Miller Instant Starter?

[Towney007]

We're literally at a point where people question Emeka Okafor.


Think about that.

 

[Danzz]

Nobody knows right now if he will start or how much he will play including KO. The starting lineup decision will be a more difficult decision than most people think. For example, if Brimah turns into a monster rebounder we may need more shooting at that position.

 

[stick]

We're literally at a point where people question Emeka Okafor.


Think about that.

Um, no I think it's one stupid poster. Okafor shot nearly 60% for his career at UConn and averaged over 17 his sr. year on a LOADED team.

 

[Gurleyman]

Um, no I think it's one stupid poster. Okafor shot nearly 60% for his career at UConn and averaged over 17 his sr. year on a LOADED team.

His scoring gets pretty close to 20 ppg if you remove the games where he was injured and played limited minutes or was ineffective trying to play through it (mainly GT the first time, Cuse, and Alabama). That's about as good as you can expect in the modern college game from a post player (especially one who wasn't a great FT shooter and left some points at the line). The lack of spacing and resulting ease of installing double teaming game plans makes it really hard to get much higher than that.

As a junior, he was dominant offensively when healthy. He torched North Carolina (alas McCants torched us back). He took the Duke game over in the second half and the 24+15 in the final was a signature closing statement. For a guy who's range was a layup as a freshman, it was remarkable how he improved.

 

[CallMeBruce]

It's probable that there are other players who have not yet announced that they're transferring, particularly if they want to make sure they're going to be able to graduate this semester or during the summer. I wouldn't be surprised if we found our shooter after school ends.

 

[OkaForPrez]

I'm still not giving up on Sam II Am as that shooter. We just don't know how disruptive his injury was last year.

 

[JSM1970]

I think he'll absolutely start and the 1-4 should be very good. No idea on Brimah. I thought he would be very good this past year and he really struggled at times and seemed to have his worst games at the end of the season, minus the Duke one. Hopefully he and Nolan can platoon and play a decent 5.

 

[CallMeBruce]

I'm still not giving up on Sam II Am as that shooter. We just don't know how disruptive his injury was last year.

I'm not going to "give up on him," but I'd go into this season assuming he won't provide anything. I certainly wouldn't hesitate to recruit a shooter because I think Cassell might warrant too many minutes to fit another guard into the rotation.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

I wouldn't have my expectations too high for Miller. Check out his 14-15 stats against teams from major conferences:

12/31 @ Cuse - 12 pts, 5 boards
11/21 vs Penn St - 15 pts, 3 boards
11/20 vs South Carolina - 9 pts, 3 boards

Miller's 16.8/8.5 averages are eye-popping, but in these three games Miller averaged 12.0/3.7. While that's still a very good clip, this small sample suggests that Miller does not physically dominate in games against higher competition. No doubt, Miller is a very welcome addition, but I'm still banking on a Adams-Purvis-Hamilton-Facey-Brimah starting 5, with Nolan, Enoch and Miller providing depth in the 5, 4 and 3 spots, respectively.

 

[Leebo]

I'm guessing every Cornell's player's numbers were down against P5 competition. They're going to commit more turnovers, have a harder time finding shots, etc.

3 games is also a very small sample size.

 

[FartMan69]

I wouldn't have my expectations too high for Miller. Check out his 14-15 stats against teams from major conferences:

12/31 @ Cuse - 12 pts, 5 boards
11/21 vs Penn St - 15 pts, 3 boards
11/20 vs South Carolina - 9 pts, 3 boards

Miller's 16.8/8.5 averages are eye-popping, but in these three games Miller averaged 12.0/3.7. While that's still a very good clip, this small sample suggests that Miller does not physically dominate in games against higher competition. No doubt, Miller is a very welcome addition, but I'm still banking on a Adams-Purvis-Hamilton-Facey-Brimah starting 5, with Nolan, Enoch and Miller providing depth in the 5, 4 and 3 spots, respectively.

I mean it's your opinion and all but we don't play in a major conference

 

[Stainmaster]

I mean it's your opinion and all but we don't play in a major conference

Agreed. Also which other bigs on our roster could put up similar numbers against that type of competition?

Brimah put up 6 and 4 vs. WVU, 4 and 2 vs. Texas, 0 and 1 vs. Duke, 7 and 1 vs. Stanford, and 0 and 0 vs. ASU. Florida was a slight exception with 10 boards, but only 3 points.

Facey fared slightly better earlier in the season: 10 and 8 vs. WVU, 4 and 8 vs. Texas, and 14 and 9 vs. Duke (the real shocker: a player some here want to transfer to the MAAC almost hung a double-double on the eventual national champs). But after he hit the wall...2 and 4 vs. Florida, 4 and 4 vs. Stanford, 2 and 2 vs. ASU.

Nolan? I may be one of his biggest fans here, but his poor play was magnified against P5 teams: 4 and 2 vs. WVU, 0 and 2 vs. Texas, zilch vs. Duke and Stanford, and 2 and 0 vs. Florida. 8 and 3 vs. ASU was a little nicer.

In no way was/is S. Miller below the level of any of our bigs, and I have a feeling that he will end up one of our biggest contributors in the post against our toughest competition.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

I wouldn't have my expectations too high for Miller. Check out his 14-15 stats against teams from major conferences:

12/31 @ Cuse - 12 pts, 5 boards
11/21 vs Penn St - 15 pts, 3 boards
11/20 vs South Carolina - 9 pts, 3 boards

Miller's 16.8/8.5 averages are eye-popping, but in these three games Miller averaged 12.0/3.7. While that's still a very good clip, this small sample suggests that Miller does not physically dominate in games against higher competition. No doubt, Miller is a very welcome addition, but I'm still banking on a Adams-Purvis-Hamilton-Facey-Brimah starting 5, with Nolan, Enoch and Miller providing depth in the 5, 4 and 3 spots, respectively.

Well you need a good team to go with your own ability, he can't put up a double double against good teams when he was most likely the only guy on his team that caused those major teams trouble. They probably focused on him and didn't allow him to dominate. Think of the whole picture as opposed to just his numbers.

 

[Walker11]

I wouldn't have my expectations too high for Miller. Check out his 14-15 stats against teams from major conferences:

12/31 @ Cuse - 12 pts, 5 boards
11/21 vs Penn St - 15 pts, 3 boards
11/20 vs South Carolina - 9 pts, 3 boards

Miller's 16.8/8.5 averages are eye-popping, but in these three games Miller averaged 12.0/3.7. While that's still a very good clip, this small sample suggests that Miller does not physically dominate in games against higher competition. No doubt, Miller is a very welcome addition, but I'm still banking on a Adams-Purvis-Hamilton-Facey-Brimah starting 5, with Nolan, Enoch and Miller providing depth in the 5, 4 and 3 spots, respectively.

First, as mentioned, extremely small sample size. Second, Penn St. and USC are P5 teams but they were not better than Harvard and Yale. I'm not sure why you are separating them out.

 

[Gringo]

Thank you! This needs to be repeated ad nauseum - people don't seem to realize how good DHam became at initiating the offense in the last two months of the season. He had better than a 2-to-1 assist/to ratio and the ball will be in his hands a ton.

I think we should aim for a 5th-year shooter (Smith from Va Tech, McGlynn from Towson) - a specialist who can help stretch the floor at all times.

I disagree with you here. True Hamilton can make plays in the half court, but they really struggled bringing the ball up against full court pressure. Boat was our only player who consistently handled the press well and he is gone. We are adding Adams, but I think this team could really use another quality ball handler.

 

[pnow15]

Um, no I think it's one stupid poster. Okafor shot nearly 60% for his career at UConn and averaged over 17 his sr. year on a LOADED team.

So let's see Mr. Basketball,
I made the statement that I never was impressed by Okafor's offensive game.
So, why don't we take a historic look at some other player's who made it to the Final Four.
Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Camelo Anthony, Akeem the dream, Pat Ewing, James Worthy,
Larry Johnson, Kareem, Bill Walton, Jerry Lucas, Micheal Jordan, Derrick Coleman, Chris Mullins,
Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas to name but a few. And then tell me all about Okafor's great offensive game.

 

[FartMan69]

So let's see Mr. Basketball,
I made the statement that I never was impressed by Okafor's offensive game.
So, why don't we take a historic look at some other player's who made it to the Final Four.
Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Camelo Anthony, Akeem the dream, Pat Ewing, James Worthy,
Larry Johnson, Kareem, Bill Walton, Jerry Lucas, Micheal Jordan, Derrick Coleman, Chris Mullins,
Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas to name but a few. And then tell me all about Okafor's great offensive game.

How does listing NBA greats support your argument?

 

[johnhuskies95]

So let's see Mr. Basketball,
I made the statement that I never was impressed by Okafor's offensive game.
So, why don't we take a historic look at some other player's who made it to the Final Four.
Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Camelo Anthony, Akeem the dream, Pat Ewing, James Worthy,
Larry Johnson, Kareem, Bill Walton, Jerry Lucas, Micheal Jordan, Derrick Coleman, Chris Mullins,
Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas to name but a few. And then tell me all about Okafor's great offensive game.

You said he was mediocre. And your post here is just bizarre.

 

[Leebo]

pnow will just ignore you if you say something that goes against what he said.

 

[Stainmaster]

I don't think we need first-ballot Hall of Famers to do well. Just a hunch though.

 

[Gurleyman]

So let's see Mr. Basketball, I made the statement that I never was impressed by Okafor's offensive game. So, why don't we take a historic look at some other player's who made it to the Final Four. Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Camelo Anthony, Akeem the dream, Pat Ewing, James Worthy, Larry Johnson, Kareem, Bill Walton, Jerry Lucas, Micheal Jordan, Derrick Coleman, Chris Mullins, Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas to name but a few. And then tell me all about Okafor's great offensive game.

There's a few more rungs on the ladder in between mediocre and Kareem.

 

[pnow15]

You said he was mediocre. And your post here is just bizarre.

What is bizarre?

How does listing NBA greats support your argument?

All of these guy played in Final Fours. They were great in college also.
When a player gets to a certain level, then he has to be compared with other player who got to the same level. The point was simple. Compared to the other Final Four players, Okafor's "Offensive" game was not impressive.

 

[UConnSwag11]

So let's see Mr. Basketball,
I made the statement that I never was impressed by Okafor's offensive game.
So, why don't we take a historic look at some other player's who made it to the Final Four.
Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Camelo Anthony, Akeem the dream, Pat Ewing, James Worthy,
Larry Johnson, Kareem, Bill Walton, Jerry Lucas, Micheal Jordan, Derrick Coleman, Chris Mullins,
Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas to name but a few. And then tell me all about Okafor's great offensive game.

lol, how does listing first ballot hall of famers support your argument that okafor didnt have a great offensive game in college? because he has multiple injuries in the nba not allowing him to live up to his potential in the nba disqualifies him from having a great offensive game in college? so you're going to compare him to hall of famers? that's like saying bananas aren't a fruit because they can't ride a bike... it's insane... crazy talk... you also listed guards and wing players in that list, players who had an outside jumpshot and had the ball in their hands all the time... what did the other bigs do that emeka couldnt, dunk on everyone bc they were 7'5 and everyone else was 6'8?

 

[Blue Blood]

What is bizarre?

All of these guy played in Final Fours. They were great in college also.
When a player gets to a certain level, then he has to be compared with other player who got to the same level. The point was simple. Compared to the other Final Four players, Okafor's "Offensive" game was not impressive.

So if we get back to your original post you are in actuality comparing Shonn Miller to these legends since he is a legit finisher. I'm now much more excited about next season.

 

[Gurleyman]

What is bizarre? All of these guy played in Final Fours. They were great in college also. When a player gets to a certain level, then he has to be compared with other player who got to the same level. The point was simple. Compared to the other Final Four players, Okafor's "Offensive" game was not impressive.

There have been around 3000 players who reached the Final Four. You use Wilt, Kareem, MJ, Bird and Magic as your measuring stick - perhaps the five greatest players ever (or 5 of 6, figuring Russell needs to be in there). You list 10 players total, but there are still 2990 others who reached that "certain level" who you fail to mention.

I mean, Lake Superior is a large body of water. It's no Pacific Ocean, but that doesn't mean you should try to swim across it.