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Building on success like Sabin…
Great news!
You guys should’ve already been familiar with Matt (City in Ohio)...
Matthew Cleveland > Darrell Jackson I’ll take that trade
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Really love
this
Cleveland is supremely talented. He and Miller are at about the same place production-wise when they transferred to Miami, albeit, Miller was playing in the A-10. The question with Cleveland has always been about putting it altogether, and if they can get Miller-like development out of him the next year or two, he's a potential first round pick.
This is huge
I’m glad we nabbed this dude out of the portal. Is this just a one year rental before he goes pro?
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He’ll be a True Junior this upcoming season, so theoretically he’ll have 2 more seasons of eligibility.
But you never know with some kids, if he has a great season & we go on another deep tourney run maybe he’ll test the waters.
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Shawn Marion 2.0
Don’t do this to yourself. Jordan Miller is much, much further along from a skill standpoint that Matt Cleveland. If you had seen Matt play in high school he would have looked exactly like the Matt Cleveland you saw play last season. Literally 0.00% development.
Now I lay the vast majority of the blame for this at Ham’s feet as they were a disaster last year and Ham seems to have checked out. And he seemingly destroyed Matt’s confidence to shoot a 15 foot jump shot.
Matt Cleveland can be great, and because of his athleticism, he has a higher ceiling than Miller. And I think our coaches will bring the best out of him.
But right now, Matt Cleveland is a far less productive player than Miller. Forget the stats and use your eyes.
My fingers are crossed that Matt gets right because I am a UM fan, and Matt is a good person. Coach L needs to work his magic and make this young man confident.
He is not. He looks like Miller but does not play like Miller…yet. Give Coach L 1-2 years and this can turn around. And if it does watch out because Matt is extremely athletic. With him and Wooga we will always be the most athletic team next year.
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Appreciate the first hand and info. This seems pretty clearly the truth, and if someone has strong disagreements with this assessment then they probably undervalued Miller last year. There weren’t 10 guys in the country like him as a producer, even though there are 100 guys as athletic. We can also forget Miller wasn’t the guy in 23 that he was in 22. It took time for him to develop.
I love Cleveland and am high on his upside, but give him time to develop before suggesting he’s a plug and play replacement for Miller.
He’s a better Rebounder & a little more athletic overall.
Jordan has a smoother game & is a more efficient scorer, he gets buckets with less effort.
Their 3 point shooting is mostly identical statistically, but from a variable standpoint that’s more of a matter of volume as a result of the offense than it is actual shooting ability.
Miller is a better Free Throw shooter, Defense should be around the same, but on paper Matt’s a pretty good Defender both on-Ball & guarding Bigger Forwards. But from a fit standpoint he’s basically like a right-handed Miller so he should be able to transition into the system pretty seamlessly.
Miller has great poise & clutch ability to hit big shots when we needed it most, he was never in a panic & just stayed within himself allowing the game to come to him, Idk exactly how we could measure Matt’s poise, but we’ll see how that goes.
Overall, he’s obviously not Miller & they’re different players with some overlapping similarities, but if he plays his best ball here that should be enough to supplement for what we’ll be losing from Miller from a Scoring & Rebounding standpoint. There’s no way to know what the impact will be from an intangibles & leadership standpoint, but we’ll still have some vets from last year’s squad that can take on that role.
I'd like to see us add another big who can help Omier with interior defense, rebounding and just giving L a chance to rest Omier more during games. It's possible we have that player in Nwoko but .. hard to pin your hopes on a true frosh.
To turn your question around, we would be SOL if Pack and Omier don't return. Especially Omier.
Yeah......I don't forget
