J Kidd Beat this team game thread

4,233 Views | 75 Replies | Last: 10 days ago by bearister
HoopDreams
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Only 1 duke player under 6-5
stu
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Where are we going to find the NIL$ to keep Wilkinson?
oskidunker
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Jack got in but too late.
Bring back It’s It’s to Haas Pavillion!
barsad
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Looking for silver linings in a 21-point runaway and only finding some gray glossy spots. JW was great, but we expect that now. Rytis continues his streak of having good games only when we lose. Blacksher still the biggest bust of the season, yet is entitled to a season-long starting spot.
Is it too early in the season to just tear up the lineup plans, empty the bench, and see what we have hiding there for next year?
bearister
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barsad said:

Looking for silver linings in a 21-point runaway…..


Bears cover and pay!

Slainte
Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
I got some friends inside
“98 yards with my boys” Yeah, sure.
stu
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barsad said:

Is it too early in the season to just tear up the lineup plans, empty the bench, and see what we have hiding there for next year?
Yes. Winning a few more conference games will help us next year.
Johnfox
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Throw NIL bags at Wilkinson, Omot, and Stoj. Those are the big 3
barsad
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stu said:

barsad said:

Is it too early in the season to just tear up the lineup plans, empty the bench, and see what we have hiding there for next year?
Yes. Winning a few more conference games will help us next year.

I agree, but I'm not suggesting we don't go for wins. I'm suggesting that taking out two of our starters (Blacksher and Petraitis) and platooning those two spots among a deeper bench slate (JOJ, Mahoney, Campbell, Tucker, even Larson and Armstrong) could HELP us win those extra conference games. Combined those guys only played 34 minutes in the Duke game. They could play twice that and we'd learn a lot more about them. You can't know if someone fits until they're tested in a game.
6 more games to go, and best case scenario is going 3-3, probably 2-4…. I don't see testing the bench in those two spots as making a difference on that finish either way. The wins come down to how well we defend (we do need Rytis for that) and how well JW+Andrej shoots.
stu
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barsad said:

stu said:

barsad said:

Is it too early in the season to just tear up the lineup plans, empty the bench, and see what we have hiding there for next year?
Yes. Winning a few more conference games will help us next year.

I agree, but I'm not suggesting we don't go for wins. I'm suggesting that taking out two of our starters (Blacksher and Petraitis) and platooning those two spots among a deeper bench slate (JOJ, Mahoney, Campbell, Tucker, even Larson and Armstrong) could HELP us win those extra conference games. Combined those guys only played 34 minutes in the Duke game. They could play twice that and we'd learn a lot more about them. You can't know if someone fits until they're tested in a game.
6 more games to go, and best case scenario is going 3-3, probably 2-4…. I don't see testing the bench in those two spots as making a difference on that finish either way. The wins come down to how well we defend (we do need Rytis for that) and how well JW+Andrej shoots.
I agree about fewer minutes for Blacksher, depending on how he's doing in any particular game. I'm not sure about the end of the bench since I haven't seen much there.
HoopDreams
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we need to maximize wins ... those second team players don't have a lot of upside

we need blacksher to run the team and score ... he probably is our best shooter when open

Our scorers are Wilkinson, Andrej and Blacksher

When we take any of those 3 off the court we have a hard time scoring
Big C
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Calfan92 said:

Can someone buy Madsen some man clothing. He looks like a junior in high school walking to class a half hour late.

Agree, but the way he dresses is part of his "I'm authentic" schtick.
Big C
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barsad said:

Looking for silver linings in a 21-point runaway and only finding some gray glossy spots. JW was great, but we expect that now. Rytis continues his streak of having good games only when we lose. Blacksher still the biggest bust of the season, yet is entitled to a season-long starting spot.
Is it too early in the season to just tear up the lineup plans, empty the bench, and see what we have hiding there for next year?

There's no one "hiding" on the bench who can play. We need better shooting and more length.
Big C
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stu said:

Where are we going to find the NIL$ to keep Wilkinson?

How much do you think a Kansas, a Duke or a Gonzaga would value Wilkinson? I don't think he would command one of the top three "salaries" on one of those teams. He's a "microwave" third guard on a really good team.
barsad
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HoopDreams said:

we need to maximize wins ... those second team players don't have a lot of upside

we need blacksher to run the team and score ... he probably is our best shooter when open

Our scorers are Wilkinson, Andrej and Blacksher

When we take any of those 3 off the court we have a hard time scoring

Yes on the first two, no on the third. The stats don't lie.
Blacksher has the 2nd worst FG% on the team (35.7%), only Campbell is worse. He is 5th on 3-pt % (35.2), but that is below the NCAA average, the 100th best NCAA 3pt shooter is at 42.9.
So I think we have to stop saying he's all we have for scoring… we can do better with more creative thinking on who can get involved on offense. Of course someone is your 3rd leading scorer when you give him 33+ minutes a game and allow him to hoist brick after brick until he makes a few for 10 points a game.
I have nothing against Jovan, he's an Oakland kid who I was rooting hard for at the beginning, but it hasn't panned out.
barsad
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Big C said:

stu said:

Where are we going to find the NIL$ to keep Wilkinson?

How much do you think a Kansas, a Duke or a Gonzaga would value Wilkinson? I don't think he would command one of the top three "salaries" on one of those teams. He's a "microwave" third guard on a really good team.

Ouch, kind of harsh. I see him as a Jerome Randle type, the most talented player on the team right now, so if he's really a third guard type for tourney teams as you say, we're in more trouble than I thought.
He's only a freshman, by his senior year he could be a star. I just hope it's for us, not Kansas.
RedlessWardrobe
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Big C said:

barsad said:

Looking for silver linings in a 21-point runaway and only finding some gray glossy spots. JW was great, but we expect that now. Rytis continues his streak of having good games only when we lose. Blacksher still the biggest bust of the season, yet is entitled to a season-long starting spot.
Is it too early in the season to just tear up the lineup plans, empty the bench, and see what we have hiding there for next year?

There's no one "hiding" on the bench who can play. We need better shooting and more length.
Based on these two posts, the one bench player we should be seeing more of is Mahoney. 6-9 guy who has a nice shot. Time to give him more minutes.
OdontoBear66
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barsad said:

Big C said:

stu said:

Where are we going to find the NIL$ to keep Wilkinson?

How much do you think a Kansas, a Duke or a Gonzaga would value Wilkinson? I don't think he would command one of the top three "salaries" on one of those teams. He's a "microwave" third guard on a really good team.

Ouch, kind of harsh. I see him as a Jerome Randle type, the most talented player on the team right now, so if he's really a third guard type for tourney teams as you say, we're in more trouble than I thought.
He's only a freshman, by his senior year he could be a star. I just hope it's for us, not Kansas.
Not to put words in BigC's post at all, and not demeaning JW, the big three would be looking at all the talent of JW but at six foot three plus. And they can get it. So yes, JW is real good, but a first off the bench guard at the Dooks or Jayhawks quality level teams.
Big C
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barsad said:

Big C said:

stu said:

Where are we going to find the NIL$ to keep Wilkinson?

How much do you think a Kansas, a Duke or a Gonzaga would value Wilkinson? I don't think he would command one of the top three "salaries" on one of those teams. He's a "microwave" third guard on a really good team.

Ouch, kind of harsh. I see him as a Jerome Randle type, the most talented player on the team right now, so if he's really a third guard type for tourney teams as you say, we're in more trouble than I thought.
He's only a freshman, by his senior year he could be a star. I just hope it's for us, not Kansas.

Wilkinson is already a good scorer, no question. Gonna be really good at that! On a top team (or at the next level), the question is, where does he play? Does he become a better facilitator and play the point? Or does he play the off-guard, in which case he's lacking length? He would need a backcourt mate with complimentary skills. Maybe he's an "instant offense" guy that comes in.

What's his future NIL value and NBA potential? Two interesting questions. Not clear yet the answers.
concernedparent
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barsad said:

HoopDreams said:

we need to maximize wins ... those second team players don't have a lot of upside

we need blacksher to run the team and score ... he probably is our best shooter when open

Our scorers are Wilkinson, Andrej and Blacksher

When we take any of those 3 off the court we have a hard time scoring

Yes on the first two, no on the third. The stats don't lie.
Blacksher has the 2nd worst FG% on the team (35.7%), only Campbell is worse. He is 5th on 3-pt % (35.2), but that is below the NCAA average, the 100th best NCAA 3pt shooter is at 42.9.
So I think we have to stop saying he's all we have for scoring… we can do better with more creative thinking on who can get involved on offense. Of course someone is your 3rd leading scorer when you give him 33+ minutes a game and allow him to hoist brick after brick until he makes a few for 10 points a game.
I have nothing against Jovan, he's an Oakland kid who I was rooting hard for at the beginning, but it hasn't panned out.
Yes they can. Jovan has a lot of weaknesses but he really is one of the few guys on the team who can reliably hit a 3. His problem on offense is that he has some terrible shot selection and is not a threat to drive. 35% is a respectable percentage, especially given the volume (2nd most on the team) and degree of difficulty of his shots. 5th best on the team is misleading because it includes Devin Curtis' ONE attempt, BJ Omot and Tucker's 17, and Mahoney's 24.

Where are you getting that the 100th best 3 point shooter is at 42.9%? Does that include random walk-ons that shot it twice the whole season, or role players that shoot 1 wide open three a game? Because 43% on enough volume to qualify puts you in the excellent to elite range. Jordan Mathews didn't shoot that over his college career, and I don't think even Steph Curry did either.
AunBear89
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bearister said:

barsad said:

Looking for silver linings in a 21-point runaway…..


Bears cover and pay!

Slainte

Beat me to it! We should donate our winnings to NIL to keep JW.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." -- (maybe) Benjamin Disraeli, popularized by Mark Twain
barsad
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concernedparent said:

barsad said:

HoopDreams said:

we need to maximize wins ... those second team players don't have a lot of upside

we need blacksher to run the team and score ... he probably is our best shooter when open

Our scorers are Wilkinson, Andrej and Blacksher

When we take any of those 3 off the court we have a hard time scoring

Yes on the first two, no on the third. The stats don't lie.
Blacksher has the 2nd worst FG% on the team (35.7%), only Campbell is worse. He is 5th on 3-pt % (35.2), but that is below the NCAA average, the 100th best NCAA 3pt shooter is at 42.9.
So I think we have to stop saying he's all we have for scoring… we can do better with more creative thinking on who can get involved on offense. Of course someone is your 3rd leading scorer when you give him 33+ minutes a game and allow him to hoist brick after brick until he makes a few for 10 points a game.
I have nothing against Jovan, he's an Oakland kid who I was rooting hard for at the beginning, but it hasn't panned out.
Yes they can. Jovan has a lot of weaknesses but he really is one of the few guys on the team who can reliably hit a 3. His problem on offense is that he has some terrible shot selection and is not a threat to drive. 35% is a respectable percentage, especially given the volume (2nd most on the team) and degree of difficulty of his shots. 5th best on the team is misleading because it includes Devin Curtis' ONE attempt, BJ Omot and Tucker's 17, and Mahoney's 24.

Where are you getting that the 100th best 3 point shooter is at 42.9%? Does that include random walk-ons that shot it twice the whole season, or role players that shoot 1 wide open three a game? Because 43% on enough volume to qualify puts you in the excellent to elite range. Jordan Mathews didn't shoot that over his college career, and I don't think even Steph Curry did either.

I don't have premium so can't post a screen shot of KenPom's player stats page, but anyone who wants to do some actual research and has 20 bucks can just go see it for himself instead of pontificating based on…. I don't know, pretty much no actual numbers?
Alex Chaikin of Lafayette is No. 98 (list doesn't go further than that, I was extrapolating to 100) at 42.9% with 51-119 shooting threes. And no, Ken Pomeroy is not dumb enough to not set an attempts minimum, no walk-ons with one shot on the list.
35% is NOT a good percentage when you look across a couple thousand plus NCAA college players.
Big C
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barsad said:

HoopDreams said:

we need to maximize wins ... those second team players don't have a lot of upside

we need blacksher to run the team and score ... he probably is our best shooter when open

Our scorers are Wilkinson, Andrej and Blacksher

When we take any of those 3 off the court we have a hard time scoring

Yes on the first two, no on the third. The stats don't lie.
Blacksher has the 2nd worst FG% on the team (35.7%), only Campbell is worse. He is 5th on 3-pt % (35.2), but that is below the NCAA average, the 100th best NCAA 3pt shooter is at 42.9.
So I think we have to stop saying he's all we have for scoring… we can do better with more creative thinking on who can get involved on offense. Of course someone is your 3rd leading scorer when you give him 33+ minutes a game and allow him to hoist brick after brick until he makes a few for 10 points a game.
I have nothing against Jovan, he's an Oakland kid who I was rooting hard for at the beginning, but it hasn't panned out.

I think Jovan actually has panned out, in that he is one of the top 8-9 players on the team. What modest successes we have had, he has been a contributor. The problem is that the top 8-9 players on the team aren't good enough.

Totally fair to critique individual players, but I feel like Blacksher is getting more "critique" than he deserves.
barsad
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Big C said:

barsad said:

HoopDreams said:

we need to maximize wins ... those second team players don't have a lot of upside

we need blacksher to run the team and score ... he probably is our best shooter when open

Our scorers are Wilkinson, Andrej and Blacksher

When we take any of those 3 off the court we have a hard time scoring

Yes on the first two, no on the third. The stats don't lie.
Blacksher has the 2nd worst FG% on the team (35.7%), only Campbell is worse. He is 5th on 3-pt % (35.2), but that is below the NCAA average, the 100th best NCAA 3pt shooter is at 42.9.
So I think we have to stop saying he's all we have for scoring… we can do better with more creative thinking on who can get involved on offense. Of course someone is your 3rd leading scorer when you give him 33+ minutes a game and allow him to hoist brick after brick until he makes a few for 10 points a game.
I have nothing against Jovan, he's an Oakland kid who I was rooting hard for at the beginning, but it hasn't panned out.

I think Jovan actually has panned out, in that he is one of the top 8-9 players on the team. What modest successes we have had, he has been a contributor. The problem is that the top 8-9 players on the team aren't good enough.

Totally fair to critique individual players, but I feel like Blacksher is getting more "critique" than he deserves.

I agree that he is one of the top 8 or 9 players, as a starter it's hard to be outside that. By "panned out" I meant "met pre-season expectations." I thought he was coming in to be the floor general PG, direct the offense, help others score and be a serious three-point threat that other teams would have to pay attention to. That missed set of expectations is not the only reason we won't be a .500 team this season, but it was one of the top 5 reasons. I hope Jovan goes on to do great things in his post-basketball life, but I can't wear rose-colored (blue-and-gold colored?) glasses.
Big C
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barsad said:

Big C said:

barsad said:

HoopDreams said:

we need to maximize wins ... those second team players don't have a lot of upside

we need blacksher to run the team and score ... he probably is our best shooter when open

Our scorers are Wilkinson, Andrej and Blacksher

When we take any of those 3 off the court we have a hard time scoring

Yes on the first two, no on the third. The stats don't lie.
Blacksher has the 2nd worst FG% on the team (35.7%), only Campbell is worse. He is 5th on 3-pt % (35.2), but that is below the NCAA average, the 100th best NCAA 3pt shooter is at 42.9.
So I think we have to stop saying he's all we have for scoring… we can do better with more creative thinking on who can get involved on offense. Of course someone is your 3rd leading scorer when you give him 33+ minutes a game and allow him to hoist brick after brick until he makes a few for 10 points a game.
I have nothing against Jovan, he's an Oakland kid who I was rooting hard for at the beginning, but it hasn't panned out.

I think Jovan actually has panned out, in that he is one of the top 8-9 players on the team. What modest successes we have had, he has been a contributor. The problem is that the top 8-9 players on the team aren't good enough.

Totally fair to critique individual players, but I feel like Blacksher is getting more "critique" than he deserves.

I agree that he is one of the top 8 or 9 players, as a starter it's hard to be outside that. By "panned out" I meant "met pre-season expectations." I thought he was coming in to be the floor general PG, direct the offense, help others score and be a serious three-point threat that other teams would have to pay attention to. That missed set of expectations is not the only reason we won't be a .500 team this season, but it was one of the top 5 reasons. I hope Jovan goes on to do great things in his post-basketball life, but I can't wear rose-colored (blue-and-gold colored?) glasses.

Well then, great minds think alike! When he first committed and even when I saw the Bears scrimmage in October, I thought Blacksher was going to be maybe one step better than he has turned out to be.
barsad
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Big C said:

Well then, great minds think alike! When he first committed and even when I saw the Bears scrimmage in October, I thought Blacksher was going to be maybe one step better than he has turned out to be.

0-8 to start the Duke game, ending 2-10. Can we call it four steps better?
Big C
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barsad said:

Big C said:

Well then, great minds think alike! When he first committed and even when I saw the Bears scrimmage in October, I thought Blacksher was going to be maybe one step better than he has turned out to be.

0-8 to start the Duke game, ending 2-10. Can we call it four steps better?

You can call it four steps better. I'm sticking with one. Okay, maybe 1-2. The size of a "step" should be standardized!
stu
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Big C said:

stu said:

Where are we going to find the NIL$ to keep Wilkinson?

How much do you think a Kansas, a Duke or a Gonzaga would value Wilkinson? I don't think he would command one of the top three "salaries" on one of those teams. He's a "microwave" third guard on a really good team.
True, but he's a starter and maybe a star on a lot of teams better than Cal is right now.
Big C
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stu said:

Big C said:

stu said:

Where are we going to find the NIL$ to keep Wilkinson?

How much do you think a Kansas, a Duke or a Gonzaga would value Wilkinson? I don't think he would command one of the top three "salaries" on one of those teams. He's a "microwave" third guard on a really good team.
True, but he's a starter and maybe a star on a lot of teams better than Cal is right now.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out about how much Wilkinson is going to cost us to keep. Heck, I can't even remember what they've been making last season / this season. Would you take the over or the under on half a mil?
stu
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Big C said:

stu said:

Big C said:

stu said:

Where are we going to find the NIL$ to keep Wilkinson?

How much do you think a Kansas, a Duke or a Gonzaga would value Wilkinson? I don't think he would command one of the top three "salaries" on one of those teams. He's a "microwave" third guard on a really good team.
True, but he's a starter and maybe a star on a lot of teams better than Cal is right now.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out about how much Wilkinson is going to cost us to keep. Heck, I can't even remember what they've been making last season / this season. Would you take the over or the under on half a mil?
I have no clue about NIL amounts but I suspect a positive correlation between NIL amounts and team rankings. If that's true then we need to spend more than we have been, whatever that might be. I also have no clue how much more.
BearlyCareAnymore
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barsad said:

HoopDreams said:

we need to maximize wins ... those second team players don't have a lot of upside

we need blacksher to run the team and score ... he probably is our best shooter when open

Our scorers are Wilkinson, Andrej and Blacksher

When we take any of those 3 off the court we have a hard time scoring

Yes on the first two, no on the third. The stats don't lie.
Blacksher has the 2nd worst FG% on the team (35.7%), only Campbell is worse. He is 5th on 3-pt % (35.2), but that is below the NCAA average, the 100th best NCAA 3pt shooter is at 42.9.
So I think we have to stop saying he's all we have for scoring… we can do better with more creative thinking on who can get involved on offense. Of course someone is your 3rd leading scorer when you give him 33+ minutes a game and allow him to hoist brick after brick until he makes a few for 10 points a game.
I have nothing against Jovan, he's an Oakland kid who I was rooting hard for at the beginning, but it hasn't panned out.
You are putting way too much on Blacksher here. I'm not here to defend him, but we need to be realistic about what team we have. Three of the guys that are ahead of him in 3 pt shooting percentage shoot at low volumes. All of them would be below him in shooting percentage if they missed one more three. I'm not interested in guys who have 17 attempts. The one guy who is ahead of him on any volume is shooting .361 to his .353. So yeah, hate to tell you, but he is one of our best outside shooters, probably the best. (though he is very poor from 2). I don't necessarily agree with Hoop's prescription, but let's be clear. Cal doesn't have a Blacksher problem. Cal has a Cal problem. We suck shooting the ball up and down the roster. Blacksher shoots at volume, so he is the poster child for our shooting woes, but, frankly, I don't see that taking away his shots and giving them to others is going to lead to more offensive efficiency. It's just going to spread the fan hate around.

Further - Hoop said "when open" which gets at a lot of the issue. His shooting is passable. His shot selection is the problem. Which leads me to another point about Blacksher. As someone else said, Blacksher = Cone. Cone hoisted bad shots all over the place. Often when he absolutely could have set and taken a good shot. So here is the problem. When a guy shoots at volume taking terrible shots, and has a low percentage, you wonder why a coach doesn't correct it and if it can't be corrected make him sit until he gets a message. When that guy leaves and is replaced by a guy in basically the same role who does the exact same thing and doesn't get corrected or sat, you have to wonder if the coach is telling his player to do that or if the coach's system is leading to that shot selection from that position, because the fact that it is happening two years out of two with one guy who lead the team in minutes and another guy who was second in minutes, tells you this is not a player issue.

Blacksher is taking 30% more 3 point shots PER MINUTE than he ever has in his career and he's doing it against much tougher competition. (Cone, by the way, also increased his volume of 3's when he came to Cal). All signs point to Blacksher doing what the coach expects him to do.

You say we can do better with more creative thinking about who can get involved in the offense. Okay, what is that thinking? Who are you giving those minutes/shots to? I don't see anyone on the roster that you can make an argument for statistically moving the needle, and usually a guy's efficiency drops when they have to shoot more.

And overall, Cal is flat out getting creamed in shooting percentage by its opponents. You may absolutely be right in your assessment of Blacksher, but it's just not going to make an appreciable difference. Who are you going to give his shots to? Ola-Joseph? If he could step up to the same volume with no loss in efficiency (extremely unlikely) he would have made 2 more 3 pt shots over the whole season. Wilkinson? He's awesome for a freshman, but he's already shooting at the same volume from 3 and he is shooting at a substantially lower percentage. Face it. Blacksher IS our three point shooter. The problem isn't Blacksher. It is that Blacksher is our best option from outside. And, there was nothing in his career to indicate that he would shoot better from three than this. Yes, his 2 point shooting percentage is way down, but I think that was entirely predictable when you take a 5'11" guard and move him from a conference with Cal Baptist and Cal State Bakersfield to a conference with Duke and UNC.

Hey, I get what you are saying in your criticism, but Cal is the type of program where Blacksher starts and plays 30. It is not because the coach is ignoring better guys on the bench. It is who we are. That is an indictment of Cal, not Blacksher. That is the reality.
BearlyCareAnymore
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Big C said:

barsad said:

Big C said:

barsad said:

HoopDreams said:

we need to maximize wins ... those second team players don't have a lot of upside

we need blacksher to run the team and score ... he probably is our best shooter when open

Our scorers are Wilkinson, Andrej and Blacksher

When we take any of those 3 off the court we have a hard time scoring

Yes on the first two, no on the third. The stats don't lie.
Blacksher has the 2nd worst FG% on the team (35.7%), only Campbell is worse. He is 5th on 3-pt % (35.2), but that is below the NCAA average, the 100th best NCAA 3pt shooter is at 42.9.
So I think we have to stop saying he's all we have for scoring… we can do better with more creative thinking on who can get involved on offense. Of course someone is your 3rd leading scorer when you give him 33+ minutes a game and allow him to hoist brick after brick until he makes a few for 10 points a game.
I have nothing against Jovan, he's an Oakland kid who I was rooting hard for at the beginning, but it hasn't panned out.

I think Jovan actually has panned out, in that he is one of the top 8-9 players on the team. What modest successes we have had, he has been a contributor. The problem is that the top 8-9 players on the team aren't good enough.

Totally fair to critique individual players, but I feel like Blacksher is getting more "critique" than he deserves.

I agree that he is one of the top 8 or 9 players, as a starter it's hard to be outside that. By "panned out" I meant "met pre-season expectations." I thought he was coming in to be the floor general PG, direct the offense, help others score and be a serious three-point threat that other teams would have to pay attention to. That missed set of expectations is not the only reason we won't be a .500 team this season, but it was one of the top 5 reasons. I hope Jovan goes on to do great things in his post-basketball life, but I can't wear rose-colored (blue-and-gold colored?) glasses.

Well then, great minds think alike! When he first committed and even when I saw the Bears scrimmage in October, I thought Blacksher was going to be maybe one step better than he has turned out to be.
You guys are putting too much on eye test and/or happy talk recruiting articles. His best year as a starter he had an effective FG% of .486 and overall, .480 is about what he has done consistently at a significantly lower level. You'd expect his efficiency to drop some moving up a level, especially given his height. He's at .450 at Cal. That is pretty bang on what the expectations should have been. I'd say he has met expectations if not met hopes and dreams.
BearlyCareAnymore
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stu said:

Big C said:

stu said:

Where are we going to find the NIL$ to keep Wilkinson?

How much do you think a Kansas, a Duke or a Gonzaga would value Wilkinson? I don't think he would command one of the top three "salaries" on one of those teams. He's a "microwave" third guard on a really good team.
True, but he's a starter and maybe a star on a lot of teams better than Cal is right now.
People are inflating both Wilkinson and Andrej value because they are OUR best players. Yes they score a lot because somebody has to score. Wilkinson has had a great freshman year. And on a healthy team he would be that great freshman prospect that plays ten minutes a game and displays what he could be. He absolutely will get offers and we absolutely need to keep him. He would not be a star on a lot of teams better than Cal. He would be a very good prospect on a lot of teams better than Cal. In conference, he is shooting 37%, 27% from 3. That is not a guy teams are just throwing money at. If we can't match the offers he will get, we are in trouble. Andrej is 39% and 20%. Neither guy rebounds. Neither guy dishes. They are scorers and in that role in the ACC they are okay. They are much more valuable to us than anyone else because they are our best players and we simply have to keep continuity and there is no way we would replace them with someone better. But I'm not sure those are profiles teams who can outbid us are looking for.
Big C
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You're killin' it, BCA.

However, I don't see Blacksher as being quite the "gunner" that Cone was (haven't looked at the stats though). Most of the shots he takes are ones that seem reasonable to me. As you alluded to, somebody's got to shoot the damn ball.

Because Blacksher is a better ball handler than Cone, I figured he'd be a better assist guy (again, haven't looked at the numbers). His seemingly low assist totals might be a function of the "offense" they're running, or the fact that the rest of the team can't shoot very well. But part of it is, as you mentioned, that he is now at a level where he is impacted by his relative lack of size and athleticism.
BearlyCareAnymore
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Big C said:


You're killin' it, BCA.

However, I don't see Blacksher as being quite the "gunner" that Cone was (haven't looked at the stats though). Most of the shots he takes are ones that seem reasonable to me. As you alluded to, somebody's got to shoot the damn ball.

Because Blacksher is a better ball handler than Cone, I figured he'd be a better assist guy (again, haven't looked at the numbers). His seemingly low assist totals might be a function of the "offense" they're running, or the fact that the rest of the team can't shoot very well. But part of it is, as you mentioned, that he is now at a level where he is impacted by his relative lack of size and athleticism.
You are correct that he had more assists at GC, so I'll give you that one, BC. Though I tend to think that is more a function of our lack of offense at our level.
barsad
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That's the thing about expectations, they're almost always based more on hype than they are actual performance. The closer I look at Blacksher's career it becomes clear that he dropped off in his last two years at Grand Canyon. He was playing 80% of minutes in his first three years then became a 6th or 7th man at 25% in his last two years. His assist rate went down with his minutes, as you'd expect. For some reason I had the idea that he was a key part of a good team that sent St. Mary's packing… turns out, not so much. Good lesson for me to filter out the inevitable hype next year.
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