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Recruiting - 2021


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13 minutes ago, CenHudDude said:

Agreed.  He may be an upgrade in terms of height, but I can’t believe he would be an upgrade otherwise.

Down the stretch, French was one of our best players.  Frankly the underclassmen, besides Thatch, were the weak links.  They need to play better.  Nesbitt is more adept at taking over a game offensively than Goodwin but he's still a freshman.  There will be a learning curve.

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4 minutes ago, Reinert310 said:

Does Okoro have a new injury that I’ve not heard about?

No, my feelings have always been it is an unknown when a player sitting out with an injury for a year that my expectations are not high until I see the kid play for a few games.

Okoro is a great get for the team because of the potential but no one knows other than the coaches of what he can do.

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8 minutes ago, BIG BILL FAN said:

we have more depth in the front court than we have ever had....a 4th big is going to do nothing but sit...

I hope so and I would like to see Jimmy Bell make that big jump next season.

Like Okoro I feel that there is good potential with Bell.

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1 minute ago, CBFan said:

No, my feelings have always been it is an unknown when a player sitting out with an injury for a year that my expectations are not high until I see the kid play for a few games.

Okoro is a great get for the team because of the potential but no one knows other than the coaches of what he can do.

That’s fair. But didn’t he get hit by car? I worry much more about guys who have a long injury history from practicing/games. For a random example, as a USMNT fan, I worry about Christian Pulisic’s hamstring going every time he takes the field. Not saying you’re wrong for taking a ‘wait and see’ approach. But I don’t think all injuries are the same.

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35 minutes ago, CBFan said:

No, my feelings have always been it is an unknown when a player sitting out with an injury for a year that my expectations are not high until I see the kid play for a few games.

Okoro is a great get for the team because of the potential but no one knows other than the coaches of what he can do.

I am with you, willing to wait and see before proclaiming any upgrade over previous players, be it Okoro, Nesbitt or Williams.  If Okoro's Junior year can replicate French's Junior season, we have something special.  French went 12.4 ppg, 10.4 rpg and 2.6 bpg.  Those are my targets for Mr. Okoro for next season.  I truly hope he betters those marks.

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57 minutes ago, willie said:

I kinda liked when he brought the ball up the court. 

omg.  willie did you forget your blue font?   every time he started to dribble i would scream "give it to a guard."   of course his back and forth stupid pass at the halfline vs vcu was pretty much the end of the season in hindsight.  nothing good comes out of your center pretending his is a point guard.

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45 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

Down the stretch, French was one of our best players.  Frankly the underclassmen, besides Thatch, were the weak links.  They need to play better.  Nesbitt is more adept at taking over a game offensively than Goodwin but he's still a freshman.  There will be a learning curve.

well maybe if we would have used our underclassmen more during the season they wouldnt have been so under the expectations.   there was no reason we shortened our rotation imo.   another costly mistake in my view. 

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2 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

omg.  willie did you forget your blue font?   every time he started to dribble i would scream "give it to a guard."   of course his back and forth stupid pass at the halfline vs vcu was pretty much the end of the season in hindsight.  nothing good comes out of your center pretending his is a point guard.

Besides driving this board crazy I don't think he turned it over very often and occasionally brought the defense to him. Obviously Ford didn't mind. 

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2 minutes ago, willie said:

Besides driving this board crazy I don't think he turned it over very often and occasionally brought the defense to him. Obviously Ford didn't mind. 

dont forget i am on the ford is a great recruiter and great motivator but not a good practice, game and development coach.   

as to him not turning it over, maybe.  but one of the worst turnovers of the year was on him pretending he was a point guard.   and besides, i would much rather he get rid of it and fill a lane and possibly get the ball back at the rim for a fast break slam.   that would have done a lot more than bringing the ball down.

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36 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

omg.  willie did you forget your blue font?   every time he started to dribble i would scream "give it to a guard."   of course his back and forth stupid pass at the halfline vs vcu was pretty much the end of the season in hindsight.  nothing good comes out of your center pretending his is a point guard.

What drove me crazy wasn't necessarily French bringing the ball up, but the way he brought it up.

I'd be fine if he snagged a rebound, turned and raced up court with it looking to pass to a guard who was also streaking up court.  I understand this may have lead to some turnovers, but the only way it makes sense for French to bring it up is if you're running a break.

What would actually happen is that French would grab a rebound, kind of pause looking for a guard to pass to and then bring it up himself slowly / without trying to run any kind of break.  It made no sense at all.  I'd rather him pass to a guard and then set a screen for the guard in the backcourt if they're being harassed by a defender.

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The best approach to the break was ALWAYS to get the ball to Yuri as quick as possible. Even Goodwin, I don't think was great leading the break - if Yuri was on the floor with him, I would have preferred him also getting it to Yuri asap. 

Speaking of the break, I wonder how well Okoro can get up and down the floor and finish on the break. Has was very good at that.

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34 minutes ago, ACE said:

The best approach to the break was ALWAYS to get the ball to Yuri as quick as possible. Even Goodwin, I don't think was great leading the break - if Yuri was on the floor with him, I would have preferred him also getting it to Yuri asap. 

Speaking of the break, I wonder how well Okoro can get up and down the floor and finish on the break. Has was very good at that.

Hopefully he has returned to form after the injury...Okoro was great at running the floor with BBE.

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18 minutes ago, Coach314 said:

Hopefully he has returned to form after the injury...Okoro was great at running the floor with BBE.

I was watching a few Oregon Okoro highlights yesterday and was blown away by his frame. Dude has an NBA bod. Basically a combo of Bell's height and French's physique. Okay maybe not quite as jacked as French but he's no pencil. He's going to look like a beast out there against A10 competition. Let's hope the stats follow...

To your point about running the floor....the 2nd video in the link below is pretty dang impressive: block on the defensive end, a lovely sprint down the court, alley-oop catch and dunk. *eggplant emoji*

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/player/_/id/4397105/francis-okoro

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1 hour ago, RUBillsFan said:

What drove me crazy wasn't necessarily French bringing the ball up, but the way he brought it up.

I'd be fine if he snagged a rebound, turned and raced up court with it looking to pass to a guard who was also streaking up court.  I understand this may have lead to some turnovers, but the only way it makes sense for French to bring it up is if you're running a break.

What would actually happen is that French would grab a rebound, kind of pause looking for a guard to pass to and then bring it up himself slowly / without trying to run any kind of break.  It made no sense at all.  I'd rather him pass to a guard and then set a screen for the guard in the backcourt if they're being harassed by a defender.

That wasn't my recollection.  What I saw was that the other team was trying to create some pressure on our guards on our end.  They'd be trying to deny the outlet pass to one of our guards, so Ford would essentially trust French to bring the ball up the court and hand it to one of our guards at the other side of the half court line.  I never remember him trying to do this a part of a fast break chance.  It was simply to diffuse the other team's attempt at pressure since the guy guarding French was standing in the paint on the other side of the court.

If it failed once, as BRoy points out, then I believe it only failed once.  Every other time I saw it happen, it worked out just fine.

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2 minutes ago, Slu let the dogs out? said:

I was watching a few Oregon Okoro highlights yesterday and was blown away by his frame. Dude has an NBA bod. Basically a combo of Bell's height and French's physique. Okay maybe not quite as jacked as French but he's no pencil. He's going to look like a beast out there against A10 competition. Let's hope the stats follow...

To your point about running the floor....the 2nd video in the link below is pretty dang impressive: block on the defensive end, a lovely sprint down the court, alley-oop catch and dunk. *eggplant emoji*

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/player/_/id/4397105/francis-okoro

But can he bring the bring the ball up the floor? 

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There are a couple of specific things French does that I think are underrated and will be missed. For example, the big trend in college basketball the last couple of years has been to ice/down side ball screens. One of the best ways to beat this type of coverage is to have a big man who can catch the ball on the short roll and then make plays off the dribble. Yuri was very good at finding Has in these situations and Has, for all his flaws, was a very adept ballhandler and passer for a big. There are several other little things like this that Has did well which I think will be hard to replace. Another example is that Has allowed us to switch 1-5 on defense, which is a lot harder to do with Linssen or Bell. That changes the way you can gameplan when you know you have the option to switch everything if you want to. I'm guessing the coaching staff will miss him more than many on this board will.  

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13 minutes ago, NH said:

There are a couple of specific things French does that I think are underrated and will be missed. For example, the big trend in college basketball the last couple of years has been to ice/down side ball screens. One of the best ways to beat this type of coverage is to have a big man who can catch the ball on the short roll and then make plays off the dribble. Yuri was very good at finding Has in these situations and Has, for all his flaws, was a very adept ballhandler and passer for a big. There are several other little things like this that Has did well which I think will be hard to replace. Another example is that Has allowed us to switch 1-5 on defense, which is a lot harder to do with Linssen or Bell. That changes the way you can gameplan when you know you have the option to switch everything if you want to. I'm guessing the coaching staff will miss him more than many on this board will.  

I assume that the people who are clamoring for a power forward with the next scholarship expect a 4 man who can handle the ball.  That's essentially what French was.  But because he was also our best defensive big man and was limited offensively, we played him at center.

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4 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

I assume that the people who are clamoring for a power forward with the next scholarship expect a 4 man who can handle the ball.  That's essentially what French was.  But because he was also our best defensive big man and was limited offensively, we played him at center.

A power forward who can handle the ball and spread the floor, while not being a defensive liability, is too highly sought after in this day and age for us to reasonably expect to land one. A better bet in my opinion is just to play Perkins at that spot and hope he doesn't hurt you too much on defense/rebounding. Or to cross your fingers that Lorentsson takes a giant leap this offseason.

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29 minutes ago, NH said:

There are a couple of specific things French does that I think are underrated and will be missed. For example, the big trend in college basketball the last couple of years has been to ice/down side ball screens. One of the best ways to beat this type of coverage is to have a big man who can catch the ball on the short roll and then make plays off the dribble. Yuri was very good at finding Has in these situations and Has, for all his flaws, was a very adept ballhandler and passer for a big. There are several other little things like this that Has did well which I think will be hard to replace. Another example is that Has allowed us to switch 1-5 on defense, which is a lot harder to do with Linssen or Bell. That changes the way you can gameplan when you know you have the option to switch everything if you want to. I'm guessing the coaching staff will miss him more than many on this board will.  

French's passing is really going to be missed. In addition to JG and HF being elite rebounders, they were also both good passers - 2nd and 3rd in assists. That's why I keep clamoring for another point guard. Whether it is a PG and we get it from another position or two, I'm concerned we don't have enough good passers. We appear to have plenty of guys who can fill it up, but I don't want it to be a situation where Yuri is the only facilitator. Pre covid, when we were playing our best, we were a very good passing team.

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35 minutes ago, ACE said:

French's passing is really going to be missed. In addition to JG and HF being elite rebounders, they were also both good passers - 2nd and 3rd in assists. That's why I keep clamoring for another point guard. Whether it is a PG and we get it from another position or two, I'm concerned we don't have enough good passers. We appear to have plenty of guys who can fill it up, but I don't want it to be a situation where Yuri is the only facilitator. Pre covid, when we were playing our best, we were a very good passing team.

If you want a good passing team, then you want multiple good passers on the floor as often as possible.  That's why I've been repeating the mantra of combo guard for weeks now.  That guy can play with Yuri, not just back him up.  In that scenario, you could have Yuri, combo TBD and Nesbitt playing together.

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24 minutes ago, ACE said:

French's passing is really going to be missed. In addition to JG and HF being elite rebounders, they were also both good passers - 2nd and 3rd in assists. That's why I keep clamoring for another point guard. Whether it is a PG and we get it from another position or two, I'm concerned we don't have enough good passers. We appear to have plenty of guys who can fill it up, but I don't want it to be a situation where Yuri is the only facilitator. Pre covid, when we were playing our best, we were a very good passing team.

KenPom Assist Rate:

French:

2021: 17.8

2020: 15.1

2019: 10.7

2018: 12.0

Okoro:

2020: 2.4

2019: 2.2

We are definitely going to miss French's passing ability.

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