Some Jon Rothstein tweets from ISU practice
- Thread starter Dryburn
- Start date
- Mar 27, 2006
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right... "How did ever Iowa come up? After all, I'm just a simple Badger's fan."
if morris gets in any sort of foul trouble, or god forbid injured, there is a huge dropoff at PG that was not there last year.
i would feel better if custer had any experience, but he is not as talented or as college-ready as MM
i would feel better if custer had any experience, but he is not as talented or as college-ready as MM
I am curious as to what degree BDJ can be a primary ball-handler. Backcourts with two or more of those guys are often lethal come March (Kane & Morris or JT, Nurse, & Horton). Having two primary ball-handlers to go with our forwards that can pull away interior defenders and wings that can shoot....well, we saw the results last year.
BDJ's quality of play has the unknown factor to me similar to White. I think we have heard/read comments from him and Fred about many of the things discussed here in regards to his game under Fred. Huge, huge potential, but some of the intricacies of spacing, shot-selection, and general advanced coaching are new to him.
right... "How did ever Iowa come up? After all, I'm just a simple Badger's fan."
not a single person mentioned iowa in this thread until the usual ******* crew (and now their fearless leader) chimed in with the typical unfunny BS
Bold statement from someone who's never seen Custer play against college talent before
hes an above average ball handler. he would be a potential disaster at PG for an extended stretch.
not really. you think all these kids havent played each other for the past 6 years?
First, I am not sure why you think that Custer is not as talented or not as college-ready as Monte. Monte didn't play much early in the year because he wasn't ready. Second, the way Fred plays, Niang will be a point guard at times. Third, we have 3 fairly capable two guards that can be used in a pinch if Monte, Custer, or Niang are all out....Naz, BDJ, and Matt.
If Iowa State gets the injury bug or in foul trouble, of course it will hurt them. But it isn't that much different than last year.
Come on. this does not have to be difficul, or a ******* match. Clay is a nice prospect but there is plenty of speculation whether he is a true point guard or a short shooting guard. he also needs to put on good weight.He is also now not only playing against his class but the three classes above him. It is just common sense.
Common sense wouldn't have told me Monte would shatter the A/T ratio record as a freshman last year. But it happened.
So was Nurse, more or less, but he looked a lot better as primary-ball handler #2 with JT. I suppose we would have to define primary ballhandler- I do not think that means exclusively pg. Morris will be the guy for the team, like JT was in 1999-2000. Can BDJ play a big role in alleviating that load for Morris? I think he may be able to. Put another way, I agree that BDJ is probably not a primary-ballhandler on a team without a pg, but on a team with a guy like Morris (and our spacing in general), he may be able to be one.
Until I hear otherwise, I will assume that he can play 5-10 min/game at a decent level.
As with most teams, you would rather not be in a position where you lose your stud PG (Morris) and have to use an unknown FR PG, but in our system, all you have to do is get the ball down the court. Fred will use BDJ and Niang to get us into our offense, plus Nader is more than capable of initiating offense.
You're speculating just as much as anyone else on this thread.
You know who else has no experience? Every other freshman. Hoiberg will have Custer prepared.
I would assume the same. If you notice I said PROVEN point guard depth. It's not like a flagged this as some huge weakness, but common sense and comprehension were once again lost in the rush to HOKS HERP DERP.
Link to the speculation whether he's a true point guard? Also he weighs the same as Monte did coming in
You obviously haven't seen him play. Not that that's a surprise. He's not going to create off the dribble for himself or others. He's not going to lock down a good creator. He's going to find open guys within the offense and knock down a decent percentage of open shots.
I don't think ball handling is going to be the first and biggest issue with this team.
Thinking of potential weaknesses, let's think of last year's weakness (for debate):
-size/defense down low in a manner that doesn't get Georges and Melvin in foul trouble
-defensive spacing overall... we could have really used a Babb for Napier that one game...
Really most of the "weakness" of last year's team was on the defense side. They could score with the best of them, and usually did, which wasn't that hard to do with Kane/Ejim/Niang and Hogue around and Naz/Thomas/Morris at range.
What I would consider the major questions to this team before we head into the season:
-defense... not sure if we really have any guys really "known" or "built" for that, save McKay, who maybe be awesome at that and able to cover for some of the defensive liabilities we might have (Niang can be, and giving significant time to true freshmen can have the same effect, though I would hope Thomas and Naz improve in this area)
-is there a "the guy"--I'm not too worried about that with Niang around on the team, and BDJ looks to be more of a traditional 2-guard version of Kane, but we'll have to see
-can people deal with being more/less part of the rotation, given I don't see a way in the end that more than 7-8 men have all that much for significant playing time, or even less come late in the season and tournament times once saving legs matters less
-rebounding (before McKay shows up)--maybe an under-appreciated part of losing Kane and Ejim
-is McKay--a guy who really hasn't played much basketball for awhile--going to adjust FAST to major conference ball, solidify that defense, and be able to relieve Georges and Hogue
I fundamentally worry about us stopping people more than us being stopped at this point with Fred around. Sure, he runs an uptempo, NBA-style game of better to outscore them than to play defense, but that's never been our strongest suit.
Thinking of potential weaknesses, let's think of last year's weakness (for debate):
-size/defense down low in a manner that doesn't get Georges and Melvin in foul trouble
-defensive spacing overall... we could have really used a Babb for Napier that one game...
Really most of the "weakness" of last year's team was on the defense side. They could score with the best of them, and usually did, which wasn't that hard to do with Kane/Ejim/Niang and Hogue around and Naz/Thomas/Morris at range.
What I would consider the major questions to this team before we head into the season:
-defense... not sure if we really have any guys really "known" or "built" for that, save McKay, who maybe be awesome at that and able to cover for some of the defensive liabilities we might have (Niang can be, and giving significant time to true freshmen can have the same effect, though I would hope Thomas and Naz improve in this area)
-is there a "the guy"--I'm not too worried about that with Niang around on the team, and BDJ looks to be more of a traditional 2-guard version of Kane, but we'll have to see
-can people deal with being more/less part of the rotation, given I don't see a way in the end that more than 7-8 men have all that much for significant playing time, or even less come late in the season and tournament times once saving legs matters less
-rebounding (before McKay shows up)--maybe an under-appreciated part of losing Kane and Ejim
-is McKay--a guy who really hasn't played much basketball for awhile--going to adjust FAST to major conference ball, solidify that defense, and be able to relieve Georges and Hogue
I fundamentally worry about us stopping people more than us being stopped at this point with Fred around. Sure, he runs an uptempo, NBA-style game of better to outscore them than to play defense, but that's never been our strongest suit.