Trey McGowens Eligible for the 2020-21 season

Great news!

Very big news.

HUGE McNews.

Happy for this. But contrast with our other Pitt transfer.

In a just NCAA world, Shamiel would have played as a sophomore last season.

Trey is a dog.  Always attacking.  Gets to the rim at will.  He's a fantastic compliment to Teddy and Banton.  Those guys can all score in isolation.  Because of that, I think we'll see a lot of Lat at the 5 to open up the lane this year.  I like that we can go huge, but I'm very intrigued but a lineup of Trey/Teddy/Thor/Banton/Lat.  I think they would score a hell of a lot of points.  

If anybody here happens to subscribe to Hail Varsity, I wrote a breakdown of McGowens' first two seasons using his Synergy numbers back in May. Granted, he was in as bad of a situation as a player of his skill set could probably find, but his efficiency needs to make a massive step forward this season for Nebraska to succeed. Will be curious to see how Nebraska uses him alongside other creators like Banton and Teddy and Webster after he struggled so much playing next to Xavier Johnson.

Highlights:

– He was very good in transition as a freshman; he got a lot fewer opportunities in the open floor and was much less effective as a sophomore, though. Nebraska is going to play a lot faster than Pitt did so he should have a chance to get back to where he was as a freshman.

– He showed a lot of improvement as a pick-and-roll creator as a sophomore after struggling as a freshman.

– Small sample size, but he shot a lot better on his catch-and-shoot opportunities (especially the open ones) as a sophomore than he did as a freshman.

Negatives:

– His overall efficiency in the halfcourt was very poor. 

– He really struggled to be effective spotting up, whether it was on catch-and-shoot looks or attacking closeouts for pull-ups or shots at the rim.

– He was just average in isolation as a sophomore after not doing it really at all as a freshman. 

Thanks JP. From what I could tell him and X were similar and they had another low % shooter all doing their own thing. Did not seem mesh well but my sample size of watching them was small and i would normally focus on Xavier. Hopefully a more defined roll will help his efficiency. I think he could improve his spot up game a lot with Fred’s help and putting in the work, so hopefully he has done that.

Bottom line...talent and depth.

The men will have to perform to play.  Past performance should mean nada.  How they perform today, tomorrow and the weeks and months moving forward will be measured...not last year.  

18 hours ago, Jacob Padilla said:

If anybody here happens to subscribe to Hail Varsity, I wrote a breakdown of McGowens' first two seasons using his Synergy numbers back in May. Granted, he was in as bad of a situation as a player of his skill set could probably find, but his efficiency needs to make a massive step forward this season for Nebraska to succeed. Will be curious to see how Nebraska uses him alongside other creators like Banton and Teddy and Webster after he struggled so much playing next to Xavier Johnson.

 

Highlights:

– He was very good in transition as a freshman; he got a lot fewer opportunities in the open floor and was much less effective as a sophomore, though. Nebraska is going to play a lot faster than Pitt did so he should have a chance to get back to where he was as a freshman.

– He showed a lot of improvement as a pick-and-roll creator as a sophomore after struggling as a freshman.

– Small sample size, but he shot a lot better on his catch-and-shoot opportunities (especially the open ones) as a sophomore than he did as a freshman.

 

Negatives:

– His overall efficiency in the halfcourt was very poor. 

– He really struggled to be effective spotting up, whether it was on catch-and-shoot looks or attacking closeouts for pull-ups or shots at the rim.

– He was just average in isolation as a sophomore after not doing it really at all as a freshman. 

This is why I would love to see Trey give us a spark off the bench rather than slotted into the starting lineup.  You've obviously gone way more in-depth than I have, but my game film and stats analysis pretty much jives with yours. 

I think three starters that all need the ball in their hands (Banton, Teddy, and Trey) is too many.  While Kobe also thrives as a ball-dominant player, his skillset appears more versatile.  I like Banton, Teddy, and Kobe as starters with Trey being the first sub off the bench for any of those three guys.  Or even better, allow him to come in and be The Man if we need to rest two of them at once.

Newton's third law of motion is that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Fire a gun? Bullet goes out the barrel and you get recoil. In shooting a basketball, in order to maintain your balance while your hands move an object forward, there has to be some equal force from your legs moving forward or your body will tilt backwards when you shoot. Call it recoil.

What I don't like is the butt sticking way out on the shot as your way of reacting to Newton's third law. It's an added moving part that makes repetition and consistency more difficult to achieve. See Trey McGowens for example:

Compare with Shamiel:

4 hours ago, aphilso1 said:

 

This is why I would love to see Trey give us a spark off the bench rather than slotted into the starting lineup.  You've obviously gone way more in-depth than I have, but my game film and stats analysis pretty much jives with yours. 

 

I think three starters that all need the ball in their hands (Banton, Teddy, and Trey) is too many.  While Kobe also thrives as a ball-dominant player, his skillset appears more versatile.  I like Banton, Teddy, and Kobe as starters with Trey being the first sub off the bench for any of those three guys.  Or even better, allow him to come in and be The Man if we need to rest two of them at once.

If I was the coach I'd personally try to stagger Banton and McGowens as much as possible based on what we've seen from them to this point. When King was part of the picture, I actually thought a redshirt year for McGowens would have served him well, giving Hoiberg a year to work with him on his shot and polish his game. But that's off the table now. Hoiberg will get a chance to see how those two play together in practice, and perhaps both have improved enough to make it work.

37 minutes ago, Jacob Padilla said:

 

If I was the coach I'd personally try to stagger Banton and McGowens as much as possible based on what we've seen from them to this point. When King was part of the picture, I actually thought a redshirt year for McGowens would have served him well, giving Hoiberg a year to work with him on his shot and polish his game. But that's off the table now. Hoiberg will get a chance to see how those two play together in practice, and perhaps both have improved enough to make it work.

100% agree.

Funny how this works.   I think it's Banton and Kobe that should be staggered as I feel that they make the best floor generals to initiate the offense.  I'd like to keep McGowen in more of a 2-guard role if possible as he has a little more length than Kobe.    

1 hour ago, Jacob Padilla said:

 

If I was the coach I'd personally try to stagger Banton and McGowens as much as possible based on what we've seen from them to this point. When King was part of the picture, I actually thought a redshirt year for McGowens would have served him well, giving Hoiberg a year to work with him on his shot and polish his game. But that's off the table now. Hoiberg will get a chance to see how those two play together in practice, and perhaps both have improved enough to make it work.

I'm expecting/hoping Trey will be a junior year Tai Webster type of player. Athletic combo guard. Inconsistent offensively, but has value due to his ability to defend. Trey will always be assigned to the other team's best guard. 

2 hours ago, REDitus said:

Funny how this works.   I think it's Banton and Kobe that should be staggered as I feel that they make the best floor generals to initiate the offense.  I'd like to keep McGowen in more of a 2-guard role if possible as he has a little more length than Kobe.    

Hoiberg apparently sees McGowens as a scoring point guard, and we've seen how much he struggled playing off the ball next to another non-shooting point guard (with no shooters around him) at Pitt. Webster had to play with the ball in his hands a lot at Western Illinois which led to high-volume, low-efficiency scoring. I think Nebraska wants to get him a lot more catch-and-shoot opportunities than he's had the last three years. Defensively, I doubt Banton guards point guards regardless of what he does on offense, so it's not like Webster would have to guard 2s when he's on the court. 

Didn't know that.   I agree with you based off of that information.   Thanks!   Good stuff. 

Going to be a good season for Husker hoops!

On 10/7/2020 at 4:28 PM, millerhusker said:

I'm expecting/hoping Trey will be a junior year Tai Webster type of player. Athletic combo guard. Inconsistent offensively, but has value due to his ability to defend. Trey will always be assigned to the other team's best guard. 

I think this is a really good comparison.  Trey and Tai are pretty similar athletes.

And remember how good Tai’s defense became.  He was elite by the time he was a senior.  Trey can guard.  His defense alone is going to justify his playing time, imo.  Nothing about Fred’s ISU teams indicates he necessarily needs a traditional point guard.  It has often been PG by committee.  

The question with Trey is not so much whether he can handle the ball but how much he needs to handle the ball, assuming that part of the reason he left Pitt was because Xavier Johnson dominated the PG position in a way similar to Cam Mack. At this point I'm unclear on if there will be a dominant 'bring the ball up and initiate the offense' guy or if that will be spread over 2-3 guys as Hoiberg has teams that have done both.

13 minutes ago, hhcmatt said:

The question with Trey is not so much whether he can handle the ball but how much he needs to handle the ball, assuming that part of the reason he left Pitt was because Xavier Johnson dominated the PG position in a way similar to Cam Mack. At this point I'm unclear on if there will be a dominant 'bring the ball up and initiate the offense' guy or if that will be spread over 2-3 guys as Hoiberg has teams that have done both.

I think there will be 2-3 guys that handle the responsibility and Allen thrown in as well if needed. The way this team is built, they should always have 2 of Webster, dalano, Teddy, or Trey on the court. Maybe even at times 3. Trey himself, I'd imagine will mix on/off ball instead of primarily off ball like at Pitt. 

On thing appears pretty clear to me with the combo of Dalano, Kobe, Teddy, and Trey -- even if we don't have an elite ball handler and distributor, we have enough guys that are comfortable handling the ball to be very dangerous when breaking a press. That plus Fred's desire to push tempo tells me opposing defenses are going to sit back in half court against us.