Traci Carter (Committed to Marquette) | Page 12 | The Boneyard

Traci Carter (Committed to Marquette)

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mauconnfan said:
Yep, agree on all points. I'm not at all rooting against TSam, hell prove me totally wrong I'm a fan anyway. I just see limitations based on his skill set. That's fine because he deserves to be a Husky and has proven that.
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I think you're too tough on the kid, but glad to see this post. Easy to forget that we all root for the same team sometimes!

That being said, if T-Sam can get a little more consistent on the defensive end then I can see him being a lockdown defender. He's shown the ability to do that in spurts. And that can warrant more than 10 minutes a game. I also don't think he's done improving on the offensive end; he's shown some improvement lately on getting into the lane; got past his man and into the paint and kicked out to Purvis for a 3 just the other night. I know I'm higher on him than most, but I think by the time all is said and done he can have at the very least the kind of impact that Lasan Kromah had for us last year. NOT SAYING he's going to be the exact same player, just that he can have a similar impact on our team.
 
CallMeBruce said:
You're not helping yourself by deliberately misinterpreting people's posts. Samuel is a pretty meh player right now. He has two more years to improve. Going from meh as a sophomore to decent as a senior is hardly a stretch. That picture you painted of Brown as a sophomore is nice, but that's the best he ever played at UConn. He shot 41.7% from the floor as a senior, made 1 three-pointer all season, and hit 55% of his free throws. I don't think it's impossible that Samuel, with two more years, ends up being an adequate starting point guard. Not a good one, but I don't think Taliek was particularly good, either.
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Taliek Brown had over 300 assists at the same stage of his career - he was a legitimate four-year starting point guard on very good teams. Taliek, as a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior, would have started every single game for this current UConn team.

Samuel isn't 'meh' - he's plain deficient if you consider him a point guard. He doesn't have the handle, he's not as quick and he has trouble keeping people in front of him on defense. His jumpsuit makes Taliek look like Pistol Pete.

Your opinion aside, the two players are not even in the same orbit.
 
Can't believe people actually think Samuel can become taliek. Takiek ceiling was nba all star when he first arrived on campus (Kenny Smith put him on his nba 21 st century team as a projection when he was a sophomore since he coached him and knew his game). Obviously he never reached his lofty expectations but he became a terrific player for what uconn needed.

He was a general on the court and knewexactly what needed to happen. His handle, court vision, passing, ability to get to the correct spot on the floor to set up teammates, decision making and basketball iq are light years ahead of Samuel.

Taliek understood his limitations and excelled in being the PG general on the floor. His shot was better and he was a better driver/finisher and actually proved to be a prolific scorer in aau and high school unlike Samuel even though it never transferred over to college.

Samuel will be hard pressed to ever become taliek. He is a role player and every team needs a like him.
 
Fishy said:
Taliek Brown had over 300 assists at the same stage of his career - he was a legitimate four-year starting point guard on very good teams. Taliek, as a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior, would have started every single game for this current UConn team.

Samuel isn't 'meh' - he's plain deficient if you consider him a point guard. He doesn't have the handle, he's not as quick and he has trouble keeping people in front of him on defense. His jumpsuit makes Taliek look like Pistol Pete.

Your opinion aside, the two players are not even in the same orbit.
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I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. Yes, sophomore Taliek was decidedly better than sophomore Samuel. But senior Taliek wasn't any better than sophomore Taliek. He was actually measurably worse in a lot of ways. If Samuel improves significantly, it is possible that, by his senior year, he is as good as Taliek was. You disagree? That's fine. I think we have pretty disparate opinions on how good Taliek was, and that's OK.
 
methodology said:
Takiek ceiling was nba all star when he first arrived on campus (Kenny Smith put him on his nba 21 st century team as a projection when he was a sophomore since he coached him and knew his game).
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I'm not clear on the relevance here. Taliek was obviously incredibly overrated coming into college. He never even sniffed the NBA, so the perception that he had the ceiling of an all-star doesn't carry much weight. This is tells me a lot more about Kenny Smith than it does about Taliek Brown.
 
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Rico444 said:
I think you're too tough on the kid, but glad to see this post. Easy to forget that we all root for the same team sometimes!

That being said, if T-Sam can get a little more consistent on the defensive end then I can see him being a lockdown defender. He's shown the ability to do that in spurts. And that can warrant more than 10 minutes a game. I also don't think he's done improving on the offensive end; he's shown some improvement lately on getting into the lane; got past his man and into the paint and kicked out to Purvis for a 3 just the other night. I know I'm higher on him than most, but I think by the time all is said and done he can have at the very least the kind of impact that Lasan Kromah had for us last year. NOT SAYING he's going to be the exact same player, just that he can have a similar impact on our team.
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TSam is a backup PG and if he is ever more than that we are in trouble. He can make a layout and most of his foul shots, something Taliek couldn't do but he is not the assist man Taliek was and to expect that isn't fair to the kid. Some think TSam is a great defender (not to be confused with Taliek or Ricky Moore) but I think he is only average. He can make plays on D but he also gets beat if he has to guard quicker PGs. He brings energy and he is a good player to have coming off the bench in short spurts but that is probably his ceiling.
 
CallMeBruce said:
I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. Yes, sophomore Taliek was decidedly better than sophomore Samuel. But senior Taliek wasn't any better than sophomore Taliek. He was actually measurably worse in a lot of ways. If Samuel improves significantly, it is possible that, by his senior year, he is as good as Taliek was. You disagree? That's fine. I think we have pretty disparate opinions on how good Taliek was, and that's OK.
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You're just off the reservation here. Or you were born in 2005.

Yes, Taliek was better as a senior than he was as a sophomore. 'n kid had 250 assists as a senior even with Ben Gordon siphoning some off.

When has Terrence even shown that he was a point guard, let alone one that's capable of starting and running a team?
 
CallMeBruce said:
I'm not clear on the relevance here. Taliek was obviously incredibly overrated coming into college. He never even sniffed the NBA, so the perception that he had the ceiling of an all-star doesn't carry much weight. This is tells me a lot more about Kenny Smith than it does about Taliek Brown.
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The same relevance of those comparing senior taliek to sophomore taliek and saying he didn't improve and was the same player.

Senior taliek knew he wasn't the hype when he came to uconn and he adjusted altered his game to not be a shooter/scorer and being the floor general.

His improvements aren't captured by statlines
 
uconngb said:
If Enoch can put one foot in front of the other without falling down, and can score from a foot away from the basket, he will pass Nolan immediately.
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I think Lubin can do that now but KO is just being loyal to Phil who may play better defense at this point.
 
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Uconn77Duke74 said:
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Still remember almost hitting my head on the ceiling jumping after that shot. I can't imagine the pain of someone hitting a shot like that against you. I am super pissed when someone banks in a 3 against us in a regular season game or when the 20% shooter goes 4-6 from 3. That plus the situation, BRUTAL. Oh yeah, F Pitt.
 
methodology said:
The same relevance of those comparing senior taliek to sophomore taliek and saying he didn't improve and was the same player.

Senior taliek knew he wasn't the hype when he came to uconn and he adjusted altered his game to not be a shooter/scorer and being the floor general.

His improvements aren't captured by statlines
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So he missed more shots on purpose? Interesting theory.
 
CallMeBruce said:
I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. Yes, sophomore Taliek was decidedly better than sophomore Samuel. But senior Taliek wasn't any better than sophomore Taliek. He was actually measurably worse in a lot of ways. If Samuel improves significantly, it is possible that, by his senior year, he is as good as Taliek was. You disagree? That's fine. I think we have pretty disparate opinions on how good Taliek was, and that's OK.
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Let's not overthink this. The 2004 team is the greatest collection of talent that ever walked around Storrs at the same time. Do you honestly think that Terrence Samuel (now, 2 years from now, or 10 years from now) would ever be the starting point guard on that team? Never in a million years.

Taliek couldn't shoot and could be wreckless with the ball. But he was also incredibly fast and was a creative passer and ball handler. He made stuff happen on offense all the time.

There is nothing remotely creative about Samuel's game. He is a straight line driver with no jump shot who occassionally can use his strength to get all the way to the rim. He's a nice backup option on a good team, but the fact that he is option #2 at point guard next year simply means that we need another point guard.
 
HuskyBballFan said:
Let's not overthink this. The 2004 team is the greatest collection of talent that ever walked around Storrs at the same time. Do you honestly think that Terrence Samuel (now, 2 years from now, or 10 years from now) would ever be the starting point guard on that team? Never in a million years.

Taliek couldn't shoot and could be wreckless with the ball. But he was also incredibly fast and was a creative passer and ball handler. He made stuff happen on offense all the time.

There is nothing remotely creative about Samuel's game. He is a straight line driver with no jump shot who occassionally can use his strength to get all the way to the rim. He's a nice backup option on a good team, but the fact that he is option #2 at point guard next year simply means that we need another point guard.
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To pile on the Taliek bandwagon - He was a great on-ball defender. Very strong and quick - most nights the other team was running their offense 35 feet from the basket. Samuel is a willing defender, but his lack of lateral foot speed gets him constantly beat off the dribble. He couldn't hold Taliek's jock on the defensive side of the ball.
 
I wonder what Taliek's legacy would be around here if they never won the Championship in 2004. Thank god it turned out the way it did but Taliek almost singlehandedly lost the final 4 game against Duke. I love Taliek but he was by far the worst player on the floor that game, thankfully it all worked out and our fanbase now remembers Taliek as underrated and we can tell stories about Kenny Smith having him on his all-century team.
 
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Taliek's teams were 19-3 in the postseason his final three years and none of the losses were bad losses (Maryland, Texas, Pitt). The only one of the 22 games where we didn't play terribly well was Pitt, and Taliek actually kept us in that one for a while. At some point, these things stop being coincidences.

He fell short of expectations, especially following KEA, and I'm not going to pretend I was never frustrated with him during his career. But the kid played hard - all the time - and his team fell in line behind him. His mistakes that frustrated me and others were often over aggressive ones (pushing breaks that weren't there) that were largely by design. Our Coaching staff wanted him pushing the ball all the time and forcing the issue, at least in 2004, when I had a conversation with one of the assistants about it at an AAU event after the title. They wanted opposing 3s to be worried about rotating back on defense to stop the break so Emeka and Boone could handle the defensive glass 2 on 2 - which meant they wanted Taliek pushing and Rashad and Ben jacking up threes on kickouts on the break regularly, so that was a point of emphasis on the scouting report. It was an interesting convo - listening to some of the big picture strategy they had as opposed to the micro X's and O's.

I know I'm in the minority, but MW made me appreciate Taliek even more. MW oozed talent, but was so frickin lazy, aloof and unreliable on and off the court, and the team fell in line behind him too. I don't find it a coincidence that his teams laid three-egg omelets in the postseason.
 
Gurleyman said:
Taliek's teams were 19-3 in the postseason his final three years and none of the losses were bad losses (Maryland, Texas, Pitt). The only one of the 22 games where we didn't play terribly well was Pitt, and Taliek actually kept us in that one for a while. At some point, these things stop being coincidences.

He fell short of expectations, especially following KEA, and I'm not going to pretend I was never frustrated with him during his career. But the kid played hard - all the time - and his team fell in line behind him. His mistakes that frustrated me and others were often over aggressive ones (pushing breaks that weren't there) that were largely by design. Our Coaching staff wanted him pushing the ball all the time and forcing the issue, at least in 2004, when I had a conversation with one of the assistants about it at an AAU event after the title. They wanted opposing 3s to be worried about rotating back on defense to stop the break so Emeka and Boone could handle the defensive glass 2 on 2 - which meant they wanted Taliek pushing and Rashad and Ben jacking up threes on kickouts on the break regularly, so that was a point of emphasis on the scouting report. It was an interesting convo - listening to some of the big picture strategy they had as opposed to the micro X's and O's.

I know I'm in the minority, but MW made me appreciate Taliek even more. MW oozed talent, but was so frickin lazy, aloof and unreliable on and off the court, and the team fell in line behind him too. I don't find it a coincidence that his teams laid three-egg omelets in the postseason.
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Staying on Defense, MW made TSAM look like Gary Payton. He couldn't/wouldn't play a lick of defense.
 
superjohn said:
I wonder what Taliek's legacy would be around here if they never won the Championship in 2004. Thank god it turned out the way it did but Taliek almost singlehandedly lost the final 4 game against Duke. I love Taliek but he was by far the worst player on the floor that game, thankfully it all worked out and our fanbase now remembers Taliek as underrated and we can tell stories about Kenny Smith having him on his all-century team.
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Yes, he was bad in that game. Do you hold the Gonzaga game against KEA or the St. Joe's game against Bazz? Bazz stunk during regulation - dribbled off his leg with two minutes left and missed the chippy that Brimah finished. Boat and DD hit the huge threes to give us a chance.

The Gonzaga game was huge pressure. Huge. And KEA let loose an epic stink bomb (0-12, fumbling a ball out of bounds, torched by Quentin Hall). Losing to St Joe's last year would have been more rough than any subsequent game too. It would have rendered the whole two-year building process to try to get our program back on solid footing useless.

Taliek obliterated Alabama's poor point guard (1 point in 36 minutes) and he's still finding chunks of Jarrett Jack in his stool (1-8, 5 turnovers). He also held Duhon in check.
 
Ten years gone and Taliek is still the most polarizing Husky maybe ever.
He certainly did a lot of things really well. But when he was playing badly, it was pretty painful to watch.
 
Gurleyman said:
Yes, he was bad in that game. Do you hold the Gonzaga game against KEA or the St. Joe's game against Bazz? Bazz stunk during regulation - dribbled off his leg with two minutes left and missed the chippy that Brimah finished. Boat and DD hit the huge threes to give us a chance.

The Gonzaga game was huge pressure. Huge. And KEA let loose an epic stink bomb (0-12, fumbling a ball out of bounds, torched by Quentin Hall). Losing to St Joe's last year would have been more rough than any subsequent game too. It would have rendered the whole two-year building process to try to get our program back on solid footing useless.

Taliek obliterated Alabama's poor point guard (1 point in 36 minutes) and he's still finding chunks of Jarrett Jack in his stool (1-8, 5 turnovers). He also held Duhon in check.
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If El-Amin and Bazz's teams lost in those games it would hurt their legacy a little but not much because those performances were such an abberation, even superstars have a stinker every once in a while. I didn't feel like it was much of an abberation at the time watching Taliek stink it up. I remember watching with a crowd full of UConn fans and it went from the refs took a win away from us to Taliek took a win away from us. Thank god we had our epic run with under 3 minutes left or there wouldn't be a lot of Taliek love around here.
 
jibsey said:
I think Lubin can do that now but KO is just being loyal to Phil who may play better defense at this point.
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There is no "may", Phil is much better at defending pick and rolls and on rotations. Lubin had one game where he played well and was in the right spots defensively, the home Cincy game. Other than that he's way off the grid defensively.
 
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superjohn said:
If El-Amin and Bazz's teams lost in those games it would hurt their legacy a little but not much because those performances were such an abberation, even superstars have a stinker every once in a while. I didn't feel like it was much of an abberation at the time watching Taliek stink it up. I remember watching with a crowd full of UConn fans and it went from the refs took a win away from us to Taliek took a win away from us. Thank god we had our epic run with under 3 minutes left or there wouldn't be a lot of Taliek love around here.
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Really? You don't thinking going 0-12 in a loss to Gonzaga (who was a complete unknown at the time and a 10 seed, in a game we absolutely positively had to win), and fumbling a ball out of bounds up 3 with nobody near him and two minutes left, wouldn't have ruined KEA's rep as a big game player? Think of how Donyell is remembered and multiply it by two or three. That wasn't an off game - that was the worst big game performance by a key player in our entire history, bar none, and Rip saved his bacon by dropping 20+ against a box and one that they could afford to stay with while KEA's testiculos ascended back up into his body for one strange day. KEA wasn't great against Duke either, frankly (six turnovers), but was 1-2 in the last minute and 2-2 at the line, which cemented his reputation.

Bazz wouldn't be Bazz either, without surviving St Joe's. Role player on a NC and two first round losses in winnable games leaves him way out of the Mt Rushmore conversation. He's ahead of Albie Mouring just because of his regular season clutchiness, but not by all that much.

The Duke game was a total aberration for Taliek. He had a ghastly seven turnovers and had more than four in a game once in the entire season up to that point (5 in a double digit win over Miami). But you're certainly right - if we had lost, he'd be the one we pinned it on. And he'd largely deserve it for playing poorly. But the folks who had their minds made up about Taliek and were looking for one piece of evidence to support it during an epic postseason run of dominance and spectacular offensive efficiency would still be clinging to it like a pit bull to a rawhide bone. But he got a second life, went out there, and ate Jarrett Jack up as we dominated again, which should make up for it. KEA and Bazz took advantage of their second lives too.
 
Gurleyman said:
Really? You don't thinking going 0-12 in a loss to Gonzaga (who was a complete unknown at the time and a 10 seed, in a game we absolutely positively had to win), and fumbling a ball out of bounds up 3 with nobody near him and two minutes left, wouldn't have ruined KEA's rep as a big game player? Think of how Donyell is remembered and multiply it by two or three. That wasn't an off game - that was the worst big game performance by a key player in our entire history, bar none, and Rip saved his bacon by dropping 20+ against a box and one that they could afford to stay with while KEA's testiculos ascended back up into his body for one strange day. KEA wasn't great against Duke either, frankly (six turnovers), but was 1-2 in the last minute and 2-2 at the line, which cemented his reputation.

Bazz wouldn't be Bazz either, without surviving St Joe's. Role player on a NC and two first round losses in winnable games leaves him way out of the Mt Rushmore conversation. He's ahead of Albie Mouring just because of his regular season clutchiness, but not by all that much.

The Duke game was a total aberration for Taliek. He had a ghastly seven turnovers and had more than four in a game once in the entire season up to that point (5 in a double digit win over Miami). But you're certainly right - if we had lost, he'd be the one we pinned it on. And he'd largely deserve it for playing poorly. But the folks who had their minds made up about Taliek and were looking for one piece of evidence to support it during an epic postseason run of dominance and spectacular offensive efficiency would still be clinging to it like a pit bull to a rawhide bone. But he got a second life, went out there, and ate Jarrett Jack up as we dominated again, which should make up for it. KEA and Bazz took advantage of their second lives too.
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That's all fair, I agree with you. I just think some people have gone in the opposite direction and tend to overrate Taliek now. He was a solid point guard on our most talented team ever. Most of our teams would need a better point guard than Taliek but he was pretty perfect for the collection of talent we had at the time. He was a very good defender had a good handle and could penetrate, some of our teams needed our point guard to be gifted at putting the ball in the hoop and Taliek clearly was limited in that regard.
 
superjohn said:
That's all fair, I agree with you. I just think some people have gone in the opposite direction and tend to overrate Taliek now. He was a solid point guard on our most talented team ever. Most of our teams would need a better point guard than Taliek but he was pretty perfect for the collection of talent we had at the time. He was a very good defender had a good handle and could penetrate, some of our teams needed our point guard to be gifted at putting the ball in the hoop and Taliek clearly was limited in that regard.
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I can agree with that, too. Even personally, I truthfully appreciate him more after the fact than I did at the time. He was frustrating to watch at times, and I think when my expectations were tempered from "McD's A-A, KEA successor at PG" to "hard working role player", I appreciated what he brought a little more his senior year. He sort of followed the Ricky track for me. And I thought he was brilliant against Alabama (even scoring only two points) to get us to the FF and I was excited for him, and then the Duke game was like a punch to the gut - I was trying to come up with what to say to defend him when it looked like we were in trouble and drawing blanks. But fortunately, his teammates picked him up when he had his stinker, and he got his ring.
 
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