And if he wanted to compare Ross to someone on that team Jamal Coombs-McDaniel would've been a way better example even though Coombs-McDaniel produced more on the court up until this point in his two seasons than Ross has. Of course Coombs-McDaniel went on to win a championship at the end of his sophomore season.
Ross is infinitely more athletic and has better skills than Coombs MacDaniel who I’m not even sure could dunk.
These theories are quite literally ruining basketball. Why would we not use examples and patterns of great player development that produced high level players and instead go with examples and patterns of players who are not as good as they used to be and won’t contribute much to basketball after college.
What do you want to do? Jump in a Time Machine? Become a Marquette fan? I like winning.
Exactly what have you seen from Ross that screams more minutes? I actually want to throw the remote at the tv almost every time he is on the floor. There was one game this year that I thought he was serviceable. The rest, not so much. And yes, there was a very good reason why he saw 4 minutes vs seton hall. Stop trying to outsmart this staff. They know what they are doing and more importantly what they are looking for.
If you want to claim the staff finds hidden gems, then the same staff would be playing this gem more than 4 minutes a game on the back end of his sophomore year in a key 3 game stretch. His minutes are shrinking on what is not a deep roster, with a BE low of 3 minutes against a bad Seton Hall team. He's scored more than 2 points 4x in BE play, averaging a whopping 1.6 pt/game, 21% from 3. I witnessed one play 3 feet from the rim where he looked like had an epilectic episode. The staff has tried here too, not like they weren't giving him minutes earlier in the year. He's form over function, and athletically awkward. He's like the kid in gym that could run fast then trip over his feet.
Hurley was pushing him like crazy early in the season, same with Mahaney. They just aren't equipped for Big East basketball. I'm hoping we'll get to see some of Nowell in these remaining games, not so much for this season but to see any signs of what we could maybe have next season with him. Abraham clearly isn't playing all season.
Here’s an article where Jeremy himself talks about how his freshman year went:
Connecticut's Jeremy Lamb gained confidence during last season's Final Four run
He averaged 16.2 points and shot 58 percent in the NCAA Tournament.www.syracuse.com
It took Jeremy Lamb "a super long time" to get comfortable with his role as the Huskies' secondary scoring option last season. Kemba Walker kept urging Lamb to shoot, even through the early season misses, but Lamb succumbed to the typical freshman anxiety issues.
"Coach (Jim Calhoun) would always trust me," Lamb said during Wednesday's Big East media day, "but once I started knocking down shots, he'd leave me in there a little longer. I had a little longer leash than when I started, so I was more comfortable. I was in the gym every night. But it was after my shot started falling that I felt more comfortable."
"It was pretty crazy," Lamb said. "At the half of last season, that's when I started making shots. And then as time started going on, they were saying I was the second option. And by the end, I blew up a little more than I thought."
Confidence, trust, and opportunity from your coach goes a long way. That’s how you develop players. Ross and Lamb came in at similar places ranking wise and being late bloomers.
The comparison only looks funny because of hindsight and what one coach was able to get out of a player compared to the other who has shown over and over again he has a hard time trusting non-McD freshmen. Lamb would’ve never have became Lamb in this current setup.
The talent is better right now than it was just a few years ago because players are all of a sudden staying longer and the NBA hates traditional bigs. I'm not sure the talent is as good as it was when I was a kid and the studs were playing as upperclassmen but it's closer than it was 5 years ago.
I can’t remember that at all I was too drunk most of the time
Hurley was pushing because he wanted them to work out, needed productive minutes. Here we are.
I'd agree with that, though I think that's offset by the players being able to move to teams better suited to their level. Guys like Rahsool Diggins or Brendan Adams would have hung around for 4 years previously and would have been able to contribute on good teams their senior year as role players, but got to move down and become main options at mid majors more suited to their talent level
The fact that more and more American players aren’t being drafted high would disagree with you. This product sucks and it’s why nobody talks about it.
It’s unfortunate. There’s no reason a freshman can’t do what Mahaney did this year. Coaches are just choosing differently these days at the cost of long term development.
November Jeremy Lamb gets put on the bench with a minutes restriction for the rest of the season.
Haven't really thought about it that way, but that does make great sense. While it's chaotic, it does offer flexibility for players across the board. Purists aren't going to love it, passive fans may have a tough time connecting with it because they can't track all the movement, but for junkies I find these times pretty fascinating in terms of how you build a roster. The added level of complexity makes it super interesting. These coaches make a butt load - if you can't hack it, stop whining, retire and let a young current guy figure it out. In very few professions are there 75 year old gramps working anyway. So K, Roy and Jimmy B retired. Most guys their age are sitting around a DJ in Florida drinking mocktails.
Because they want to win in the current year maybe? The portal gives you a chance, if you hit it right, to win every single year. Would you like me to run through a couple more top 15 rosters to show you? The intrigue around the sport is not about how it used to be, it's about watching how coaches adapt strategically to changes.
Purdue and Marquette win at as high of a level as anybody and they aren’t even pulling in top recruiting classes to do it.
If reed is playing 25mpg how is he not the starter? As I alluded to in my first post I’m more worried about him leaving than being able to average 30mpg if he stays.
Zach Edey dominated college basketball the last 2-3 years. And also, Cooper Flagg IS this year's Kevin Durant, those guys are generational outliers and that one stretch in the mid 00s was an anomaly.
Why are we trying to be like teams that haven’t had tournament success in years.