I'll just add one observation. It's year four and Brimah doesn't have one 'go to' post move that he can reliably get off while guarded closely, at 7 feet tall and with good leaping ability. Not one. Not a simple drop estep. Not a baby hook. Not a step back jumper. Not one. Every high school post man works on these in practice, and I'm sure he has also. And yet, still nothing you can count on except lobs.
Agreed. FWIW, my take on Brimah is that he has become a failed experiment. We recruited him in a down recruiting cycle due to the sanctions. It was worth taking a shot with a 7 footer due to the old adage that you can't teach height.
He has been wildly inconsistent, but I think his deficiencies are due far more to mental rather than physical shortcomings. By all accounts he's a brilliant student, perhaps the best on the team, and he speaks something like five different languages fluently. I think that may be a big part of his problem. He's thinking was too much when he's on a BB court. He hadn't been playing the game long enough prior to UConn to have any instinctual feel for the game.
His two biggest physical deficiencies are his hands and thin frame. He gets manhandled by bigger, bulkier low post players, and he can't catch or hold onto the ball very well. Coupled with that, he plays with little confidence against equally talented or better opponents because he's thinking about what to do instead of reacting instinctively.
Defense and shot blocking are where he can occasionally shine, but even then he's thinking too much due to the scrutiny he draws from the zebras. He's kind of clumsy and awkward, so he gets way more than his fair share of questionable to downright horrible calls made against him. That has to be a disrupting factor which hurts his overall game at both ends.
To some degree coaching should have been able to fix some of his issues, but there are certain skills players either have or don't have. Unfortunately for him, this season we needed some low post scoring from him. Sometimes we get it but most of the time we don't. He could have flourished on teams that needed zero scoring from him so he could have devoted all his learning to the defensive end and rebounding. We had that luxury during his freshman season but not since.
I think he's a great kid who puts forth 100 percent effort, and he's a great teammate. He's probably all he's ever likely to be on a BB court. I hope he gets the opportunity to play pro ball overseas. I'm rooting for him. I wish him the best of luck, and his old fashioned three point play vs. St. Joseph's will never be forgotten.
And now look at them. Some of the best posters in the forum.
