James Akinjo | Page 3 | The Boneyard

James Akinjo

gtcam said:
His baggage and his father wasn't worth it
Yeah the kid could shoot the three but was a ghost defensively and hustled only when he felt like it
Attitude counts - if you saw him in practice or watched him during games when he was sitting on the bench you would understand what I am alluding to in the big picture
Blame KO if you want BUT the kid shares a huge part of what happened
I wish him no ill will but hope he grows up without relying on Daddy and stands on his own 2 feet and realizes that attitude plays a big part
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The fact people say this about Vance but then say CV should keep his starting spot is hilarious. Both of them have poor attitudes however Hurley would have gotten the best out of Vance like he is trying to do with Vital
 
superjohn said:
Glad we aren't stuck with MAL wasting a scholarship.
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If Ollie stayed, can you imagine the reign of hell that chief would have dropped on Glen Miller RE MAL?
 
intlzncster said:
Of course what's not mentioned is that he would have transferred out after year 1 so he could actually learn to play basketball.
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Plus Vital would have taken all his shots
 
polycom said:
The fact people say this about Vance but then say CV should keep his starting spot is hilarious. Both of them have poor attitudes however Hurley would have gotten the best out of Vance like he is trying to do with Vital
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How is CVs attitude poor? Kid busts his balls. All the time, incl all throughout last year's dumpster fire.

He plays completely stupid (selfish) at times, and jacks too much. But I'll take a kid like that every time and simply coach it out of him.

He's another kid that was let down by lack of coaching/accountability over the last 2 years. Hopefully it's not too late.
 
gtcam said:
Blame KO if you want BUT the kid shares a huge part of what happened
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So instead of blaming the millionaire adult who wasn't hustling you want to shift blame the kid who wasn't hustling. The kid did the adult thing by asking the coach what he needed to do. The adult head coach had nothing. Except insults for him from his minions after he left.
 
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If Ollie would have stayed- you would have had Akinjo
but half the team would have transferred out!!

We would win 12 games this year.

Let's see what Hurley's recruits look like as the replacements- so far it's Brendan Adams, Tarin Smith and Yakwe versus Akinjo, Matthews and Kisunas. Add in Bouknight and Gaffney to go with Adams and maybe CV and you have a pretty good future backcourt.

So while Akinjo would have been fun-I'll take this swap any day.
 
I guess that this Enoch Akinjo Durham Vance stuff is going to be with us forever but it's hard to ignore the threads. We can't change the past, it happened. I wish it didn't in some cases but it did. There is no sense comparing these guys to players we either have or don't have.
 
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Vance/Enoch/Durham left while Ollie was still employed. My guess is they were gone no matter what, but regardless it would've been hard to fire Ollie at that time.

Akinjo, Matthews and Kisunas were a cost of trading Ollie for Hurley. It seems like Hurley was okay (and may have preferred) losing Matthews and Kisunas. We never really heard much about Hurley's desire/efforts to keep Akinjo. In my opinion each of those kids found a great place for them to play basketball and rescinded their UConn commitment without drama. So, at this point, I'm happy with the trade of Akinjo, Matthews, Kisunas and Ollie for Hurley and wish those guys well. That's not to say I won't be jealous if one or more of them turn out awesome.
 
all the folks saying we traded akinjo for hurley -- don't forget, we got brendan adams, too! not a bad consolation prize.

that being said, akinjo looks really good.
 
Scrutiner said:
Don't you want Chief to be right at least once?
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Chief may be the chief at taking credit where it isn't due, but he positively nailed 2 things: Glen Miller and Travis Illian.
 
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I could care less about Akinjo's stats, the move he made late where he split the trap and drilled a foul line floater isn't something you see from 17 year olds. Much more like Waters than Gilbert.

Speaking of, Ollie was an abomination his last few years at UConn, but if Durham and Gilbert don't get hurt in high school, who knows if people even notice...
 
tcf15 said:
I'm genuinely curious why Goodman is getting flak from UConn fans for that tweet. He's literally just stating a fact.
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Ourfanbase has turned into a bunch of oversensative tw@ts over the last few years.

Add to that the constant overarching insecurity RE blue blood status and there you go
 
unhpuck said:
Speaking of, Ollie was an abomination his last few years at UConn, but if Durham and Gilbert don't get hurt in high school, who knows if people even notice...
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At the same time, if those two weren't injured in HS who knows if they end up at UConn. I don't follow recruiting as closely as some but I vaguely remember something about Durham and a lot of top schools backing off him after his umpteenth knee injury.
 
Lefty2one said:
At the same time, if those two weren't injured in HS who knows if they end up at UConn. I don't follow recruiting as closely as some but I vaguely remember something about Durham and a lot of top schools backing off him after his umpteenth knee injury.
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Yep, fans were also duped into thinking we got a prize in 7'1 Zach Brown at the time, when Ollie was the only one who really wanted him.
 
Ricker said:
Against Central CT Akinjo was out of control, took some bad shots, and was as sloppy with the ball as Gilbert was in the last couple minutes of the Morehead State game. Didn't see Illinois. Confident they will both have great games. I wanted Akinjo but I do feel he has been 'replaced'. I thought Kisunas played great against North Carolina in the minutes I saw channel flipping. I have watched him a number of times at Brewster and posted my evaluation that he was an adequate rotation player but not the impact scoring player in the front court that we needed. On the other hand, he looks like he has added weight and power and will give Stanford everything that Jake Voskuhl gave us. His basket was running the floor on the break. Stats don't show it, but he conducted himself against UNC like he owned the defensive paint. UNC. Some rebounds went to teammates because he was keeping UNC rebounders off the glass. You need impact players around him but we did not 'replace' him for this year and he might have been just the power low post player this year's team needs, and the rotation player when our front court stars commit. Plus, he would still be here if our potential 5 stars move on to nba careers early.
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Kisunas looks like he'll be a solid mid-major center. My observations based on the North Carolina game is that he has good hands, good court vision, moves the ball quickly with crisp accurate passes, plays with energy and possesses above average basketball IQ. He understands and plays within his limitations which translates into very few offensive impulses. He could be a solid component of a UConn team now, and possibly, in the future. That said, I feel he has a low ceiling for improvement. He is Stanford's version of Greg Kite (a former center of the Celtics).
 
superjohn said:
Yep, fans were also duped into thinking we got a prize in 7'1 Zach Brown at the time, when Ollie was the only one who really wanted him.
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Any idea what happened with that kid? Really sad story...

I remember the dismissal from St. John's after the umpteenth arrest, and nothing but silence since. He (or she? not sure how the person identifies...) might be in prison?
 
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superjohn said:
Yep, fans were also duped into thinking we got a prize in 7'1 Zach Brown at the time, when Ollie was the only one who really wanted him.
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So Ollie's recruiting was the equivalent of waiting until last call to hit on the desperate drunk girls who hadn't yet found someone to go home with. Nice.
 
intlzncster said:
How is CVs attitude poor? Kid busts his balls. All the time, incl all throughout last year's dumpster fire.

He plays completely stupid (selfish) at times, and jacks too much. But I'll take a kid like that every time and simply coach it out of him.

He's another kid that was let down by lack of coaching/accountability over the last 2 years. Hopefully it's not too late.
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Yeah that was a really strange post. I see little similarity between Vital and Jackson’s attitudes.
 
Lefty2one said:
At the same time, if those two weren't injured in HS who knows if they end up at UConn. I don't follow recruiting as closely as some but I vaguely remember something about Durham and a lot of top schools backing off him after his umpteenth knee injury.
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Everyone knew about the injuries, including the recruiting services, and they were still two of the most highly coveted prospects in America. If anyone backed off, it was after they had already verballed to UConn. There was no fine print to that haul.
 
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Lefty2one said:
So Ollie's recruiting was the equivalent of waiting until last call to hit on the desperate drunk girls who hadn't yet found someone to go home with. Nice.
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Things didn't really go off the rails til the 2017 class. Prior to that, Ollie brought in a monster class that was thought of to be among the best in the country. The problem was that three of the five players he brought in only combined to play 800 minutes for him, and of the remaining two, one transferred after one season and the other had to be talked into returning.

These were not desperate drunk girls. They are players who in a different world could have been juniors on a UConn team ready to compete for a championship this April.
 
Rather than focus on Akinjo my mind is racing with when are we gonna get Wilson on the floor and how good will he be?
 
Excalibur said:
Yeah that was a really strange post. I see little similarity between Vital and Jackson’s attitudes.
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Maybe he is referring to both of them having a higher opinion of their games than they should.
 
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