[quote=“NinerWupAss, post:62, topic:29672”][quote=“9erken, post:61, topic:29672”]I think the problem with Phil Jones’ treatment is fans expected too much of him early in his career. Everyone seemed to think he’d be a finished product his first year playing. He progressed every year, like most big men post players do (that we get, even when it’s thanks to poor academics), but a number of posters ripped him early in his development and seemed to be writing him off completely by concluding he’d never give us much, he was not a D1 talent, etc. His game was never really a power game even his senior year, but he did learn to play better D and be more consistent on offense.
Unless you just want to hold unrealistic expectations and make negative comments, players like this should be expected to produce very little early, and then may develop into a productive player junior/senior year. Getting really tall post players that can produce early in their career usually means we got a recruiting steal.
There is an alternative. Recruit undersized post guys that the stronger programs overlook because they aren’t tall enough, but who are more ready to play at the D1 level in terms of skill and athleticism. They probably have a lower ceiling, but will give you more consistent production earlier and have less risk of being a total bust. I sometimes wonder if we shouldn’t do more of this, though I also make comments about recruits’ heights versus position. The new juco recruit will be interesting, as he seems to fit this mold.[/quote]
It’s true. The big guys we do get that come in decently ranked like Phil or highly ranked like Iti, do get saddled with unrealistic expectations due to their rankiing. Their failure is really about living up to a bill of goods that has been sold to fans by their rankings nto really a knock on their games. Our smaller undersized guys, Kelvin easily comes to mind or big men with no significant expectations, Wade Helliwell or Kenny Whitehead seemed to get by without too much negative stuff from fans. Iti would have been loved here if it wasnt for that ESPN #1 rated center thing.
As for Phil I think my criticism really centered around the fact that he was a toy poodle in a mastiff body. Not just his game, but who he was. When he got mad he played better. Too bad we didn’t have a coaching staff that knew how to get him mentally prepared for the game.[/quote]
there is this one, overriding imponderable–we’ll never know what phil would have been had he had a coach who pushed him and was capable of extracting the very best basketball he had in him. i rarely, if ever, criticized major when he was here, but i had/have grave questions about his ability to get the most out of kids. any of them.
price might turn out to have the same problem. if you think about it, he hasn’t had to deal with kids who played b/c they were simply the tallest or quickest or most athletic on their last team. he’s been dealing with pros who have mostly already learned to work.
my guess is that that won’t be a problem. rather i suspect it is more likely that some kids will be making appointments with the AD to discuss how hard practices are. we won’t have/keep many toy poodles
