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Player developement

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obfan

Redshirt Freshman
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Nov 6, 2017
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Coach has done a great job bringing the team up to a respectable level and has scored some very good recruits starting with Newton. IMO Lykes and Walker are now starters and along with BB they are some pretty good "gets" for Miami.

My question is player development.

I was not a Jekeri fan. I felt he did not develop enough and his senior season was a disaster. That bothered me. i also though Reed could have done more as I saw him as a very talented player please don't quote me his stats.

Now lets look at some current players and their progress

Newton - nope never happened
DJ - IMO nope. Out of shape one dimensional player who now has almost no value even as a practice player. Sorry nothing personal
BB - I do see him progressing slightly. Crashing the boards more. More confident. I see that as personal commitment not training.
Izundu - More skills than Jekiri but dead in the water unless you like fouls. No improvement
Amp- I like Amp he does a lot for us but he also gets beat way too often. Dead in the water. No improvement

Huell - hmm what the F happened to this kid? He got coached up bigtime by somebody. Does anyone know who and how this happened? was it our staff or a camp or a private Tudor?

This is very important. If it was one of our people his program needs to be developed and expanded greatly. We may have a superstar trainer here.
 
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Jekiri developed a lot at Miami. Was an Izundu level player as a Freshman and was significantly better by his Senior year.

Newton is not a very smart player. Only so much that can be done with him. My criticism of Coach L is that he seemingly refuses to put Newton back in his best role: 6th man.

Izundu hasn't improve from last year but his improvement from his Freshman to Sophomore year was gigantic. Was slightly better than Rodney Miller level as a Freshman but was a serious contributor last year.

So when a guy doesn't improve it's on the coaches but when he does (Brown, Huell) it must be somebody else?
 
Only disagreement I have is BB. He continues to rebound great from the Guard position. Scoring ability, though, shows no development, maybe even regression. Our pre-season hopes, and the projections of a high ranking and Sweet 16 and all that were, let's face it, predicated on Walker and Brown playing like All American, first round NBA draft choices. That may, in hindsight, may been unfair but ...

Those rating services need more "stars" to work with. If Lonnie is a 5 star, what does that make Trae Evans at Oklahoma?
 
Morrisey

Maybe I wasn't clear. If it was coach L and or his staff that is responsible I would be thrilled. I would like to know how it happened as i see it as an amazing feat. I do see a lack of player development here and a lack of an offensive plan. I would like nothing better than for coach L and his staff to fix it. This season IMO is a disaster because of the same reasons last season crashed and burned so hard. We have no muscle and we have no 1/2 court offense. We have 5 legit players right now and one is a five foot 6 freshman its really really bad

I don't want to drag up the old Jekeri argument that I frequently had we he was here so lets let that die please. i didn't like him maybe some of you did thats fine with me.
 
Izundu is nowhere near the talent of Jekiri. I think the real problem is L never had real top tier talented players and has no idea how to run an offense when you out talent the other guy. He is running an offense as if we have a bunch of real slow 2-3 stars.
 
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It is very a strange coincidence that since 1985 I can only recall one team that actually ran the court (the Larkin-Kadji team). Regardless of who was coaching.
 
Huell is the only big we've had with agility. So no kidding there is more room for advancement there. His improvement from freshman to sophomore is comparable to the advance Izundu made, but there is simply more athletic ability as a pay off. Both of them went from frail weaklings to looking the part a year later. Massive rise in confidence level. But since Izundu does not have good touch or instincts he's always going to pick up silly fouls, and have one maddening short miss after another.

I still think Izundu will help out in certain games. He needs to. Last night the referees were calling very few fouls. Neither team was in the bonus in the first half and it didn't happen in the second half until very late when we intentionally fouled a couple of times to push Duke to 7 fouls. In a normally called game Huell is going to pick up fouls and force Izundu to receive playing time. Against some teams like North Carolina and Florida State we'll need both of them out there for stretches.

Brown is not a natural scorer or shooter. It's been obvious since early freshman year. When he scores big once in a while it's mostly by accident. But since he arrived on campus I keep thinking..what NBA is going to be desperate for this guy? Maybe an NBA with winning scores in the 50s. Or a team in desperate need for a big guard whose only impressive skill is aggressive rebounding.

Duke was too smart to allow DJ to be a factor. Other teams will leave him alone and he'll make some big shots. He's so stagnant out there the entire offense bogs down, and it already bogs down as a general rule.

Walker needs to figure out what his role is. I can always tell when he's going to shoot. He gets the look in his eyes and he's taking off, no matter where he is. Once he makes that determination there is not going to be a late pass on the end of it, regardless if it's there. He is in more need to high level coaching than anyone else. The upside is there.

This team is more haphazard from possession to possession than any Canes team in recent history. I have no idea what they will do each time down the court and I'm convinced they don't know either. Early in nonconference the guy who sits next to me and I were already saying this was going to be an extremely erratic team, based on the roster and player skill sets. The one logical aspect is lack of scoring on the road. Our half court is so one dimensional you really have to be awful to allow this Canes team to score big on your home court. The Canes have no one who can vary his game and create a shot on his own from any spot on the court. That's been a glaring deficiency for years. Last night there were shots available from the free throw line area several times. But when the players got there it wasn't natural for them so they had no idea what to do and passed it up. Actually Lykes is the one guy who would create and take any type of shot. But with his height he knows he has to be careful in traffic.
 
obfan said:
Coach has done a great job bringing the team up to a respectable level and has scored some very good recruits starting with Newton. IMO Lykes and Walker are now starters and along with BB they are some pretty good "gets" for Miami.

My question is player development.

I was not a Jekeri fan. I felt he did not develop enough and his senior season was a disaster. That bothered me. i also though Reed could have done more as I saw him as a very talented player please don't quote me his stats.

Now lets look at some current players and their progress

Newton - nope never happened
DJ - IMO nope. Out of shape one dimensional player who now has almost no value even as a practice player. Sorry nothing personal
BB - I do see him progressing slightly. Crashing the boards more. More confident. I see that as personal commitment not training.
Izundu - More skills than Jekiri but dead in the water unless you like fouls. No improvement
Amp- I like Amp he does a lot for us but he also gets beat way too often. Dead in the water. No improvement

Huell - hmm what the F happened to this kid? He got coached up bigtime by somebody. Does anyone know who and how this happened? was it our staff or a camp or a private Tudor?

This is very important. If it was one of our people his program needs to be developed and expanded greatly. We may have a superstar trainer here.
Click to expand...

Amp has been our second most improved player this year. He has added the floater to his game and has also improved his driving and finishing ability. He has actually created for us this year where he's never done that in the past. Defensively, Amp is being asked to guard low post players and does a great job given his size. He's at a disadvantage every game and does everything he can to make it tough for the other player. He even was able to stop Badgley a few times yesterday and also had a great block on him that they called a BS foul on.
 
Thank you all for the very Civil discussion. We will never agree on everything and that would be boring anyway. Does anyone know what or who created the Huell we are seeing this season? I am simply amazed by his progress.
 
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Davon Reed was great his senior year. Not sure what you are talking about. Jekiri was a much better player as a senior than as a Frosh, not even close.
 
Awsi Dooger said:
Huell is the only big we've had with agility. So no kidding there is more room for advancement there. His improvement from freshman to sophomore is comparable to the advance Izundu made, but there is simply more athletic ability as a pay off. Both of them went from frail weaklings to looking the part a year later. Massive rise in confidence level. But since Izundu does not have good touch or instincts he's always going to pick up silly fouls, and have one maddening short miss after another.

I still think Izundu will help out in certain games. He needs to. Last night the referees were calling very few fouls. Neither team was in the bonus in the first half and it didn't happen in the second half until very late when we intentionally fouled a couple of times to push Duke to 7 fouls. In a normally called game Huell is going to pick up fouls and force Izundu to receive playing time. Against some teams like North Carolina and Florida State we'll need both of them out there for stretches.

Brown is not a natural scorer or shooter. It's been obvious since early freshman year. When he scores big once in a while it's mostly by accident. But since he arrived on campus I keep thinking..what NBA is going to be desperate for this guy? Maybe an NBA with winning scores in the 50s. Or a team in desperate need for a big guard whose only impressive skill is aggressive rebounding.

Duke was too smart to allow DJ to be a factor. Other teams will leave him alone and he'll make some big shots. He's so stagnant out there the entire offense bogs down, and it already bogs down as a general rule.

Walker needs to figure out what his role is. I can always tell when he's going to shoot. He gets the look in his eyes and he's taking off, no matter where he is. Once he makes that determination there is not going to be a late pass on the end of it, regardless if it's there. He is in more need to high level coaching than anyone else. The upside is there.

This team is more haphazard from possession to possession than any Canes team in recent history. I have no idea what they will do each time down the court and I'm convinced they don't know either. Early in nonconference the guy who sits next to me and I were already saying this was going to be an extremely erratic team, based on the roster and player skill sets. The one logical aspect is lack of scoring on the road. Our half court is so one dimensional you really have to be awful to allow this Canes team to score big on your home court. The Canes have no one who can vary his game and create a shot on his own from any spot on the court. That's been a glaring deficiency for years. Last night there were shots available from the free throw line area several times. But when the players got there it wasn't natural for them so they had no idea what to do and passed it up. Actually Lykes is the one guy who would create and take any type of shot. But with his height he knows he has to be careful in traffic.
Click to expand...

Hard to disagree but I mighta left out the "scoring 'by accident'" part. What does that even mean?
 
Awsi Dooger said:
Huell is the only big we've had with agility. So no kidding there is more room for advancement there. His improvement from freshman to sophomore is comparable to the advance Izundu made, but there is simply more athletic ability as a pay off. Both of them went from frail weaklings to looking the part a year later. Massive rise in confidence level. But since Izundu does not have good touch or instincts he's always going to pick up silly fouls, and have one maddening short miss after another.

I still think Izundu will help out in certain games. He needs to. Last night the referees were calling very few fouls. Neither team was in the bonus in the first half and it didn't happen in the second half until very late when we intentionally fouled a couple of times to push Duke to 7 fouls. In a normally called game Huell is going to pick up fouls and force Izundu to receive playing time. Against some teams like North Carolina and Florida State we'll need both of them out there for stretches.

Brown is not a natural scorer or shooter. It's been obvious since early freshman year. When he scores big once in a while it's mostly by accident. But since he arrived on campus I keep thinking..what NBA is going to be desperate for this guy? Maybe an NBA with winning scores in the 50s. Or a team in desperate need for a big guard whose only impressive skill is aggressive rebounding.

Duke was too smart to allow DJ to be a factor. Other teams will leave him alone and he'll make some big shots. He's so stagnant out there the entire offense bogs down, and it already bogs down as a general rule.

Walker needs to figure out what his role is. I can always tell when he's going to shoot. He gets the look in his eyes and he's taking off, no matter where he is. Once he makes that determination there is not going to be a late pass on the end of it, regardless if it's there. He is in more need to high level coaching than anyone else. The upside is there.

This team is more haphazard from possession to possession than any Canes team in recent history. I have no idea what they will do each time down the court and I'm convinced they don't know either. Early in nonconference the guy who sits next to me and I were already saying this was going to be an extremely erratic team, based on the roster and player skill sets. The one logical aspect is lack of scoring on the road. Our half court is so one dimensional you really have to be awful to allow this Canes team to score big on your home court. The Canes have no one who can vary his game and create a shot on his own from any spot on the court. That's been a glaring deficiency for years. Last night there were shots available from the free throw line area several times. But when the players got there it wasn't natural for them so they had no idea what to do and passed it up. Actually Lykes is the one guy who would create and take any type of shot. But with his height he knows he has to be careful in traffic.
Click to expand...

DJ wasn't a factor. Played 6 minutes last minute. Took three deep 3-points, 2 of them open looks and clanked them. He played 10 minutes against Clemson. Unless he has a hot hand his minutes will continue to be reduced.

Brown is a slasher and he wants to run. We can only do that in parts and in turnover transition. His mid shot is struggling. It wasn't great last year. Solid defender but he is really a 3rd option and probably shoots too much as it is.

Walker is still adjusting to the college game, but what I've seen from him is he is streaking at best.

Love Lykes. He got good looks beyond the arc, but missed. We need more assists from him.

Everybody is going crazy that we don't have a half court offense as though Larranaga can't coach it or doesn't have a plan. We could run a half court offense with Sheldon and Angel 3 years ago. Right now we have personnel and combo issues. I do think Larranaga blew the mix that last 10 minutes.
 
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CTCANE said:
Davon Reed was great his senior year. Not sure what you are talking about. Jekiri was a much better player as a senior than as a Frosh, not even close.
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Yeah Reed, Jekiri, Larkin, Kadji, Murphy, and others developed well. Futile thread. OP even said he doesn't want to discuss stats just what he feels.
 
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I said Jekiri didn't develop enough. I stand by that Maybe it was his own fault
I said IMO Reed could have done more and I stand by that. Maybe it was his own fault or I was wrong about his potential.
I never mentioned Larkin, Kadji, Murphy.
I never said nobody ever developed here.
I said I am amazed how well Heull has developed and would like to know how it was done. Do you know or not?
 
obfan said:
I said Jekiri didn't develop enough. I stand by that Maybe it was his own fault
I said IMO Reed could have done more and I stand by that. Maybe it was his own fault or I was wrong about his potential.
I never mentioned Larkin, Kadji, Murphy.
I never said nobody ever developed here.
I said I am amazed how well Heull has developed and would like to know how it was done. Do you know or not?
Click to expand...

Fair enough. All I know in regards to Huell is that he worked really hard on his own during the offseason. In one of Coach L's preseason interviews he said that Huell was showing up an hour and a half before our AM practices to work on his own. It wasn't stated if a coach was present with Huell or if Huell was just working on his own.
 
I'm not sure what more you expected from Reed. I would take 10 Reed's on my team. Would be a hard team to beat.
 
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I thought Reed was a very special talent. I wanted him to be his best thats all. IMO he held back a little. Maybe it was coaching or maybe it was his personality. When he was aggressive he was almost unstoppable. I wanted more of that
 
Thank you JTH. I hope others here can add to that as I am awed by his progress - physically stronger = mentally much more confident - technique much more refined. As a longtime youth coach I rarely if ever saw that much improvement in one season and would like to know how it was done. Reminds me of a kid going through puberty in football
 
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