Tyler Polley vs. Vance Jackson

[Tenspro2002]

Juco's and post grads are fine chemistry-wise imo. Worked out great with Kromah. It even worked with Gibbs and Miller, just not as well as we hoped. I submit it's because Gibbs was not the player we needed him to be, not from an overall talent standpoint, more from the point of what he was able to do. Ideally, he was a catch and shoot 2 guard vs the run-the-offense, drive and dish PG we needed.

On Gibbs you're absolutely right.

The problem was it took KO 30 games to see something the rest of us could diagnose in 10. Adams should have been the primary PG, with Gibbs/Purvis/Hamilton at the 2/3.

Between Adams/Gibbs/Purvis/Hamilton/Miller, our talent at the 1-4 was exceptional. That team should have been so much better.

 

[tzznandrew]

Aside from the fact that none of those guys can shoot.

The loss of Jackson takes away the one element we can't easily replace with the returning guys.

Gilbert was known as a shooter in high school, IIRC, and I'm not going to read much into his shooting in 3 games to start the year.

Adams shot 35% from 3 despite being exhausted the whole year and taking a ton of bail out shots.

Larrier, from the 4, wouldn't need to shoot a ton, but I'm not going to read too much into his 4 games here. He shot very poorly his freshman year at VCU, to be sure, but most players don't shoot well as freshmen, even players who turn into fantastic shooters.

MAL hasn't played a game yet, so I'm not going to say he can't shoot. Seems silly to go there. Also, replace one of the three guards with CV and my point still stands.

 

[tzznandrew]

On Gibbs you're absolutely right.

The problem was it took KO 30 games to see something the rest of us could diagnose in 10. Adams should have been the primary PG, with Gibbs/Purvis/Hamilton at the 2/3.

Between Adams/Gibbs/Purvis/Hamilton/Miller, our talent at the 1-4 was exceptional. That team should have been so much better.

Yeah, I think he got stuck both overestimating Gibbs' ability to take defenders off the dribble and wanting to ease Jalen in off the bench.

I understand both of them, and Jalen wasn't a perfect point guard, but the lineups of Adams-Gibbs at the 1-2 and then some combination of Purvis/Hamilton/Miller/Brimah were the best, and he was too stuck in his idea of the team to focus on the actual reality.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Gilbert was known as a shooter in high school, IIRC, and I'm not going to read much into his shooting in 3 games to start the year.

Adams shot 35% from 3 despite being exhausted the whole year and taking a ton of bail out shots.

Larrier, from the 4, wouldn't need to shoot a ton, but I'm not going to read too much into his 4 games here. He shot very poorly his freshman year at VCU, to be sure, but most players don't shoot well as freshmen, even players who turn into fantastic shooters.

MAL hasn't played a game yet, so I'm not going to say he can't shoot. Seems silly to go there. Also, replace one of the three guards with CV and my point still stands.

Vital helps, for sure. But everyone else is a drive-first guard or wing. Too many of those and you just invite the defense to pack it in a tight zone and dare us to shoot over them. Jackson could have done that.

 

[intlzncster]

On Gibbs you're absolutely right.

The problem was it took KO 30 games to see something the rest of us could diagnose in 10. Adams should have been the primary PG, with Gibbs/Purvis/Hamilton at the 2/3.

Between Adams/Gibbs/Purvis/Hamilton/Miller, our talent at the 1-4 was exceptional. That team should have been so much better.

Yes, I think this was a young coach mistake here. Hoping Ollie acknowledges (to himself) and learns from this sort of thing. This off season is showing that he does have the ability to change course, even if it requires hard choices. I'm hoping this carries over to game situations as well. Guy has plenty of room to grow.

 

[tzznandrew]

Vital helps, for sure. But everyone else is a drive-first guard or wing. Too many of those and you just invite the defense to pack it in a tight zone and dare us to shoot over them. Jackson could have done that.

Adams shot 35%. He'll likely get better, especially if he has more options.

Gilbert/MAL/TL are small (to no) sample size at the moment. I'm not writing any of them off as shooters, especially when one (Gilbert) came in with a rep as a good shooter.

I liked Jackson, but I'm not as high on him as some others, it seems. You are right, though. He would certainly be a slam dunk as a kick-out in a 3 guard lineup. Yet, given what has been expressed, his camp would prefer him to be the one initiating offense.

 

[intlzncster]

He would certainly be a slam dunk as a kick-out in a 3 guard lineup. Yet, given what has been expressed, his camp would prefer him to be the one initiating offense.

Ah, the dreaded point forward. Errybody wanna be LeBron. Only guy I remember really pulling it off recently was that kid from Iowa State who was injured against us in 2014. Niang or something like that.

 

[tzznandrew]

Ah, the dreaded point forward. Errybody wanna be LeBron. Only guy I remember really pulling it off recently was that kid from Iowa State who was injured against us in 2014. Niang or something like that.

Giannis Atemdlafkjsdfajgasmpko does that for Milwaukee, in a way. Huge dude, on D works the post, runs the O on offense.

I was at the Milwaukee-Boston game Wednesday (sans Dre, Chief and b¡thces, to be clear) and he was stunning in person. Did everything.

 

[intlzncster]

Giannis Atemdlafkjsdfajgasmpko does that for Milwaukee, in a way. Huge dude, on D works the post, runs the O on offense.

I was at the Milwaukee-Boston game Wednesday (sans Dre, Chief and b¡thces, to be clear) and he was stunning in person. Did everything.

Yep, was just thinking of college. I'm not extremely knowledgeable about the NBA (I watch some), so I don't usually comment on it. The games are so different anyway.

Those guys aren't a dime a dozen, that's for sure.

 

[BUConn10]

The biggest loss from the Vance transfer despite how you feel about all of the drama surrounding it is that we just lost our arguably most reliable spot up 3pt shooter, leaving us with little very reliable outside shooting on an offensive system that is predicated on having reliable shooters from deep, not like we are going inside very often.

 

[RichZ]

Some good video of the 3 new incoming freshmen here: A look at the UConn men’s basketball recruiting class: 2017-18...

...MAL - Will be a good 15-20 minute guy keeping both AG and JA fresh next year with little drop-off when they hit the bench or get in foul trouble a big plus over the options KO was left with in such situations this year.

Polley - I've heard some DHam- Deandre Daniels comparisons, but as I watched the video I kept getting flashbacks to Rip Hamilton particularly the way he smoothly finishes at the rim on the break. Not enough video of him shooting to see if his touch and off the ball movement is close to Rip's, but physically and how he finishes he's very similar. I was pleasantly surprised - my guess is he will force himself into getting some major minutes and have some nice scoring games for us.

Carlton - Not a lot of video, but some good points can be drawn from it. He clearly has some understanding of offensive positioning, he has good hands for a big (always a plus), he has good body control attacking the rim, it's unclear how well he boxes out or protects the rim, but he's aggressive to the ball. My guess he will be a useful interior presence next year and not just by default. The soundness of the fundamentals I could pick up on seem to indicate he will be more then adequate in filling minutes for us at the 5 or 4.

At least in that particular highlight video, MAL seemed to favor going to the hole over passing or shooting the J. Much like JA, he is completely right handed, and depending on how you squint, this makes his drives on the left side of the hoop either spectacular or flat out awkward, because the degree of difficulty goes up when you shoot right handed layups from the left side. (This comes from a 100% left handed shooter whose "signature move" was a heavy english, banked layin from the right side. Fodder for shot blockers as the level of competition got higher.)

Polley. Mostly transition and inside highlights, but I really like where he releases his jumper from. High over his head, not in front if his chin like some of our recent shooters and a lot of the recruits whose videos I've watched seem to do.

Carlton appears to be a pretty effective defensive rebounder. But he seems to look for a close outlet as soon as he comes down, while still in a crowd. Needs to learn the wide pivot to clear space and get a quick look down court for the longer outlet (think Wes Unseld and Dave Cowens.) Offensively, I would have called him for offensive fouls on a couple of the moves on his highlight video.

 

[Coach J]

At least in that particular highlight video, MAL seemed to favor going to the hole over passing or shooting the J. Much like JA, he is completely right handed, and depending on how you squint, this makes his drives on the left side of the hoop either spectacular or flat out awkward, because the degree of difficulty goes up when you shoot right handed layups from the left side. (This comes from a 100% left handed shooter whose "signature move" was a heavy english, banked layin from the right side. Fodder for shot blockers as the level of competition got higher.)

Polley. Mostly transition and inside highlights, but I really like where he releases his jumper from. High over his head, not in front if his chin like some of our recent shooters and a lot of the recruits whose videos I've watched seem to do.

Carlton appears to be a pretty effective defensive rebounder. But he seems to look for a close outlet as soon as he comes down, while still in a crowd. Needs to learn the wide pivot to clear space and get a quick look down court for the longer outlet (think Wes Unseld and Dave Cowens.) Offensively, I would have called him for offensive fouls on a couple of the moves on his highlight video.

I was surprised to not see a broader offensive game from MAL for a guy so highly ranked. Did like Polley's release, but didn't see enough of them to know how proficient he is with his jumper. With Carlton, I didn't see enough from the short video to tell if the defensive rebounds he got were because of the size and athletic advantage he had over his opponents or if he is well schooled in boxing out. No matter what you have to love his aggressiveness though. Luckily longer outlet passes and wider pivots are easily correctable. He's going to help.

 

[Coach J]

Oh well so much for that MAL just asked out of his NLI!