McVeigh Playing in the World University Games

[khoock]

42 minutes ago, hhcdimes said:

 

I think we know for the most part what we're going to get with Jack and it's a matter of how consistent he is. If we define "in the rotation" as playing 10+ minutes, he was in the rotation for 25 of 30 games last year.  With another year of experience under his belt and our lack of height it would seem that if we had 8 or 9 guys who were "Miles rotation guys' in addition to McVeigh that Miles would expand the number of people in the rotation.

 

Then it's a matter of what position he's going to play. (Assuming no Copeland) As our '4' you can ink him in for 10+ easy and he's got a decent enough shot of starting there over Roby if Roby hasn't upped his game enough. No brainer he plays minutes in this scenario.

 

With Copeland in and performing like he did as a Fr/Soph, then Jack finds himself competing with Roby and Copeland for the 4 spot.  Is he going to win that?   There is a good chance he places #3 in that race.

Then you're looking at competing at the 3 with the likes of Palmer, Taylor, Nana....all the big guards we have on this guard heavy team. At this point Jack's minutes become a lot more matchup centric and how much input we're getting from our 3 freshmen/Anton Gill.

 

I'd agree that it's difficult to see McVeigh out of the rotation as the most likely explanation is that we have 8-9 guys better that a guy who is at worst a decent B1G player.  I can also see why people would want to think we have 8-9 guys better than McVeigh on this roster.....

I guess my thinking has been (when Copeland is eligible) Miles will scrap the 3 gaurd look and go with some type of combo of McVeigh/Roby/Copeland at the 3 and 4 spots.

 

I say that bc i think Jack, Zay, and Copeland >>> then Palmer, ET, and Nana (the gaurds i think would most likely play at that the 3)

 

Now, if Miles does stick with the 3 gaurd line up i could see Jack struggling to find minutes as Roby and Copeland would take up all the 4 minutes. Guess i never thought of it that way.

[Swan88]

A video of the Russia v. Australia game is linked above.

In this game, Jack played 17:56 minutes,  mostly in two chunks: (i) mid-first quarter to mid-second quarter, and (ii) mid-third quarter to mid-fourth quarter.

Norm, you'll be pleased to see his drive-in-traffic for two at about 23:25.  

Two of his fouls are defending fast breaks (see, e.g., 34:30).  A nice tip-in is at 29:21, and a 3 pointer is at 107:39.  He plays for a while at the top of the key in a zone defense (see, e.g., 31:00).  He takes a couple fast-breaks to the rim: gets stuffed at 1:08:00 and gets fouled at 1:08:15.  And he makes a nice feed to the post (who gets fouled) at 1:14:00.  He also spends some time at the front of their press. 

[Norm Peterson]

1 hour ago, aphilso1 said:

And question for the board in general: but do any of you actually want Jack to transfer?  I periodically see people claim that "others" want Jack gone (heck, I may have even blamed those terrible "others" from time to time...) but I don't think I've actually heard/seen anyone actually say it.  It's always The Other Guy.  Just curious.

 

It's the same people who said we'd be better without Andrew White.

[Norm Peterson]

1 hour ago, aphilso1 said:

 

But they were kind of asked to do different things, no?  Tai came in playing mostly PG, on a team with three volume scorers.  He wasn't asked to jack up a bunch of threes, especially early in his career, and was at BEST the #4 option behind Petteway, Pitch, and Shields.  His early role was really one of taking care of the ball and playing D.  

 

Jack came in as a shooter.  You can live with his shortcomings on defense as long as he's making up for it on the offensive end.  If he was a lock down defender and solid ball handler, then his shooting slumps would be easier to pallet...but I don't think it's a stretch to say that he is both a below average defender and below average ball handler.  

 

There's still absolutely a role for Jack on this team, and hopefully a large one where he's draining treys.  But I don't think comparing his statistics with Tai's proves that.

 

Hey, I just posted some stats.  I didn't suggest any sort of conclusions.  You are free to draw whatever sorts of conclusions you wish to but you're not arguing with me in doing so.

[aphilso1]

57 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

Hey, I just posted some stats.  I didn't suggest any sort of conclusions.  You are free to draw whatever sorts of conclusions you wish to but you're not arguing with me in doing so.

 

My bad.  Apparently I inferred something that you didn't imply.  Probably the first time in the entire history of the internet that's happened.

[Fullbacksympathy]

Jack's a true 3-4 tweener.  Hopefully this summer he either 1.) gained weight so he can guard the 4 in the post or 2.) gained some quickness so he can get open on/guard the perimeter.  I really hope he finds a good role.  He's too skilled to not be useful.  Ugh.  

[uneblinstu]

Jack's been a 34% 3pt shooter for his career. Almost the exact same percentage in both his frosh and soph seasons. He's been a streaky shooter. He had a really tough stretch in December, ended up getting benched and then working his way back before finishing the year on a bit of a tough stretch. He's got to limit those bad streaks. If he's going to be a 3 point specialist, he's got to get closer to 40%. 45% would be terrific. He hasn't shown the ability to shoot at the level consistently. If Jack were the only 3 point shooter for NU, that would put the Huskers at 225 in NCAA last year by percentage. That's still really poor. If NU's gonna make a jump there, and they need to make a pretty big jump, Jack is probably going to be a big factor in that. Assuming he doesn't get benched again this year, he should take a fairly big jump in attempts. The top shooters in the country attempted north of 175 3's. Many were well north of 200. If Jack takes a similar jump from his attempts from his sophomore to junior season like he did from his freshman to sophomore season, he'll be right in that range. To justify that many attempts, he needs to be a better shooter, unless he improves other areas of his game.

[aphilso1]

30 minutes ago, LK1 said:

Jack's a true 3-4 tweener.  Hopefully this summer he either 1.) gained weight so he can guard the 4 in the post or 2.) gained some quickness so he can get open on/guard the perimeter.  I really hope he finds a good role.  He's too skilled to not be useful.  Ugh.  

 

I'm hoping for Option 1, gained weight/strength; with hard work, that's feasible.  Not sure that it's realistic to expect a guy at that stage of his career to gain a ton of quickness.

[uneblinstu]

I wouldn't hold  your breath on Jack putting on weight. He's listed the exact same as he was last year.

[Swan88]

He looks bigger in the Russia video above.  Maybe it's the beard.

[uneblinstu]

That's probably it. He doesn't look any bigger to me.

[Norm Peterson]

5 hours ago, aphilso1 said:

 

My bad.  Apparently I inferred something that you didn't imply.  Probably the first time in the entire history of the internet that's happened.

 

No sweat.  I was saying that more for the benefit of others who might have inferred I'd taken the opposite position based on your reply.

 

I hadn't taken any position, really.  I just thought they were interesting comparisons.  How far did Tai have to go to jump from 4 ppg as a sophomore to more than 10 ppg as a junior and is that a jump that is realistic for Jack?

 

What you say is true.  Up to now, Jack has been more of a 3-point shooter in our offense, although his stats in World U Games suggest he might have expanded his offensive tools.

 

I did look to see what Jack's scoring would have been if he had shot the same percentage from 3 last year as he did during this tournament and it would have upped his scoring to 8.6 ppg from 7.5.  If he plays 25 mpg this season (compared with 23 mpg last) with the kind of increased efficiency he displayed on Team Australia (maybe not quite that efficient, but headed that direction) he probably becomes something like a 11-12 ppg player.

 

We're going to have to see whether he continues on that trajectory or not.

 

For our sake and his, I hope he does.

[Norm Peterson]

7 hours ago, Swan88 said:

A video of the Russia v. Australia game is linked above.

In this game, Jack played 17:56 minutes,  mostly in two chunks: (i) mid-first quarter to mid-second quarter, and (ii) mid-third quarter to mid-fourth quarter.

Norm, you'll be pleased to see his drive-in-traffic for two at about 23:25.  

Two of his fouls are defending fast breaks (see, e.g., 34:30).  A nice tip-in is at 29:21, and a 3 pointer is at 107:39.  He plays for a while at the top of the key in a zone defense (see, e.g., 31:00).  He takes a couple fast-breaks to the rim: gets stuffed at 1:08:00 and gets fouled at 1:08:15.  And he makes a nice feed to the post (who gets fouled) at 1:14:00.  He also spends some time at the front of their press. 

 

Prolly shoulda watched a game before getting too excited.

 

Jack is a good player.  Don't think he'll ever be the star at our level, at least not on a team that's really good.  But he can kick in some points so long as he accepts a role and is willing to play it.

 

Jack's problem is that he's not possessed of elite level speed and quickness.

 

I'd liken Jack to driving a straight truck.  It takes forever to get from zero to full speed and full speed ain't especially fast.  When you watch him run, he looks like he's running in 3 feet of water.  Or has 10 pound weights on each shoe and one of those parachute things dragging behind him.  For some reason, I was hoping we might see some increased burst, but based on the Team Australia footage, I don't think that's in the cards, unfortunately.

 

I think he could be a very credible Big Ten 6th man.  And if Copeland doesn't get cleared to start the season, he could be a decent role player in the starting lineup.  He's going to be a very effective catch-and-shoot type of player.  Pack line d is probably a good fit for him because he's not going to be playing up in someone's face on the perimeter where his slow change of direction will expose him.

 

And, hey, 22-23 minutes of playing time like last year with some increased efficiency like he showed for Team Australia, and he could very well crack into double figures in the scoring column.  And who wouldn't take that?  But, realistically, he's not going to be the athlete that other guys on the team at his position are.  Not from what I saw of him playing team Russia.

 

Why did I think he might be faster this year?

[Swan88]

Well . . . , Norm.  That's a tad glum.  

I prefer to focus on Jack's maturation and experience.  As Tai showed, those elements are valuable!

[Norm Peterson]

1 hour ago, Swan88 said:

Well . . . , Norm.  That's a tad glum.  

I prefer to focus on Jack's maturation and experience.  As Tai showed, those elements are valuable!

 

Sorry, I was prolly hangry at the time I posted that.

[Huskerpapa]

The story of Jack

 

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=I+Think+I+Can+the+Little+Engine+That+Could&&view=detail&mid=23CFC8824D5FC5DDF6B923CFC8824D5FC5DDF6B9&FORM=VRDGAR