No arguing those stats. They are incredible.
Wish they kept stats on how many times he left his player totally open to get defensive rebounds and that player torched UConn.
Wish they kept stats on how many times he lost his player.
Wish they kept stats on how many times his player drove past him resulting in a score or foul on AB.
Wish he had DD's strength to have allowed KO the option to play him at the four against teams like Cinci and Temple and not get manhandled (a role KO was able to employ DD frequently and thus go small).
Wish he wasn't the Jinx guy freshman year whose player hit the buzzer winner in two games and the guy who bricked three free throws that could have prevented a loss. That was the difference between UConn to the NIT versus the NCAA.
Wish he didn't sulk the way he constantly did this season. But he wasn't alone. This team had to be the all time leader with regards to sulkers and whiners. Only player I felt kept his head up most of the time was Rodney. And for that reason alone I favor Rodney more than DHam returning.
There are some fair points in there, particularly with his defensive liabilities which sprung up a lot, but there are some positive points that I didn't mention that I could too (i.e. how the coaches were able to allow Brimah to feel comfortable selling out on blocking shots because there was a decent defensive rebounder behind him, how he helped save a lot of energy for Boat last year by being able to bring the ball up the floor and push it after rebounds). When was the last time a big threw a good outlet pass to ignite a break? Once in a while, you might have seen one from Miller, but Facey and Brimah usually hold it and hand it off. DHam was our easiest and quickest route from defense to offense that spared a little bit of energy from Boat (and a little bit of pressure from Adams). DD also played the four as a sophomore because we had no other choices, and we got obliterated on the boards a lot (we famously once won somehow at Providence despite getting outrebounded 55-24).
DHam always struck me as someone who got the "sulking" label unfairly because he didn't show much emotion during games - the worst he would do was cross his hands over his head after a mistake, but he generally moved on to the next play pretty quickly. Personality-wise, he was a Ben Gordon clone, who people thought was indifferent or sulky because he didn't show emotion. There were times he showed some resolve -- DHam had a train wreck home game against Temple (starting 0-10), but shook it off and hit a big shot or two late, and then went to the line down by two in the same gym against the same team shooting at the same basket that he missed the FTs against the year before (his third miss was on purpose last year down by two, so saying he missed three. while true, isn't really a fair description of what happened and only people with a predisposition to make him sound worse to prove a point say he missed three). He stunk that day, but showed something knocking those two FTs down, as he did playing well against Temple in the AAC Tournament to shake off his Temple demon (after playing 55 minutes the night before).
Last year, Yale won when Cassell didn't switch quickly enough on a cross-screen with Boat (despite Boat pointing at him). Hamilton was alert and rushed into the play to try to bail him out, but it wasn't his responsibility. I always thought the Texas one looked like Boat's fault trying to be overaggressive going over the top of a screen to deny the ball on a play he should have been switching. But I could be wrong. It all depends on if they were supposed to switch - if they were, it was on Boat being overaggressive, if they weren't, then DHam made a freshman mistake not understanding what he was supposed to do because he didn't even try to fight over it - he stayed with the screener. I suppose Occam's Razor would say that it was more likely the freshman screwed up, but that's something only the coaching staff knows.
I guess the bottom line for me is that I felt if DHam could have spent an offseason with lots of shooting reps and improved as a rhythm jump shooter (no given, but certainly possible), he would have plugged in the major hole in his game we could have been looking at a guy next year capable of 20-10-5 almost every night and being in the National Player of the Year race. Instead, we will likely see guys (Adams, Gilbert, Larrier) having some of the growing pains next year that DHam did this year. I'd rather have seen the rewards of this year's growing pains first. But two years from now, we may be saying it was a good thing that Adams and Gilbert had this coming year to have a heavy burden and learn to mesh, so it was it is. We'll go to war with who we got.
