseled giants who can't move. We've had plenty of those in the past who drew the nerve of the fan base with the same vigor as Brimah.
I don't dispute that he's a P5 player, but if he doesn't move the needle much, why bring him in? Way I see it, we have a quality problem in the front court right now, not a quantity one. This is an example of a move you make in the off-season of 2013 when you're trying to compile as many bodies as you can. If next years team is going to be as good as they can be, either Durham or Enoch needs to make a big leap, or, we need to find the big man version of Lasan Kromah. Cobb addresses neither of those and I'm basing it on the opinion of others assessment of his game. To me, he amounts to a bit of a flier and we already have plenty of those. We need a guy we can pencil in for 12 and 7, a little bit of rim protection, and good pick and roll defense. Those guys don't typically grow at the Juco or high school level, so that leaves one avenue. If Ollie's abandoned that path, I strongly disagree with him.
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I think you have to be careful when you look at ratings for bigs. In the Top 100 player rankings, there are only 33 Cs or PFs. In the next 100 players (101-200), there are only 34 Cs or PFs. The #19th ranked center is ranked 182 overall and the #19 ranked PG is ranked 80th overall (but if you included combo guards with point guards, the overall PG ranking would drop into the 50s or 60s.)
Carlton is the 19th ranked center and Polley is the 32nd ranked PF. MAL is the 8th ranked PG. I think that is a very solid class.
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People love to forget the past especially when JC was bringing in bigs like Eric Hayward, Travis Knight, Jake Voskul, Toraino Walker, and Rod Sellers. It wasn't until we got EO, CV, JB and HT people thought we were a big man college. We always have been built more on Wings and Guards with decent people upfront. I think the position that KO has been missing at the most is Small Forward. I hope TL and VJ turn into studs. This kid is going to be used as a big body. It is going to be the center by committee that we had in the 90's under Calhoun. We need to be more successful under KO and add a big man coach before we start getting the better bigs. Hopefully KO can be successful next year but I think it will be with a smaller line-up of either 3 guards and TL or TL and VJ at the forwards.
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