drquigley
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by drquigley on Mar 14, 2018 12:21:50 GMT -5
So how does a guy who, I assume, lost his scholarship "stay around" at $50,000+ tuition? A scholarship is based on one year, so someone could conceivably stay and continues their studies in the spring, but takes the risk that if he doss not return to the team, he must sit out another two semesters at another school to play again. Also, as Sodom may not be not a U.S. citizen, his financial aid opportunities are extremely limited if or when an athletic grant expires. Thanks for clearing that up. I'd really rather not waste a scholarship on a "project" like Sodom. I could see taking a chance when PE took over and was desperate for recruits. But with a year under his belt and hopefully some serious recruiting time, PE should be able to do much better.
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dchoya72
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by dchoya72 on Mar 14, 2018 12:23:26 GMT -5
Thanks, not used to hearing him by first name.
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OldHoyafan
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Post by OldHoyafan on Mar 14, 2018 13:11:49 GMT -5
So let the off season speculation begin! Well, this is as good as any to get the ole fanatical juices flowing. Has it been confirmed via sightings in class or at intramural games, that Sodom is indeed stil on campus? If this is in fact true, then I think it is reasonable to speculate that Sodom and Ewing have reached a meeting of the minds that (1) whatever he did warranted the discipline of removal from the team, and (2) a slot on the team next season would be held for him. I say this because as others have said, even though he is a raw talent, you can’t teach 7’2” height nor can you teach agility to run the court with that height, so other schools would have taken the chance and offered him an A1 scholly. The two scholarships that are going to come open belong to graduating seniors Mulmore and Dickerson, so the Hoyas still can add a pg and another big man or add two guards if Sodom is reinstated in the fall.
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BigmanU
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Post by BigmanU on Mar 14, 2018 14:04:33 GMT -5
Non-Conference: Mosely Pickett Johnson Derrickson Govan
Conference play: McClung Pickett LeBlanc (need a JYD type) Derrickson Govan
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drquigley
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by drquigley on Mar 20, 2018 11:59:42 GMT -5
Why have we all forgotten about Antwan Walker? Local guy has a great HS and prep school resume. I really thought that PE should have used him a lot more last year (or redshirted him). He is the perfect "type" for modern college bball. A stretch forward with plenty of hops. I'm sure PE saw something in practice he didn't like but really, after it was obvious we weren't going anywhere this year, it would have been great to have him split time with Johnson and MD. I would hope he and Alonzo Jr become important parts of future Hoya teams.
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jwp91
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Post by jwp91 on Mar 20, 2018 12:04:50 GMT -5
Why have we all forgotten about Antwan Walker? Local guy has a great HS and prep school resume. I really thought that PE should have used him a lot more last year (or redshirted him). He is the perfect "type" for modern college bball. A stretch forward with plenty of hops. I'm sure PE saw something in practice he didn't like but really, after it was obvious we weren't going anywhere this year, it would have been great to have him split time with Johnson and MD. I would hope he and Alonzo Jr become important parts of future Hoya teams. You want our 2nd team All-Big East forward to play less?....who was arguably the best player on the team? I like Walker but only 5 guys get to play at a time.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2018 12:48:35 GMT -5
Why have we all forgotten about Antwan Walker? Local guy has a great HS and prep school resume. I really thought that PE should have used him a lot more last year (or redshirted him). He is the perfect "type" for modern college bball. A stretch forward with plenty of hops. I'm sure PE saw something in practice he didn't like but really, after it was obvious we weren't going anywhere this year, it would have been great to have him split time with Johnson and MD. I would hope he and Alonzo Jr become important parts of future Hoya teams. You want our 2nd team All-Big East forward to play less?....who was arguably the best player on the team? I like Walker but only 5 guys get to play at a time. I think MD would've been well served with a few more extended breaks this season. Nearly 33mpg in conference is too much for a guy built like him. I know I'm not around the team every day to evaluate, but the biggest rotation surprise for me this season (from the outside looking in) was the limited amount of minutes for Antwan. He looked athletic and coordinated just about every time he stepped on the floor -- not really out of place at all. Obviously he's a FR that needed to get his feet under him, but with our starting lineup and the loss of Sodom -- he was our ONLY frontcourt option off the bench. He got 49 total minutes in our last 12 games of the season, and more than a third of that came in the game Marcus didn't play.
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drquigley
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by drquigley on Mar 20, 2018 12:50:12 GMT -5
Why have we all forgotten about Antwan Walker? Local guy has a great HS and prep school resume. I really thought that PE should have used him a lot more last year (or redshirted him). He is the perfect "type" for modern college bball. A stretch forward with plenty of hops. I'm sure PE saw something in practice he didn't like but really, after it was obvious we weren't going anywhere this year, it would have been great to have him split time with Johnson and MD. I would hope he and Alonzo Jr become important parts of future Hoya teams. You want our 2nd team All-Big East forward to play less?....who was arguably the best player on the team? I like Walker but only 5 guys get to play at a time. Yeah but they don't get to play all the time. I'm not suggesting Walker would replace MD for significant minutes but maybe spell him and Kaleb for 4-5 minutes each during a game. Throw in a few minutes replacing Govan (as PE did during the year) and you might have prepared him better for next year and the year after.
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drquigley
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by drquigley on Mar 20, 2018 12:53:14 GMT -5
You want our 2nd team All-Big East forward to play less?....who was arguably the best player on the team? I like Walker but only 5 guys get to play at a time. I think MD would've been well served with a few more extended breaks this season. Nearly 33mpg in conference is too much for a guy built like him. I know I'm not around the team every day to evaluate, but the biggest rotation surprise for me this season (from the outside looking in) was the limited amount of minutes for Antwan. He looked athletic and coordinated just about every time he stepped on the floor -- not really out of place at all. Obviously he's a FR that needed to get his feet under him, but with our starting lineup and the loss of Sodom -- he was our ONLY frontcourt option off the bench. He got 49 total minutes in our last 12 games of the season, and more than a third of that came in the game Marcus didn't play. Exactly. If we've seen anything during the NCAA tourney this year it's how valuable guys like Antwan can be especially, if they've been properly developed, by they Junior/Senior years.
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LCPolo18
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Post by LCPolo18 on Mar 20, 2018 13:11:36 GMT -5
You want our 2nd team All-Big East forward to play less?....who was arguably the best player on the team? I like Walker but only 5 guys get to play at a time. I think MD would've been well served with a few more extended breaks this season. Nearly 33mpg in conference is too much for a guy built like him. I know I'm not around the team every day to evaluate, but the biggest rotation surprise for me this season (from the outside looking in) was the limited amount of minutes for Antwan. He looked athletic and coordinated just about every time he stepped on the floor -- not really out of place at all. Obviously he's a FR that needed to get his feet under him, but with our starting lineup and the loss of Sodom -- he was our ONLY frontcourt option off the bench. He got 49 total minutes in our last 12 games of the season, and more than a third of that came in the game Marcus didn't play. While I agree that it would have been nice to see him get a couple more minutes and that he looked athletic and energetic when he did play, he also looked out of position on both offense and defense on a lot of plays. His physical abilities allowed him to capitalize on fast break or put back opportunities, but in a set offense and defense it looked like it was tough to give him extended minutes. I'm very hopeful that he will develop over the summer into a solid contributor next season.
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drquigley
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by drquigley on Mar 20, 2018 13:51:28 GMT -5
I think MD would've been well served with a few more extended breaks this season. Nearly 33mpg in conference is too much for a guy built like him. I know I'm not around the team every day to evaluate, but the biggest rotation surprise for me this season (from the outside looking in) was the limited amount of minutes for Antwan. He looked athletic and coordinated just about every time he stepped on the floor -- not really out of place at all. Obviously he's a FR that needed to get his feet under him, but with our starting lineup and the loss of Sodom -- he was our ONLY frontcourt option off the bench. He got 49 total minutes in our last 12 games of the season, and more than a third of that came in the game Marcus didn't play. While I agree that it would have been nice to see him get a couple more minutes and that he looked athletic and energetic when he did play, he also looked out of position on both offense and defense on a lot of plays. His physical abilities allowed him to capitalize on fast break or put back opportunities, but in a set offense and defense it looked like it was tough to give him extended minutes. I'm very hopeful that he will develop over the summer into a solid contributor next season. When I think about it this may be my second biggest disagreement with PE. My first is that he never got these guys to learn how to play zone defense. My second is that since this was a "growing" year anyway, why he didn't either give Walker more minutes or redshirt him. Maybe after Sodom was lost he needed him on the bench. But I think PE just had too much trouble accepting any losses and so he gave guys like Dickerson and Mulmore minutes that best would have Benn given to retuning Junior Mosley and failed to incorporate Walker into game plans.
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saxagael
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Post by saxagael on Mar 20, 2018 15:19:43 GMT -5
I think MD would've been well served with a few more extended breaks this season. Nearly 33mpg in conference is too much for a guy built like him. I know I'm not around the team every day to evaluate, but the biggest rotation surprise for me this season (from the outside looking in) was the limited amount of minutes for Antwan. He looked athletic and coordinated just about every time he stepped on the floor -- not really out of place at all. Obviously he's a FR that needed to get his feet under him, but with our starting lineup and the loss of Sodom -- he was our ONLY frontcourt option off the bench. He got 49 total minutes in our last 12 games of the season, and more than a third of that came in the game Marcus didn't play. While I agree that it would have been nice to see him get a couple more minutes and that he looked athletic and energetic when he did play, he also looked out of position on both offense and defense on a lot of plays. His physical abilities allowed him to capitalize on fast break or put back opportunities, but in a set offense and defense it looked like it was tough to give him extended minutes. I'm very hopeful that he will develop over the summer into a solid contributor next season. I was seeing the same thing. Walker coming in played like a wing, but was used more as a light and athletic big. He had a long mid-range shot, but didn't use it much or anything longer. There were quite a few games where he got playing time and he looked really lost and out of place. The last couple games was the first sign that he could fit in as a role player. But I would hope that this off season he hones what he does well and adds to it so he can help much more next year. He has the capabilities to be dangerous.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2018 15:52:39 GMT -5
While I agree that it would have been nice to see him get a couple more minutes and that he looked athletic and energetic when he did play, he also looked out of position on both offense and defense on a lot of plays. His physical abilities allowed him to capitalize on fast break or put back opportunities, but in a set offense and defense it looked like it was tough to give him extended minutes. I'm very hopeful that he will develop over the summer into a solid contributor next season. I was seeing the same thing. Walker coming in played like a wing, but was used more as a light and athletic big. He had a long mid-range shot, but didn't use it much or anything longer. There were quite a few games where he got playing time and he looked really lost and out of place. The last couple games was the first sign that he could fit in as a role player. But I would hope that this off season he hones what he does well and adds to it so he can help much more next year. He has the capabilities to be dangerous. When, exactly? He played double digit minutes in 4 BE games - all were blowouts and a majority of those minutes were garbage time. In the other games (15, incl BET), he played 45 minutes total -- 3mpg. Those aren't real minutes. It's tough to draw great conclusions from that amount of time, but he rebounded the ball effectively, shot it fairly well, and never looked out-gunned athletically. Did he miss a few assignments? Probably. Pat certainly got in his ear a few times. But again, he was OUR ONLY FRONTCOURT BENCH OPTION. If Pat wanted to change the lineup, so that Blair started instead of Kaleb -- then he might have had somebody with which he could mix and match, at least a little. But he didn't... so I'll continue to wonder why he was so hesitant to use Walker. Perhaps when we have our post-season sit down, he'll answer that question for me.
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LCPolo18
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Post by LCPolo18 on Mar 20, 2018 17:22:02 GMT -5
I was seeing the same thing. Walker coming in played like a wing, but was used more as a light and athletic big. He had a long mid-range shot, but didn't use it much or anything longer. There were quite a few games where he got playing time and he looked really lost and out of place. The last couple games was the first sign that he could fit in as a role player. But I would hope that this off season he hones what he does well and adds to it so he can help much more next year. He has the capabilities to be dangerous. When, exactly? He played double digit minutes in 4 BE games - all were blowouts and a majority of those minutes were garbage time. In the other games (15, incl BET), he played 45 minutes total -- 3mpg. Those aren't real minutes. It's tough to draw great conclusions from that amount of time, but he rebounded the ball effectively, shot it fairly well, and never looked out-gunned athletically. Did he miss a few assignments? Probably. Pat certainly got in his ear a few times. But again, he was OUR ONLY FRONTCOURT BENCH OPTION. If Pat wanted to change the lineup, so that Blair started instead of Kaleb -- then he might have had somebody with which he could mix and match, at least a little. But he didn't... so I'll continue to wonder why he was so hesitant to use Walker. Perhaps when we have our post-season sit down, he'll answer that question for me. Tough to play a guy who is out of position so frequently when he does get playing time. Walker just needs time to learn and I’m sure he’ll get that this offseason. The fact that the Hoyas were in so many close games probably prevented Ewing from letting Walker play through it. If the team had more frontcourt depth maybe he would have been considered for a red shirt.
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daveg023
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Post by daveg023 on Mar 22, 2018 16:18:11 GMT -5
Looking at recruiting pages today both looking forward and looking back, it struck me that unless PE lands a few big fish in the Class of ‘19, it will be our first roster without a top 75 guy in a long time. I know HS rankings aren’t the only measurement of talent going forward, but it’s generally better to have more of these guys then not. So unless we land someone in the ‘19 group of targets, we might have our weakest roster relative to rankings since the Esh era.
Here are guys we’ve had and their ranking from ESPN which had data back to 2007:
2007 - Austin Freeman (7), Chris Wright (26) 2008 - Greg Monroe (20), Henry Sims (32), Jason Clark (45) 2009 - None *Hollis Thompson (NR) 2010 - Nate Lubick (48) *Markel Starks (76) 2011 - Otto Porter (42) *Mikael Hopkins (78), Jabril Trawick (80) 2012 - D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera (58) *Stephen Domingo (77) 2013 - Reggie Cameron (63) 2014 - Isaac Copeland (16), LJ Peak (31), Paul White (34) 2015 - Jessie Govan (67) *Marcus Derrickson (89) 2016 - None 2017 - None *JaMarko Pickett (95) 2018 - None
So as of now we’d be going into 2019 with no top 75 players and one top 100 player (Pickett) for the first time since the early 2000’s. When you see it laid out like this it’s amazing to see the fall-off in recruiting and the impact the 2014 class had on us in recent years.
Seeing this also reinforces the idea in my mind that next year we have to make the tournament while we have Govan and Derrickson, as 2019 we might be weaker. That’s why if I am PE I look at grad transfers to bridge the gap and maximize the roster next year.
As many have said the 2017 and 2018 classes were going to be tough for us, but 2019 will be telling to see if we can get back to the level of recruiting we had for a solid 10 year period that aligned with our best teams during JTIII’s run. It is truly a domino effect as if we win next year, players will want to come, and when players come we will win, and the cycle repeats itself.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Mar 22, 2018 16:29:04 GMT -5
One, using one set of rankings leads to crazy assumptions. That Copeland ranking... 247 Composite or RCSI is going to give you a much better look.
Two, I don't think the 2017 and 2018 classes are as dire as it looks there. Pickett looks great; Blair looks better than his ranking. Walker doesn't look Top 100 worthy but likely can add quality depth. Leblanc is right outside the Top 100 in composite, and Mac, well, I'm betting that ranking is wrong. We'll see on the 2018s, but 2017 is already performing better than its rank.
2018 -- which is not done and 2019 ARE vitally important.
I think it all comes down to what is available. If Akinjo or some of the other late '18s that are available want to commit, I'd prefer a quality, long term player over even a good grad transfers. There's haven't been a ton of true impact grad transfers, so I worry about the efficacy of grabbing one. Unless there's a star out there, I'd build for the future.
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daveg023
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Post by daveg023 on Mar 22, 2018 16:56:38 GMT -5
- I agree that ratings are misleading, and ESPN’s aren’t wheats the most accurate
- I disagree that grad transfers next year wouldn’t help. I’d much rather get a mediocre grad transfer than waste a 4 year scholarship on a 3-Star kid who can’t help is in JG and MD’s senior season
- I completely agree that 2019 is vital. We have to build back up the talent base. Every recruit won’t pan out, but the more kids we get in the mid 20s to 80s ranking wise, the better chance you have of getting an All-Big East player.
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 22, 2018 18:41:53 GMT -5
I have another idea: let's not under-achieve relative to our recruiting class rankings within the conference.
2017 ended up to 5th (from 10th) with the late additions especially Pickett. 2018 is currently 5th but a late pick up like Akinjo would likely boost us to top 3. Of course, 2016 was 10th and 2015 was actually 3rd. So our 4 year average right now is around 6th. Not great but good enough to compete for the bubble.
From 2011 to 2014 for example our classes ranked 2nd, 1st, 8th (Cameron only), and 1st. The reason our current recruiting "feels" worse is when we were landing top 3 classes consistently, we finished top 3 in the conference three times in 10 years. So it seems like we need the top-ranked class every year just to contend for the postseason. We don't or more precisely, let's hope we don't. Recruiting is on the way up. Landing top 5 classes is key but turning them into top 5 finishes (or better) is more important for momentum.
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daveg023
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Post by daveg023 on Mar 22, 2018 18:48:32 GMT -5
I have another idea: let's not under-achieve relative to our recruiting class rankings within the conference. Can’t agree more. Where was Providence? Butler? Creighton? They have gotten much more out of less than us. I’d like to see us move back to Top 3 annually, but equally as important I’d like to see us overachieve on a class for a change. Perhaps 2017 was a start...
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jester
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Post by jester on Mar 22, 2018 19:52:15 GMT -5
I just want to get to Loyola-Chicago level of talent.
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