We Have a Tremendous Amount of

[Air Jordan]

Talent coming in the next few years, I wonder will III sit those guys on the bench as he has this years group. I think those guys should get some playing time just to see what we have. Sooner or later they are going to have to step up, and the only way they will be ready to play is to play them. I would like to see some of Thorton to see if his shot is really what it was made out to be. And I also think the Egerson will be playing more when BE Tournament time comes around. We need these guys to step up. Cant do much on the bench.

[JohnJacquesLayup]

From the reviews of Throton's Kenner League play, I don't think we really want to see his shot at all. I hope I'm wrong, but his playing time speaks for itself.

[SFHoya99]

I think Josh's shot is probably very good, if a bit erratic. Basing opinions off Kenner League is like basing opinions off Spring Training. Fun, and the only info you've got at the time, maybe, but a poor proxy for seeing a player in a real game.

We play a slow pace, so our players don't seem to get tired. Our coach places a high amount of value on winning and doesn't seem to like to empty the bench even in a 10 pt game. We wants the best team out there.

I don't know if Thornton's lack of PT is any reflection on him or his future except that he couldn't beat out Jon, Ashanti, Jesse, Marc or DJ for PT right this instant.

[JohnJacquesLayup]

Look, the point is people were absolutely THRILLED to have him sign as he was regarded as a lethal shooter with awesome range. How many shots has he taken this year? If he was as dangerous as we had expected, he would have beat out Jesse, Marc, and Jon when we needed the 3 ball to fall, rather than someone just running the point. The last few minutes of the Vandy game come to mind for me.

I'm not saying he's good, bad, or just okay because WE HAVEN'T SEEN HIM PLAY. Fact is though that awesome shooters get playing time.

[SFHoya99]

johnjacqueslayup said:

Look, the point is people were absolutely THRILLED to have him sign as he was regarded as a lethal shooter with awesome range. How many shots has he taken this year? If he was as dangerous as we had expected, he would have beat out Jesse, Marc, and Jon when we needed the 3 ball to fall, rather than someone just running the point. The last few minutes of the Vandy game come to mind for me.

I'm not saying he's good, bad, or just okay because WE HAVEN'T SEEN HIM PLAY. Fact is though that awesome shooters get playing time.

Yeah, I see your point, esp. on the last few minutes of the Vandy game.

And I'm not going to pretend to understand Thompson's subbing patterns. I thought he'd go deeper than he has.

But he's something that may explain Thornton's lack of play this year:

Highest individual 3 Pt % > 20 attempts is 55%.
Cook 45%.
Owens 47%.
Wallace 50%.
Green 37%.
Egerson 38%.
Bowman 33%.

(Josh is 50% in all of two attempts).

Tough to break the guard position on the basis of being a good shooter so far this year.

I'm hoping Josh steps in and is our Owens next year (on the shooting side).

[MCIGuy]

1)I don't why Josh has gotten a bad rap for his KL shooting. Did anyone actually read the book I wrote on it? I saw about seven of his games and while he took some bad shots early that summer he did still manage to impress with his ability to hit big shots and clutch shots when needed. People keep acting as if he went 1 for 20. The kid can shoot and unlike Wallace he can get his shot off with a bigger defender in his face. That's not a diss of Wallace (who is having a splendid season so far), just the truth. As the KL went along and Josh got under control (I'm thinking JTIII sent a memo to the Tombs coach) Thornton played better by taking good shots and hitting most of them. Give the kid a break.

-He may not have played many minutes or taken many shots this season but still his field goal percentage is good nonetheless. That may not account for much but its something.

-Bowman was already quoted a few weeks back commenting that Josh is the best shooter on the team. That's Brandon's opinions based upon obviously practicing with the guy all these months. According to Brandon Josh knocks in everything when he's shoots. That's pretty big praise from Bowman considering Josh is a frosh and that DJ, Wallace, Cook and Bowman himself are actually above average long range shooters themselves.

That being said I won't make this an issue anymore. If III wants to sit Josh and Spann for 99% of this season and let them learn from the bench then so be it.

[JohnJacquesLayup]

Good points, and I too hope that he can fill in for the points production Owens is responsible for. Having a Soph take the role of a 5th year next year would be promissing.

[Deleted]

Thornton stunk like something fierce shooting the ball for a little more than half of Kenner this summer. He certainly did start off on what seemed like a 1-for-20 clip.

However, as MCI pointed out, it got much better by the end of the summer. I don't know of any numbers or stats that are available, but the improvement was evident merely by watching the games, of which I saw all but a couple (three maybe?).

[CO_Hoya]

For as little time as he's getting this year, I'd expect him to move solidly into the rotation next, since we're losing 3 of our 6 outside threats, and a lot of guard minutes.

[MCIGuy]

buffalohoya said:

Thornton stunk like something fierce shooting the ball for a little more than half of Kenner this summer. He certainly did start off on what seemed like a 1-for-20 clip.

It was never anywhere near that awful, Buffalo. Between writeups, articles and posts on HoyaTalk and HoyaReport we have essentially every Tombs game covered. And Josh's shooting was never anyhwere near that bad to actually seem that bad. In fact maybe I need to go back and check on those reports myself to make sure I'm giving the right info. But I'm pretty sure Josh was not close to being that off.

[hoya73]

I think it's natural for freshmen to have a hard time earning minutes (no matter whether it's the Princeton or whatever scheme you run). And there will be a spectrum of guys who eventually become starters (like Steve Martin, who played practically no minutes until his Junior year) and guys who never get off the bench. There will be guys thought to be really great coming out of HS who peaked in HS, like Anthony Perry (though many would say he had better coaching in HS than at GU), and guys who come into college under the radar and star from day one, like Eric Floyd (who had no ACC offers despite being from Gastonia NC, in fact was recruited by JT II and Hugh Durham, period.) Most every player who never earns pt believes the coach undervalues him, some will seek another program. Sometimes they prove themselves right. I hope Ewing Jr. is a case of that. It's cool to root for more pt for a guy you think will be good when given the minutes, Thornton or whoever. That's the fun of being a fan.
I hope we all agree that coach really knows best, (at least with this coach), but it'still fun to adopt players as favorites, both starters and benchwarmers.

[DuddingtonHoya]

The one game at MCI where Josh got some good minutes I thought he looked pretty good. He's quick with the ball and had a good stroke. In the Providence game when none of the guards III put in could pass/dribble/shoot without turning over the ball, I was pulling my hair out for Thorton to get in. If III's not going to put in Thorton when Ashanti, Jon, and Sapp are all down, then he's not going to be putting Thorton in at all.

[RBHoya]

h

hoya73 said:

It's cool to root for more pt for a guy you think will be good when given the minutes, Thornton or whoever. That's the fun of being a fan.
I hope we all agree that coach really knows best, (at least with this coach), but it'still fun to adopt players as favorites, both starters and benchwarmers.

Nice point 73, totally agree, and I think that's exactly what you're seeing here. I never saw Josh at Kenner, I read all the reports and was hopeful that he'd find the rhythm. And against Fairfield, he looked good, and I was left wanting more, but he really didn't get a chance to get anything but rush one shot in the next 2 games, and it's to the point now where nobody knows where his next minutes will come. But you see a flash, you read the scouting reports, and you tend to think he can do it. We all want someone to come in and just start draining shots, and without much to go by, it's easy to think Josh may be able to do it. Sometimes reality is different though.

It's a phenomenon you see a lot of though. I remember a few years back, Knicks fans were all clamoring for Lavor Postell to get playing time, and wanting the Knicks to sign Shaheen Holloway. You see these guys look good and so you assume that they'd be able to succeed at a higher level given the opportunity, but there's no guarantee.

Hopefully Josh's game develops through practice and over the offseason and he can contribute next year. I'd like to see more of him if he can hit his J, but apparently he isn't ready yet. I wouldn't be shocked to see III employ a 3 guard rotation (Jon, Jessie, Marc) or go with 4 guards and not include Josh (Jeremiah or Tyler being the 4th), but we could really use a shooter. It'd be cool if he could develop into a specialist, so he wouldn't necessarily be in the regular 8 man rotation, but called upon every few games or so to bring an offensive spark.

[Deleted]

mciguy said:

It was never anywhere near that awful, Buffalo. Between writeups, articles and posts on HoyaTalk and HoyaReport we have essentially every Tombs game covered. And Josh's shooting was never anyhwere near that bad to actually seem that bad. In fact maybe I need to go back and check on those reports myself to make sure I'm giving the right info. But I'm pretty sure Josh was not close to being that off.

He wasn't that far off. I know his shooting actually wasn't that bad. All I said was, it seemed like it was. Any normal player who has a couple bad shooting games, sobeit. But a guy who's supposed to be a lights-out shooter having a good handful of poor shooting games in a row exaggerates the poor showing.

In other words, if Egerson had had four or five poor shooting games in a row it might not be a big deal. But since Thornton had the rep of being a nasty shooter, more attention was paid there... even if he, hypothetically, had shot the same percentage over those games.

[Air Jordan]

We need to see what the bench can do fellas. I have seen two games this week one being DUKE and one being NORTH CAROLINA and they both have freshman starting. Not only that but at one point during the North Carolina game Williams subbed all five of his starters for bench players, and four of them were freshman. And it actually worked because the fresman got the team motivated and when he put the starters back in they went on a tear. We need to see more of our freshman fellas. It is obvious that our senior leadership (WELL uhhhuuu) isn't getting the job done. They disappear when needed, that game could of put us on the map. AND WE DID'NT GET THE JOB DONE. Once again I think heart is in question, or is it because we still have the Esherick kids. NEw blood next year thats for sure.

[RockawayHoya]

cornell said:

We need to see what the bench can do fellas. I have seen two games this week one being DUKE and one being NORTH CAROLINA and they both have freshman starting. Not only that but at one point during the North Carolina game Williams subbed all five of his starters for bench players, and four of them were freshman. And it actually worked because the fresman got the team motivated and when he put the starters back in they went on a tear. We need to see more of our freshman fellas. It is obvious that our senior leadership (WELL uhhhuuu) isn't getting the job done. They disappear when needed, that game could of put us on the map. AND WE DID'NT GET THE JOB DONE. Once again I think heart is in question, or is it because we still have the Esherick kids. NEw blood next year thats for sure.

Duke has the luxury of having a McDonald's All-American and Gatorade Player of the Year in Greg Paulus to start as a freshman. And Roy Williams is forced to start frosh out of necessity simply because he lost so many players to graduation/NBA last year. Plus, Tyler Hansborough is probably as good as or better than anybody we've got on our current roster, so I think it's not just convenient to say "Oh, Duke and UNC are starting freshman and winning, so we should too." It depends a lot on how ready the coach feels the freshman are ready to play.

[RBHoya]

Interesting tidbit I learned about Tyler Hansborough the other day:

Though he's a freshman, he is more than one year older than our own (sophomore) Roy Hibbert. He's a 20 year old freshman, Hansborough.

When you remember just how young Roy is, and you remember that a lot of these top kids are held back in school a bit to improve and mature, it's even more impressive that Roy is playing as well as he is for a sophomore big man.

But yea, being almost as old as the average college junior probably factors into Hansborough being able to contribute as well as he has as a 'freshman'.

[Air Jordan]

I feel our freshman are just as good, I'm not saying they are Mcdonalds AA or Gatorade players, but you cant tell me that these guys are that bad they cant see the floor. I mean when Egerson has gotten time to play he is mixing it up inside same with Crawford. And also Egerson has a nice shot. We need to ride these guys to get a spark, a boost, or something. That game against WVU was winnable and would of had us looking good because they are now ranked 16 in the country. But these guys just sit the bench as we watch the same guys turn the ball over and take ill advised shots time and time again. We need something different to happen, we have to find that spark off the bench. MOTIVATION

[RockawayHoya]

rbhoya said:

Interesting tidbit I learned about Tyler Hansborough the other day:

Though he's a freshman, he is more than one year older than our own (sophomore) Roy Hibbert. He's a 20 year old freshman, Hansborough.

When you remember just how young Roy is, and you remember that a lot of these top kids are held back in school a bit to improve and mature, it's even more impressive that Roy is playing as well as he is for a sophomore big man.

But yea, being almost as old as the average college junior probably factors into Hansborough being able to contribute as well as he has as a 'freshman'.

Great point, RB. I wrote that exactly same point on Brandon's thread when people were trying to say we had too high expectations for Brandon and too low expectations for Roy when dishing out our criticism.

[RockawayHoya]

Ill-advised shots? If anything, that's something we almost completely avoid. The turnovers I'll give you, but that's not to say our freshman are going to take care of the ball any better.