The ultimate contrast

[Elvado]

the approaches that Messrs. Monroe and Evans bring to the game.

Evans: I'm gonna get mine and there is no shot I won't take.

Monroe: I'll do everything I can to help my team win.

Never more clearly demonstrated than his feed to DaJuan after going baseline. Evans would have tried for a 360 reverse cram and a highlight.

[strummer8526]

Totally agree. That's what one of the guys I was sitting with said. Towards the end, he jacked up a three while double/triple covered. Meanwhile, everyone on our team moved the ball to get the best shot.

[MacHoya]

As athletic as we are, they were more athletic - we won because we played smarter / more team oriented ball.

[HeartAttackHoya]

have not been very impressed with Evans @ all from the three times I have watched him play, specially considering the hype coming into the season. only bj mullens and hopson have dissapointed me more from the top 5 star kids coming in

[lichoya68]

we saw street ball with great long athletes and team ball with gusty team players we won in ot ill take the hoyas who will get better and better adn did chris right had it to tyreke evans gave him six inches but had much more heart go hoyas

[The Stig]

Hey, don't dis street ball . That's where skills come from.

Take a kid with street ball skills, a good brain, and JTIII coaching and you'll have a great player. In other words, you'll have Jessie Sapp.

[PushyGuyFanClub]

To be fair, Evans was blowing past Chris Wright at will, but as is pointed out here, he'd generally try to finish over another defender than lay it off to the open man. Of course, Memphis got a ton of points in the paint thanks to Evans' penetration throwing our interior defensive/rebounding skill off kilter. He also threw some nice alley oops.

All of which is to say, he's not a bad player. Yes, he has some stuff to work on, but he's a freshman with a coach who's telling him to take whatever shot he wants. The good news is that Monroe has a superior skill set and is willing to listen to his coach. That's going to pay dividends.

Love our team. Won without our best stuff today. Played far superior def and reb in the second half. Summers starting to come alive. Depth may be an issue this year, but our starting five is as good as any other in the country.

[hoyalove4ever]

Dec 13, 2008 18:30:09 GMT -5 MacHoya said:

As athletic as we are, they were more athletic - we won because we played smarter / more team oriented ball.

I could not disagree more with this statement. Georgetown has the far more athletic team. Memphis plays at a fast pace, and they push the ball pretty well, but that does not mean they are more athletic. Here's how it looked to me:

- Chris Wright was by far and away the quickest player on the court, and it was NOT close. Jason Clark was also quicker than anyone on Memphis.
- Monroe was the most athletic big man.
- Summers had the best combination of quickness/ explosiveness and size/ muscle.

On the Memphis size, Dozier and Taggart are both explosive leapers, but do not possess really elite quickness. Evans has a solid build and decent quickness (I guess- his footspeed did not really impress me at all), but most of his penetration is based upon the fact that he has very nice handle, and he basically puts his head down and forces his way to the rim. Otherwise, who is a great athlete for Memphis? Witherspoon is slow as dirt (looked significantly slower than the AU guards to me). No one else stood out to me one way or the other.

Again, Memphis has decent athletes, but nothing like last year, and most of their perceived speed is really more skill in terms of pushing the ball up the court quickly and efficiently. Once our guys adjusted to the way Memphis was doing that, nothing about their physical ability overwhelmed us or really gave us problems at all.

[hoyalove4ever]

Dec 13, 2008 21:28:27 GMT -5 PushyGuyFanClub said:

To be fair, Evans was blowing past Chris Wright at will, but as is pointed out here, he'd generally try to finish over another defender than lay it off to the open man. Of course, Memphis got a ton of points in the paint thanks to Evans' penetration throwing our interior defensive/rebounding skill off kilter. He also threw some nice alley oops.

All of which is to say, he's not a bad player. Yes, he has some stuff to work on, but he's a freshman with a coach who's telling him to take whatever shot he wants. The good news is that Monroe has a superior skill set and is willing to listen to his coach. That's going to pay dividends.

Love our team. Won without our best stuff today. Played far superior def and reb in the second half. Summers starting to come alive. Depth may be an issue this year, but our starting five is as good as any other in the country.

Evans WAS blowing by Chris, but it was really just lazy D by Chris. When Chris actually moved his feet toward the end of overtime, he stopped Evans and forced him to spin and take a horrible shot. Again, Evans was putting his head down and lunging toward the rim. I give him credit for penetrating, but it was not primarily because of his quickness. Chris really needs to improve his on-the-ball defense.

[FewFAC]

Until we develop some reliable bench depth, we're gonna have some man defensive lapses.

[Filo]

While I completely agree on the point made in the intial post (Monroe v. Evans), I came away very impressed with Evans given all the negatives I have heard about him. I guess I'm just easy but, sure, he made bad decisions and tried to do too much by himself. But he is a freshman. The guy is highly skilled, and if he starts knocking down his outside shots and learning to distribute, watch out. Unfortunately for Memphis fans, he probably won't learn any of these skills under Calipari.

[tashoya]

I love Georgetown and all of our guys and all but to say that we're the more athletic squad is ridiculous. Memphis' athleticism is the main factor that kept this one close. Even if we were equally "athletic," they should stomp us on sheer size. Thankfully, there's more to being a player than being athletic.... see Jessie Sapp.

[tashoya]

By the way, if that read as a knock on Jessie, it's not. Love Jessie as a player. And I mean PLAYER. He's not the most athletic guy on the team. Gets every bit from every facet of his game. He can play structured ball, street ball, smart ball and balls out. It's what makes him so flippin' good.

[lichoya68]

at the end we hustled for balls we defened ESPECAILLY CHRIS ON MR. EVANS soo i do thinkj they are more athletic but we were as the post said more gritty in crunch time end of story and our youngins as calipari said to para phrase have developed quicker than theirs hmm coaching perhaps maybe yes go hoyas and love jesse because he came in as a great street player with grit the most grit on the team but has developed with coach as a great team and bball player good to start with street ball but brains and patience and coaching trupms street ball anytime go hoyas

[hoyalove4ever]

Again, they were not more athletic- they just play at a frantic pace.

I bet that Jason Clark could find a way to shoot 8-24 if JT III told him to basically just his head down and drive on every play. Clark is a better athlete than Evans, but he plays under control and within the system.

[Deleted]

Dec 13, 2008 21:43:32 GMT -5 hoyalove4ever said:

Dec 13, 2008 21:28:27 GMT -5 PushyGuyFanClub said:

To be fair, Evans was blowing past Chris Wright at will, but as is pointed out here, he'd generally try to finish over another defender than lay it off to the open man. Of course, Memphis got a ton of points in the paint thanks to Evans' penetration throwing our interior defensive/rebounding skill off kilter. He also threw some nice alley oops.

All of which is to say, he's not a bad player. Yes, he has some stuff to work on, but he's a freshman with a coach who's telling him to take whatever shot he wants. The good news is that Monroe has a superior skill set and is willing to listen to his coach. That's going to pay dividends.

Love our team. Won without our best stuff today. Played far superior def and reb in the second half. Summers starting to come alive. Depth may be an issue this year, but our starting five is as good as any other in the country.

Evans WAS blowing by Chris, but it was really just lazy D by Chris. When Chris actually moved his feet toward the end of overtime, he stopped Evans and forced him to spin and take a horrible shot. Again, Evans was putting his head down and lunging toward the rim. I give him credit for penetrating, but it was not primarily because of his quickness. Chris really needs to improve his on-the-ball defense.

In fairness to Chris, it looked like he generally gave up on defending after Evans took his third or fourth step on every drive. Evans' traveling is one part of his game that's NBA-ready.

[hoyalove4ever]

Dec 15, 2008 10:39:31 GMT -5 @cam said:

Dec 13, 2008 21:43:32 GMT -5 hoyalove4ever said:

Evans WAS blowing by Chris, but it was really just lazy D by Chris. When Chris actually moved his feet toward the end of overtime, he stopped Evans and forced him to spin and take a horrible shot. Again, Evans was putting his head down and lunging toward the rim. I give him credit for penetrating, but it was not primarily because of his quickness. Chris really needs to improve his on-the-ball defense.

In fairness to Chris, it looked like he generally gave up on defending after Evans took his third or fourth step on every drive. Evans' traveling is one part of his game that's NBA-ready.

Right- I called it "lunging," but traveling is really more accurate.

[hoyainspirit]

While Evans clearly has an excellent ability to drive to the hole, Chris was the victim of some excellent screens by the Tigers.

[I Bleed Hoya Gray]

I thought the Ultimate Contrast was Monroe vs. Macklin