Post by FLHoya on Jul 30, 2006 1:04:51 GMT -5
Roy Hibbert is the new Tate George.
In an otherwise forgettable blowout that saw Clyde's destroy the Bulldogs 91-64, Roy Hibbert made two show-stopping plays that brought the crowd out of its slumber.
I arrived 20-25 minutes before the start of the Clyde's game to find that (I'm guessing) the previous game hadn't gone off. Instead, I watched Roy warm up for some of that period. His "shot selection" if you will was really intriguing--he worked on the deep baseline jumper, eventually moving out to three point range, where for a while he was hitting on a roughly 50% clip. Each shot made seemed to do about three revolutions around the rim before falling through--one of the most bizarre strings of shots I've seen b/c they all did that.
I only mention this to (a) make certain people salivate over the thought that maybe Roy's thinking of trying a 3 pointer in a game and ending 2 solid years of student fan frustration; (b) preface the final play of the first half of the Clyde's game.
With about 3-4 seconds to go in the half, Clyde's was inbounding under the Bulldogs' basket. The play was, essentially, the Tate George play UConn pulled against Clemson in the NCAA tournament (maybe Clyde's was inspired by the orange jerseys). A baseball pass was fired to Roy in the same corner where he'd been practicing 3's prior to the game. He caught, turned, and was clobbered as he shot the ball. And a mighty roar went up from the crowd (ummm...sort of
).
Roy Hibbert...shooting...three!!!!!!
He made all of them.
In the second half, Roy decided to play a little Magic Johnson (wouldn't it be great if Roy got a late night talk show on GUTV next year?). Took the ball at about his own free throw line and proceeded to go behind the back TWICE to elude defenders at midcourt without breaking stride, and fired a no look shovel pass to that Linus guy at the three point line. At this point the crowd is going nuts, and I don't think I've ever seen a Kenner crowd want a shot to go in as much as they did for Linus right there.
It didn't go.
But the folks were impressed with Capt. Spin-o-Rama.
As for the game, Clyde's turned a 49-36 halftime lead into a 91-64 victory. Aside from Roy's tours de force, not much to report really...in fact, it was one of the more "summer league" games so far this year in the summer league: not a lot of defense, players jogging/walking back, Deron Washington dunking about 5 dozen times. In fact, both Roy and Jessie sat out good chunks of the game and the tempo/quality wasn't really affected either way.
Roy Hibbert: 25 pts, 8-10, 9-11 FTs, 6RBs, 4A, 3 Blks
The previous two plays stand on their own. Roy wasn't feasting in this game as he has in other games. Deron Washington was prob. the player of the game for Clyde's with lots of acrobatics. Roy did have his moments, a few dunks, a bank shot in the post, and a nice back door cut to Jessie (interesting to see if that translates to the season b/c they've done it a lot as teammates so far this summer).
He dd get ample opportunity to convert from the line, as he was fouled 6 times at my count. Something that's increased over the summer, esp. since that infamous M&A game where he demolished the GMU guy. Possible/likely/certain (?) that Roy will see his FT opps increase this year as teams see to double down and possibly hack him to prevent easier scoring chances. He's not exactly Shaq from the line though, as his career stats and summer stats so far bear out.
One caveat: he prob. wasn't playing at full speed today...not really running back on defense, playing it like, well, a summer league game.
Ultimately, the little pre-game workout I saw intrigued me the most, watching him work on the mid-to-long range game to potentially add another dimension.
Jessie Sapp: 6 pts, 3-5, 0-1 3 pts, 3 RBs, 1A, 1Stl
Jessie actually didn't play a TON today, sitting a large part of the end of the first half. Clyde's went pretty deep today with its players. A nice if awkward alley oop to Washington in the second half, and an occassional flashy behind the back move or finger roll thrown in there. Not a ton to report, but this was a definite game to take it easy.
Tombs vs. Electro-Lite 2
The Chicken No. 1's beat "I Love the 00s...and this is...2002!!!!" by two points on a nifty inbounds play of their own in the closing seconds, capping an impressive victory if not a standout, all-time memorable one.
The "Summer League"ness of the game was established early on when Electro-Lite's jerseys evidently didn't show up, so the team played in a combo of wife beaters, cutoff T-shirts, and one shirt that may or may not have been some kind of very faded 2002 Maryland Nat'l Champs shirt. Betcha can't guess which guy wore that last one!
The Gatorades got off to an early lead, but for the most part the half (and the game) was played within a basket or two margin. Nothing near the quality of the last time I went to Kenner and saw Tombs-Clyde's, but quality teams for sure on both sides of the court. EL boasted not only GTown's Tyler Crawford and Josh Thornton, but also Cheyenne Moore (looks nothing like what I'd have expected from watching that MTV show), Byron Mouton (2002 Maryland Nat'l Champs in case you didn't know...I'll betcha I'm instantly a sad envious person in the mind of every Terp message board poster...well I am...but not about the 2002 Maryland National Champs thing, but about him no longer being a hired gun for the Tombs. ;D) and Tony Bethel.
A 40-38 Tombs lead at the half led in to a close and somewhat back and forth second half. As the clock wound down to the final minutes, several Tombs players stepped up and made contributions, including Jon Wallace going for 6 straight points at one point in what had been a tie game, Jeremiah Rivers making an assertive play on a break to earn FTs with 20 seconds left up 1 (making 1 of 2), and the sweeeeeeeeeeeet GW basket.
7.4 seconds to go, game tied, coming off a timeout. Tombs inbounding under the EL basket. Rivers (I think it was Rivers) throws a baseball pass down court into what has become a 2-vs-1 situation in Tombs' favor. Jon Wallace goes up and beats his defender and flicks the ball behind him to Vernon Macklin who makes the uncontested dunk.
After a foul just across the halfcourt line (Tombs had two more to give at the end of the game) and inbounds pass with a little over two seconds to go. The ball finds its way to Tony Bethel about 2-3 feet behind the line at the top of the key. Takes a 3 for the win at the buzzer. If you're in the Classes of 2002-2005 you know the answer to this one already. If not and if you're curious, the answer to "Whaaaa happened?" is at the end of the recap.
Again, the individual performances themselves don't stand out from this game as opposed to others, given the pace/style of the game. But stats and small narratives can be helpful:
Jeff Green: 17pts, 3-7, 1-2 from three, 8-13 FT, 8RBs, 3A, 1Blk, AT LONG LAST 1 foul drawn against Byron Mouton.
Funny enough, that was one of the loudest crowd reactions until the final basket, when Green finally got the refs to call an offensive foul against Mouton, gleefully playing the role of the snide older Camp Counselor/Counselor in Training called upon to fill out a roster spot when the campers want to play pickup, who then whines/sarcastically converses with his fellow Counselor playing referee when he doesn't get the calls.
2002 Maryland Nat'l Champs
Anyhow, Jeff had a similar game to Roy, in that it was instructive to see how he'd handle taking a fair amount of interior punishment and going to the line for 13 times. All but 2 of those FTs were in the first half, as Jeff really did a load of interior work--brought the ball up less today and in general was more forward than point.
Dajuan Summers: 13 pts, 2-6, 0-1 from three, 9-12 FT, 2RB, 1A, 1Blk
Did like to see Dajuan get so many FT attempts though. Only 1-5 from the field in the first half but very workmanlike to cash in his nine points thanks to 6-6 FT shooting to close the half.
Vernon Macklin: 15 pts, 7-8, 1-2 FT, 3RB, 2Stl
Great game from Vernon today. Definitely stepped it up in the second half too...you can see on my notes a dropoff in the number of stat markings for Jeff Green in the second half and a serious spike in Macklin's. The slightly more frenetic and physical pace of the second half seemed to suit him...an alley oop, some blocked shots, few dunks...good stuff.
Produced the two funniest fan moments too. This one guy behind us was really getting into "encouraging" the players ("Show me something, Jon!"). After one of Macklin's blocks in the second half, the guy yelled out "IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!!"; then following a nasty putback dunk he assured us: "HE'S GON' BE AIGHT!!!!).
Nice to know.
And of course he had the game winning dunk on the second rather well designed end game play run by Hoyas on the day.
Jeremiah Rivers: 5 pts, 2-4, 1-2 FT, 2RBs, 2Asts.
He gets his minutes in consistently but can't seem to make a huge dent in the scoreboard. No overt reason why, it's not like Jeff Green wrested away ball handling duties today and JWall isn't turning into Chris Paul overnight. We did get to see him try his hand at pressure free throws, knocking down one of two with 20 seconds to go after smartly pushing an advantage on a fast break out of a press situation.
Jon Wallace: 21 pts, 6-9, 2-5 from 3, 3-3 FT, 3AST, 1ST
13 of the points in the second half, as well as all the assists that I recorded. Really stepped up the game again as the clock wound down in a close one. I mentioned the 6 point personal run he went on to break a late tie around the 3-4 minute mark.
The aspect of his game I see him working on most often lately in games is the mid to long range pull up jumper. Some success there today, but he's willing to use it at all ranges short of the three point line, so it adds that dimension to his game, although one wonders if he's got to be more proficient at going to the rim for it to be a legit "fake out" kind of move.
Couple sweet assists though, including two straight alley oops on consecutive possessions to Macklin and Green, and the final tip to Macklin. A coast to coast and-1 finishes off a solid performance for the guy who unlike Jeff Green isn't afraid of cows.
Both Electro Lite GTown players were used more sparingly, so these stats reflect fewer minutes. Neither player really did anything spectacular of note, so I'll run the stat lines:
Tyler Crawford: 4 pts, 4-4 FTs, 4 RBs
(I'm actually not sure I got everything of Tyler's cause I lapsed for a while on keeping attention to EL...the wife beaters thing didn't help).
Josh Thornton: 4 pts, 2-3, 0-4 from three, 2 RBs.
Look, I don't want to downgrade him to "The Swiss Army Knife", but sadly some of his attempts were getting scattered groans from people near me. There's nothing overtly wrong that I see (and who the hell am I to judge) about the technique, it's just a matter of shot selection. Too deep, often contested, and sitting in the stands it's kinda too easy to say "yeeeeeahhhh, he's gonna shoot it, he wants to shoot it...there it is...uhhhhhh"
SIDE NOTE: I spotted someone in the section closest to the old Hoya NBA jerseys wearing a shirt from the 2001 NCAA West Regional in Anaheim. GTown (of course), Stanford, Cincinnati, and
2001 Maryland West Regional Champs
My sked's up in the air as to whether I can/want to make either of the quartefinal doubleheaders this Thursday or Friday night. I'll figure it out once I see who's playing which day.
(WHAAAA HAPPENED?: Tony missed badly.)
In an otherwise forgettable blowout that saw Clyde's destroy the Bulldogs 91-64, Roy Hibbert made two show-stopping plays that brought the crowd out of its slumber.
I arrived 20-25 minutes before the start of the Clyde's game to find that (I'm guessing) the previous game hadn't gone off. Instead, I watched Roy warm up for some of that period. His "shot selection" if you will was really intriguing--he worked on the deep baseline jumper, eventually moving out to three point range, where for a while he was hitting on a roughly 50% clip. Each shot made seemed to do about three revolutions around the rim before falling through--one of the most bizarre strings of shots I've seen b/c they all did that.
I only mention this to (a) make certain people salivate over the thought that maybe Roy's thinking of trying a 3 pointer in a game and ending 2 solid years of student fan frustration; (b) preface the final play of the first half of the Clyde's game.
With about 3-4 seconds to go in the half, Clyde's was inbounding under the Bulldogs' basket. The play was, essentially, the Tate George play UConn pulled against Clemson in the NCAA tournament (maybe Clyde's was inspired by the orange jerseys). A baseball pass was fired to Roy in the same corner where he'd been practicing 3's prior to the game. He caught, turned, and was clobbered as he shot the ball. And a mighty roar went up from the crowd (ummm...sort of
).Roy Hibbert...shooting...three!!!!!!
He made all of them.
In the second half, Roy decided to play a little Magic Johnson (wouldn't it be great if Roy got a late night talk show on GUTV next year?). Took the ball at about his own free throw line and proceeded to go behind the back TWICE to elude defenders at midcourt without breaking stride, and fired a no look shovel pass to that Linus guy at the three point line. At this point the crowd is going nuts, and I don't think I've ever seen a Kenner crowd want a shot to go in as much as they did for Linus right there.
It didn't go.
But the folks were impressed with Capt. Spin-o-Rama.
As for the game, Clyde's turned a 49-36 halftime lead into a 91-64 victory. Aside from Roy's tours de force, not much to report really...in fact, it was one of the more "summer league" games so far this year in the summer league: not a lot of defense, players jogging/walking back, Deron Washington dunking about 5 dozen times. In fact, both Roy and Jessie sat out good chunks of the game and the tempo/quality wasn't really affected either way.
Roy Hibbert: 25 pts, 8-10, 9-11 FTs, 6RBs, 4A, 3 Blks
The previous two plays stand on their own. Roy wasn't feasting in this game as he has in other games. Deron Washington was prob. the player of the game for Clyde's with lots of acrobatics. Roy did have his moments, a few dunks, a bank shot in the post, and a nice back door cut to Jessie (interesting to see if that translates to the season b/c they've done it a lot as teammates so far this summer).
He dd get ample opportunity to convert from the line, as he was fouled 6 times at my count. Something that's increased over the summer, esp. since that infamous M&A game where he demolished the GMU guy. Possible/likely/certain (?) that Roy will see his FT opps increase this year as teams see to double down and possibly hack him to prevent easier scoring chances. He's not exactly Shaq from the line though, as his career stats and summer stats so far bear out.
One caveat: he prob. wasn't playing at full speed today...not really running back on defense, playing it like, well, a summer league game.
Ultimately, the little pre-game workout I saw intrigued me the most, watching him work on the mid-to-long range game to potentially add another dimension.
Jessie Sapp: 6 pts, 3-5, 0-1 3 pts, 3 RBs, 1A, 1Stl
Jessie actually didn't play a TON today, sitting a large part of the end of the first half. Clyde's went pretty deep today with its players. A nice if awkward alley oop to Washington in the second half, and an occassional flashy behind the back move or finger roll thrown in there. Not a ton to report, but this was a definite game to take it easy.
Tombs vs. Electro-Lite 2
The Chicken No. 1's beat "I Love the 00s...and this is...2002!!!!" by two points on a nifty inbounds play of their own in the closing seconds, capping an impressive victory if not a standout, all-time memorable one.
The "Summer League"ness of the game was established early on when Electro-Lite's jerseys evidently didn't show up, so the team played in a combo of wife beaters, cutoff T-shirts, and one shirt that may or may not have been some kind of very faded 2002 Maryland Nat'l Champs shirt. Betcha can't guess which guy wore that last one!
The Gatorades got off to an early lead, but for the most part the half (and the game) was played within a basket or two margin. Nothing near the quality of the last time I went to Kenner and saw Tombs-Clyde's, but quality teams for sure on both sides of the court. EL boasted not only GTown's Tyler Crawford and Josh Thornton, but also Cheyenne Moore (looks nothing like what I'd have expected from watching that MTV show), Byron Mouton (2002 Maryland Nat'l Champs in case you didn't know...I'll betcha I'm instantly a sad envious person in the mind of every Terp message board poster...well I am...but not about the 2002 Maryland National Champs thing, but about him no longer being a hired gun for the Tombs. ;D) and Tony Bethel.
A 40-38 Tombs lead at the half led in to a close and somewhat back and forth second half. As the clock wound down to the final minutes, several Tombs players stepped up and made contributions, including Jon Wallace going for 6 straight points at one point in what had been a tie game, Jeremiah Rivers making an assertive play on a break to earn FTs with 20 seconds left up 1 (making 1 of 2), and the sweeeeeeeeeeeet GW basket.
7.4 seconds to go, game tied, coming off a timeout. Tombs inbounding under the EL basket. Rivers (I think it was Rivers) throws a baseball pass down court into what has become a 2-vs-1 situation in Tombs' favor. Jon Wallace goes up and beats his defender and flicks the ball behind him to Vernon Macklin who makes the uncontested dunk.
After a foul just across the halfcourt line (Tombs had two more to give at the end of the game) and inbounds pass with a little over two seconds to go. The ball finds its way to Tony Bethel about 2-3 feet behind the line at the top of the key. Takes a 3 for the win at the buzzer. If you're in the Classes of 2002-2005 you know the answer to this one already. If not and if you're curious, the answer to "Whaaaa happened?" is at the end of the recap.
Again, the individual performances themselves don't stand out from this game as opposed to others, given the pace/style of the game. But stats and small narratives can be helpful:
Jeff Green: 17pts, 3-7, 1-2 from three, 8-13 FT, 8RBs, 3A, 1Blk, AT LONG LAST 1 foul drawn against Byron Mouton.
Funny enough, that was one of the loudest crowd reactions until the final basket, when Green finally got the refs to call an offensive foul against Mouton, gleefully playing the role of the snide older Camp Counselor/Counselor in Training called upon to fill out a roster spot when the campers want to play pickup, who then whines/sarcastically converses with his fellow Counselor playing referee when he doesn't get the calls.
2002 Maryland Nat'l Champs
Anyhow, Jeff had a similar game to Roy, in that it was instructive to see how he'd handle taking a fair amount of interior punishment and going to the line for 13 times. All but 2 of those FTs were in the first half, as Jeff really did a load of interior work--brought the ball up less today and in general was more forward than point.
Dajuan Summers: 13 pts, 2-6, 0-1 from three, 9-12 FT, 2RB, 1A, 1Blk
Did like to see Dajuan get so many FT attempts though. Only 1-5 from the field in the first half but very workmanlike to cash in his nine points thanks to 6-6 FT shooting to close the half.
Vernon Macklin: 15 pts, 7-8, 1-2 FT, 3RB, 2Stl
Great game from Vernon today. Definitely stepped it up in the second half too...you can see on my notes a dropoff in the number of stat markings for Jeff Green in the second half and a serious spike in Macklin's. The slightly more frenetic and physical pace of the second half seemed to suit him...an alley oop, some blocked shots, few dunks...good stuff.
Produced the two funniest fan moments too. This one guy behind us was really getting into "encouraging" the players ("Show me something, Jon!"). After one of Macklin's blocks in the second half, the guy yelled out "IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!!"; then following a nasty putback dunk he assured us: "HE'S GON' BE AIGHT!!!!).
Nice to know.
And of course he had the game winning dunk on the second rather well designed end game play run by Hoyas on the day.
Jeremiah Rivers: 5 pts, 2-4, 1-2 FT, 2RBs, 2Asts.
He gets his minutes in consistently but can't seem to make a huge dent in the scoreboard. No overt reason why, it's not like Jeff Green wrested away ball handling duties today and JWall isn't turning into Chris Paul overnight. We did get to see him try his hand at pressure free throws, knocking down one of two with 20 seconds to go after smartly pushing an advantage on a fast break out of a press situation.
Jon Wallace: 21 pts, 6-9, 2-5 from 3, 3-3 FT, 3AST, 1ST
13 of the points in the second half, as well as all the assists that I recorded. Really stepped up the game again as the clock wound down in a close one. I mentioned the 6 point personal run he went on to break a late tie around the 3-4 minute mark.
The aspect of his game I see him working on most often lately in games is the mid to long range pull up jumper. Some success there today, but he's willing to use it at all ranges short of the three point line, so it adds that dimension to his game, although one wonders if he's got to be more proficient at going to the rim for it to be a legit "fake out" kind of move.
Couple sweet assists though, including two straight alley oops on consecutive possessions to Macklin and Green, and the final tip to Macklin. A coast to coast and-1 finishes off a solid performance for the guy who unlike Jeff Green isn't afraid of cows.
Both Electro Lite GTown players were used more sparingly, so these stats reflect fewer minutes. Neither player really did anything spectacular of note, so I'll run the stat lines:
Tyler Crawford: 4 pts, 4-4 FTs, 4 RBs
(I'm actually not sure I got everything of Tyler's cause I lapsed for a while on keeping attention to EL...the wife beaters thing didn't help).
Josh Thornton: 4 pts, 2-3, 0-4 from three, 2 RBs.
Look, I don't want to downgrade him to "The Swiss Army Knife", but sadly some of his attempts were getting scattered groans from people near me. There's nothing overtly wrong that I see (and who the hell am I to judge) about the technique, it's just a matter of shot selection. Too deep, often contested, and sitting in the stands it's kinda too easy to say "yeeeeeahhhh, he's gonna shoot it, he wants to shoot it...there it is...uhhhhhh"
SIDE NOTE: I spotted someone in the section closest to the old Hoya NBA jerseys wearing a shirt from the 2001 NCAA West Regional in Anaheim. GTown (of course), Stanford, Cincinnati, and
2001 Maryland West Regional Champs
My sked's up in the air as to whether I can/want to make either of the quartefinal doubleheaders this Thursday or Friday night. I'll figure it out once I see who's playing which day.
(WHAAAA HAPPENED?: Tony missed badly.)
