Shabazz

[HuskyFan32]

I love Bazz and I think hes played pretty well this year. His stats suggest hes been great, but he has to start playing like a pg. He had a great line today, but he actually played pretty poorly. The pass to Drummond, and the outlet to Boatright at the end of the game were really dumb. His D today was pretty awful. He also took 13 threes today! Granted he made 6 of them, but 13 threes from your pg is ridiculous. We took 54 shots today so a quarter of our shots were threes by our PG. You cant win games that way. Our offense doesnt get into any flow because he looks to shoot far too often. He either shoots or attempts a highlight reel pass. He took 4 more 3s than Lamb took total shots today. Thats not how were gonna win. Time for him to start running our offense and play as a pg.

 

[AfgHusky15]

I love Bazz and I think hes played pretty well this year. His stats suggest hes been great, but he has to start playing like a pg. He had a great line today, but he actually played pretty poorly. The pass to Drummond, and the outlet to Boatright at the end of the game were really dumb. His D today was pretty awful. He also took 13 threes today! Granted he made 6 of them, but 13 threes from your pg is ridiculous. We took 54 shots today so a quarter of our shots were threes by our PG. You cant win games that way. Our offense doesnt get into any flow because he looks to shoot far too often. He either shoots or attempts a highlight reel pass. He took 4 more 3s than Lamb took total shots today. Thats not how were gonna win. Time for him to start running our offense and play as a pg.

+1

 

[3rdbass]

Yes decisions at the end of the shot clock are dreadful and normally end up with a forced 3.

 

[Kitaman]

Be patient the kid is young, still learning and needs more experience with his team. I am concerned if he feels he has to make 'the shot'. In late/tight games that's Lamb's role this year. He seemed to be option one ala Kemba, I don't think that's the plan. At least he's not scared to take the big shot, but he's not Kemba.

 

[mauconnfan]

I love Bazz and I think hes played pretty well this year. His stats suggest hes been great, but he has to start playing like a pg. He had a great line today, but he actually played pretty poorly. The pass to Drummond, and the outlet to Boatright at the end of the game were really dumb. His D today was pretty awful. He also took 13 threes today! Granted he made 6 of them, but 13 threes from your pg is ridiculous. We took 54 shots today so a quarter of our shots were threes by our PG. You cant win games that way. Our offense doesnt get into any flow because he looks to shoot far too often. He either shoots or attempts a highlight reel pass. He took 4 more 3s than Lamb took total shots today. Thats not how were gonna win. Time for him to start running our offense and play as a pg.

I agree he needs to play under control and make better decisions when it comes down to crunch time and he will. The pass to Drummond, for one, was too early on the clock and then he needed to throw it to the wing for the wide open jumper anyway. But you have zero argument on the 3's - 6 of 13 is fine for me every day of the week and would be for mot any coach. The pass to Boatright for the breakaway was a foul, he got hammered and if he didn't they had an easy layup. Anyway he was far from "poor" today. Quite honestly Lamb had a worst game. He lost the dribble trying to split people often and didn't come down strong with a couple rebounds. He was actually worst with the ball than Shabazz and had it less. He needs to cut down on the dribble as well as Shababzz and I think they will with the added dimension the call The Boat Show! I actually like Ryan with the ball and he made very good decisions today for a rookie and should have had 3-4 more assists if Tyler could make a jumper!

 

[champs99and04]

Obviously the kid has a lot of room for improvement, but comeon, the kid played a good game today and he's been great all season. UConn needs him to score, as well as distribute, more so than a guy like Kendall Marshall. Jim Calhoun runs a system where the PG needs to be a scorer as well as a facilitator. 13 threes is a little much, but the kid can knock a lot of em down.

He needs to cut down on the turnovers and select better shots at times, but overall he's been about as good as we can expect from a sophmore PG. I would say he's been better than a guy like Kemba or AJ Price was as a sophmore.

 

[HuskyFan32]

Be patient the kid is young, still learning and needs more experience with his team. I am concerned if he feels he has to make 'the shot'. In late/tight games that's Lamb's role this year. He seemed to be option one ala Kemba, I don't think that's the plan. At least he's not scared to take the big shot, but he's not Kemba.

I agree. Im not saying he stinks. He was a great pg last year. He just forces it and tries to do too much this year and always goes for the amazing play. He knows how to run an offense and hes a great passer but it looks like hes trying to get on sportscenter half the time he does anything.

 

[champs99and04]

Be patient the kid is young, still learning and needs more experience with his team. I am concerned if he feels he has to make 'the shot'. In late/tight games that's Lamb's role this year. He seemed to be option one ala Kemba, I don't think that's the plan. At least he's not scared to take the big shot, but he's not Kemba.

I don't have any problem with Shabazz taking the big shots down the stretch, especially with defenses keying in on Lamb. I love the fact that despite the mistakes he makes, he's still willing to pull the trigger, as evidenced by the game winning three he took and made today. It's in his blood lines to take the big shots. Obviously Boatright and Lamb have proven to make some big shots as well, so it wouldn't be a bad thing if he shared the wealth.

 

[HuskyFan32]

I agree he needs to play under control and make better decisions when it comes down to crunch time and he will. The pass to Drummond, for one, was too early on the clock and then he needed to throw it to the wing for the wide open jumper anyway. But you have zero argument on the 3's - 6 of 13 is fine for me every day of the week and would be for mot any coach. The pass to Boatright for the breakaway was a foul, he got hammered and if he didn't they had an easy layup. Anyway he was far from "poor" today. Quite honestly Lamb had a worst game. He lost the dribble trying to split people often and didn't come down strong with a couple rebounds. He was actually worst with the ball than Shabazz and had it less. He needs to cut down on the dribble as well as Shababzz and I think they will with the added dimension the call The Boat Show! I actually like Ryan with the ball and he made very good decisions today for a rookie and should have had 3-4 more assists if Tyler could make a jumper!

I can guarantee you JC is not happy he took 13 threes. Two or 3 of the ones he made were bad shots and he was fortunate they went in. And about 4 or 5 of his misses were dumb too so thats 7 or 8 dumb threes. No coach in the country wants their point guard taking 8 bad threes a game. And Lamb had a worse game? Did you actually watch the game? Lamb scored 19 on 7-9 shooting with 2 less turnovers than Bazz. Lamb didnt play great but 19 pts on 9 shots is far better than 26 on 18.

 

[aceboon]

Obviously the kid has a lot of room for improvement, but comeon, the kid played a good game today and he's been great all season. UConn needs him to score, as well as distribute, more so than a guy like Kendall Marshall. Jim Calhoun runs a system where the PG needs to be a scorer as well as a facilitator. 13 threes is a little much, but the kid can knock a lot of em down.

He needs to cut down on the turnovers and select better shots at times, but overall he's been about as good as we can expect from a sophmore PG. I would say he's been better than a guy like Kemba or AJ Price was as a sophmore.

Yea I agree with you about him needing to score. There are definitely some "heatcheck" shots that he takes and there has been some questionable decisions, but Shabazz definitely can't be a Kendall Marshall where he's looking to always set the table because Shabazz is one of the better scorers on this team. Having him think pass first with this team and its makeup would be wrong, outside of last game and some lapses in this one he's done a very job of balancing when to shoot and when to distribute.

 

[Rico444]

Let's not forget that FSU is about as good a defensive team as we will see this season. I thought Shabazz could have made some better decisions here or there, but overall he played a very good game, and made a big time clutch 3.

 

[HuskyFan32]

Im not saying we dont need him to score or to play like Marshall for UNC. But he is the point guard. He needs to fascilitate our offense and start feeding the post a little to keep the d honest. A quarter of our shots taken today were 3s by him. Hes not Iverson or Kemba. He def can score and I want him to but he shouldnt take more threes than total shots for Lamb.

 

[aceboon]

I think Lamb taking less shots than he did falls somewhat on him as well though. Its not really a bad thing but he has a habit of more or less picking his spots and fading into the background at times. Its either him, Bazz, or now Boat handling the ball in the backcourt so the opportunity was there for him to be more aggressive with the ball. I know he's had a habit of overdribbling but I would like to see him drive into the middle of the lane and unleash the floater because he can get by his man anytime and of course the shot is all but unblockable. He did it a couple of times today and went 2/2, I would like to see it a little more because I think he's been settling on the 3 ball a bit too much this season(not today's game tho).

 

[Gurleyman]

There are days when he'll facilitate more, but he had his offense going pretty good most of the night, and Jeremy didn't seem to be presenting himself well off of screens (and had some issues with his hands today - he didn't have enough ball toughness). He also had two late turnovers on clearouts yesterday and had a shot blocked in OT today so he perhaps wasn't demanding the ball as much as maybe he will later in the season (I also thought Jeremy should have caught the first alley-oop, but he went up with one hand). I actually thought the passes to Drummond were the worst decisions Shabazz made, due largely to the fact that FSU would have put Drummond on the line in a heartbeat even if he made those catches. And Tyler was having a rough day with the ball in his hands too, so there weren't many guys to facilitate out there down the stretch. The three that Donny called a hero shot I thought was a good clean look, on balance from the top of the key, stepping into it. I'll take that every time. The last one he took at the end of regulation down three was a little rushed, but keep in mind that if you let the clock get down around five seconds, the other team may decide to foul you and you'll never even get a chance to tie it. There's just not enough time to run anything or be patient, and sometimes the offensive rebound scramble results in a better look (such as today, or Arizona last year at the buzzer against us).

All that said, the last two days he has been very shaky at the end of games, so there's plenty of room to get better. But late game situations arent supposed to be easy - the other team is playing their hardest defense of the night, and even the best of guards will end up looking bad at times (i.e. Kemba a couple times last year), so it'll take him some time to get used to that role.

 

[UConn2SF]

i dont mind bazz taking big shots at the end of games but 26ft 3 pointer with 15-20 seconds on the shot clock in a late game situation is unacceptable, imo. his late game decision making is marginal at best.

 

[Gurleyman]

These are also the first two games involving important late-game decisions that he's been in (without Kemba), so he needs some time to grow into the role a bit, make some mistakes and learn from them. Yesterday, when we showed patience, we ended up with shot clock violations or heaves in the last two seconds. So today perhaps there was a tendency to think "I'm open now, and I don't want to pass this up and end up with nothing". There was one three he took that was 25 or 26 feet right after FSU tied it that was a terrible shot. But the one that Donny called a "hero" shot was actually a perfectly good look - 21 feet straight away at the top of the key with the defense sagging off him. That one is fine by me. He just has to find the happy medium between staying aggressive and confident, and going overboard and taking foolish shots. And later in the year when they've been through these wars a few more times, maybe he connects with Andre twice for dunks and Jeremy twice for alley-oops in these same late-game situations.

 

[HuskyFan32]

AJ Price is exacytly who Bazz should imitate. AJ did his share of scoring, but he also dumped it down low to Thabeet and Adrien consistently and ran the offense. I see no reason why Bazz cant be like AJ.

 

[champs99and04]

Im not saying we dont need him to score or to play like Marshall for UNC. But he is the point guard. He needs to fascilitate our offense and start feeding the post a little to keep the d honest. A quarter of our shots taken today were 3s by him. Hes not Iverson or Kemba. He def can score and I want him to but he shouldnt take more threes than total shots for Lamb.

I would prefer more post touches for Drummond/Oriakhi/Olander

 

[champs99and04]

AJ Price is exacytly who Bazz should imitate. AJ did his share of scoring, but he also dumped it down low to Thabeet and Adrien consistently and ran the offense. I see no reason why Bazz cant be like AJ.

Yes, I agree. Part of the development of a young PG is to find that balance between scoring/passing. If we can end up with another AJ Price type player that would be great.

 

[Dogbreath2U]

Yea I agree with you about him needing to score. There are definitely some "heatcheck" shots that he takes and there has been some questionable decisions, but Shabazz definitely can't be a Kendall Marshall where he's looking to always set the table because Shabazz is one of the better scorers on this team. Having him think pass first with this team and its makeup would be wrong, outside of last game and some lapses in this one he's done a very job of balancing when to shoot and when to distribute.

He's actually done much better overall with finding the balance than I expected he would coming into this year. His decision-making has been good generally, although he has struggled more the last 2 games. He showed some less than great decisions in this tournament, but that is the cost of allowing him to develop as the PG. I'm hoping that JC will spread the minutes around a little more and allow Bazz to get some rest, as well as give Boat some time as the sole point.

 

[Prezidint]

I would prefer more post touches for Drummond/Oriakhi/Olander

Olander is, IMO, way to soft to get touches against 6/8 and bigger athletic guys - he just doesn't get off the floor on his shot, and his baby hook is not protected enough. I'd like to see him be a 7-15 foot specialist.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

An annual tradition on the Boneyard is bitching about guards shooting too much, rather than forcing the ball in to post men who have no idea how to get their own shot. If Shabazz doesn't score the ball today they lose by 15+.

 

[mauconnfan]

I can guarantee you JC is not happy he took 13 threes. Two or 3 of the ones he made were bad shots and he was fortunate they went in. And about 4 or 5 of his misses were dumb too so thats 7 or 8 dumb threes. No coach in the country wants their point guard taking 8 bad threes a game. And Lamb had a worse game? Did you actually watch the game? Lamb scored 19 on 7-9 shooting with 2 less turnovers than Bazz. Lamb didnt play great but 19 pts on 9 shots is far better than 26 on 18.

I can guarantee you if JC is going to get 6 of 13 from Shabazz going in he's happy despite you thinking you can coach this team! How can there be "8 BAD 3's a game...." when he only missed 7? Wow not a very smart statement!!!

Yeah I watched the game but I was not the official scorer....if you think Jeremy had only 2 TO's then you didn't watch it - depends I guess what the official scoprer considered a TO. Dribbling between a doubleteam and losing the ball is normally but I guess not about 3 other times tonight. Hey I love Jeremy and he made shots tonight but he needs to be less pretty with his handle like it or not!!

 

[selles]

An annual tradition on the Boneyard is bitching about guards shooting too much, rather than forcing the ball in to post men who have no idea how to get their own shot. If Shabazz doesn't score the ball today they lose by 15+.

Maybe, maybe not. But right now Shabazz runs a pick-up offense. Quick shots, flashy passes, not enough attention to time and flow of the game. On the bright side, that avoids a definite Boneyard tradition - griping that we can't score the ball. But it needs to change if we're going to get where we want to go.

We may need to get worse before we get better. The pieces are there though. And with Calhoun, that means we're in pretty good shape.

 

[mauconnfan]

Maybe, maybe not. But right now Shabazz runs a pick-up offense. Quick shots, flashy passes, not enough attention to time and flow of the game. On the bright side, that avoids a definite Boneyard tradition - griping that we can't score the ball. But it needs to change if we're going to get where we want to go.

We may need to get worse before we get better. The pieces are there though. And with Calhoun, that means we're in pretty good shape.

People seem to forget how inconsistent Kemba Walker, yeah that guy, was in the 1st half plus of his sophomore year! He was trying to do too much and throwing it away, forcing shots and then suddenly............bingo around game 20 he was under control, making positive plays and was a much better PG. Not saying Shabazz will ever be Kemba but his positives on the court certainly outweigh what we perceive to be negatives after 7 games. RB will help him cut down on that a bit more also I believe.

 

[imno1]

Shabazz has been great this season. And he will get even better. Nough said.