Kemba and Shabazz had a close to 20% turnover rate their freshman years.
For comparison, Castle had 13%, Newton had 15%, Cam had 8%, and Alex had 7%. You can find these numbers in the advanced stats category of basketball reference.
Do you think Hurley would’ve allowed them to make the mistakes they did on last years team as freshmen?
Solo could slash. But like any freshman that’s not a ready made NBA prospect, giving him the freedom to do that would’ve naturally came with mistakes that Hurley was not going to allow with the stacked roster we had and won with.
One more thing. Absolutely hilarious that the first time Solo is the “guard” on the floor that he leads the team in assists. Almost like he could do it if that was his role and what he was asked to do.
Well, he tied for the team lead with our backup center. With three. Just as a comparison, Rip Hamilton was forced to play point guard as a freshman against No. 1 Kansas with Ricky Moore suspended and had eight assists. But Solo didn’t really play point guard - it was more Liam as point forward and then into our offense - so that isn’t apples to apples.
We all saw Kemba’s elite quickness, handling, and finishing at the rim over bigger players on a stacked team coming off the bench. He couldn’t shoot, but he could attack the basket. We all saw Bazz’s savviness and court awareness. He didn’t necessarily have elite quickness or athleticism, but he was smart and crafty and made great reads. Those were their primary skills. And yeah, they made mistakes a lot as they cut their teeth and learned what they could get away with, but you could see their upside.
We haven’t seen much in that vein yet from Solo. Elite shooter obviously - and he has developed a very nice pull up midrange game to complement his three point shot when he’s run off the line. He can finish on straight drives to the rim when he has an angle and can try to explode to the basket. He’s gotten better at all those things and is a more complete scorer than he was at the start of the year. But his creativity off the bounce is limited and will have to expand a lot for the next level. Other than an exception here or there, I haven’t really seen him show the ability to make a great slip pass or lob to a big off the bounce after drawing the shot blocker, or find a teammate on a kickout after the defense collapses. Or use deception to score on an up fake, or fadeaway, or using his body to seek contact and finish. His bag is sort of either a straight athletic drive, a reverse, or a floater over the shot blocker.
