millerhusker

Player comp: Caris Levert. Long, deceptively athletic. Pure shooter, but not just a shooter. Can score in a variety of ways: mid-range, floaters, creative finishes, euro steps, dunks in transition. Great change of pace and can make plays for others. I see a lot of similarities in their games.

I think Emoni Bates was also on ESPN last night, yeah? Best high school player since Lebron, in my opinion. If he reclassifies to the 2021 class and actually ends up at Michigan State, the big ten will be insane next year.

Didn’t watch last night, but have seen a ton of his highlights. I actually hope he signs with Minny. My guess is Gonzaga, though.

I've followed basketball recruiting closely for almost a couple decades now. Every year there are 5 stars who shouldn't be 5 stars. Usually they're uber athletic kids with no actual basketball skill. This is frustrating, because they end up getting labeled as a bust by their school's fanbase and the media, but in reality they should have never been that highly ranked to begin with. I hate to put too much hype on a kid, but as a recruit, Bryce is underrated. I think he's a top 10 or 15 recruit in this class. Jaden Hardy is the only guard I'd for sure put ahead of him. Maybe Max Christie and Trevor Keels. Many 5 star recruits end up struggling their freshman year, but Bryce has a skill that'll translate to the next level even if he struggles in every other aspect of the game. He can flat out shoot the ball. He has legitimate NBA range right now and his 1-motion shot (a la Steph Curry and Trae Young) allows for that range and to get off his shot very quickly. His stroke is so compact and repeatable. Go watch some of Bryce's high school games on Youtube. The competition he played at Wren was solid, but his teammates were rough to watch. He was face-guarded everywhere he went. A lot of his shots were off the dribble and heavily contested, and he still has shot 42% from 3 in his high school career as a high volume shooter. I'm gonna compare him to Hunter Sallis again, because Husker fans are more familiar with Hunter than other high profile recruit. Both guys play on and off the ball for their high school teams and can be called combo guards. Both have tight handles and pretty good court vision. Bryce is a couple inches taller and longer. People rave about Hunter's athleticism and the only knock on Bryce seems to be his lack of explosiveness. But, there are videos of Bryce damn near hitting his head on the rim... Due to his long and lanky build, it almost looks like he's playing in slow motion. I think he has sneaky athleticism like James Palmer. I believe Bryce played AGAINST better players in SC, but Hunter played WITH much better players at Millard North (all 5 starters on last years team will play D1. 4 of them will be at Power 5 schools). Usually kids that have to carry their high school team, do it with low efficiency and low shooting percentages. Bryce averaged more points, rebounds, steals, blocks and less turnovers than Hunter. He's also a much better shooter. Hunter made 27/88 three point attempts for 31%. Bryce has shot 542 threes over the past 3 years! At a 42% clip. Hunter's mid-range game is his best offense at this point, but that'll likely have to change in college, due to his slower release and increased athleticism of his defenders. I like Hunter and think he'll be just fine at the next level. But if I'm a coach and had to choose only one of these guys to win with next year, I'm taking Bryce and it's not really close for me.

In the past, if we were going into a season with a big who averaged 6 and 6 as a true freshman for us, a wing who averaged 9 and 5 as a true freshman in the ACC, a point guard transfer from a mid-major who was all-conference the previous couple years, and two freshmen with multiple power 5 offers... that'd be enough for us to get excited about.

My thoughts, as well.

Looking at the photos and videos from yesterday's scrimmage. I could see 6 guys on each team. Red team: Trey, Teddy, Thor, Dalano, Lat, Walker White team: Kobe, McGraw, Wood, Shamiel, Eduardo, Yvan

Gotta disagree with you here. I’m not sure what the sports science says. But anecdotally, I often see kids with vertical explosiveness who lack lateral quickness. Straight line speed seems to be more correlated with vertical. Trying to think of a Husker player example- Walter Pitchford reportedly had a 40 inch max vert and had some sweet offseason Twitter dunk videos. But it’d be hard to find a guy with less quickness than him. Keisei may look quick relative to his competition in japan. But Nick Fuller looked kinda quick in high school in Wisconsin. I thought Keisei lacked lateral quickness after watching his juco film. The reason I compared him to Cochran is because I see him as a spot up shooter who’ll help stretch the defense and space the floor for us. And that’s fine with me. I think he’ll be a valuable player for us.

Cary Cochran?

He’s now at his 7th high school and he’s only a junior? Goodness. Became somewhat of a celebrity a few years ago when he played on the same team as Lebron’s son. Wouldn’t be surprised if he commits to a couple more schools, but never plays college basketball.

Dan McDonald (a Rivals guy) confirms that Bryce wants to sign in the early signing period, which starts this Wednesday and goes until next Wednesday. We should know his decision real soon.

Wow. I assumed he was a lock to KU. Kid is an absolute stud.

I’d love to be wrong, but he had 9 blocks in 685 minutes last year. I’ll give him a pass on the stats since he was a 17 year old freshmen. But, I saw no evidence of shot blocking instincts and he doesn’t have great length (6’9” wingspan). For comparison, Eduardo has a 7’4.5” wingspan.

I have a lot of concerns about the defense. Outside of Trey, I see a lot of guys who may have trouble staying in front of Big Ten guards and wings. And, although we have great overall length, we still don't have a rim protector waiting in the middle to erase mistakes. Not sure pressuring on the perimeter would be our best option. A packline style defense would work well for this team, IMO. However, Doc's defenses historically seem to be at their best when he has a bunch of smaller, quicker guards who can get out and harass the offense on the perimeter. Will be interesting to see what we do.

Right. Reminds of Miles' second year, when we had lost our two best players (Talley and Ubel), and our sit-out transfers becoming eligible had pretty mediocre stats at their previous schools. I think we were predicted to finish last in the conference that year and we turned out to be a tournament team.

I hope/think he'll be in the post a good amount, regardless of who's guarding him. Analytically, the three point shot off of a pass out of the post is one of the most efficient shots in basketball. Presumably because it's often a stand-still catch and shoot, while already facing the basket. Jay Wright took that metric and ran with it all the way to a national championship a few years ago, with Jalen Brunson posting up and kicking it out to Mikal Bridges and others on the perimeter. Hoiberg is all about analytics, and having a 6'9" guy be your best passer on the team should be a huge asset. Of course, Banton needs to be a threat to score in the post for it all to work. From what we saw last year in the scrimmage and in Italy, it appears he can finish around the basket pretty well.

Jalen Rose. That’s probably about it.

I expect Walker to be the 9th guy and get a good amount of playing time to start the season. I’m interested to see how our lineups evolve as the year goes on. I have a hunch we’re going to like our small-ball lineup with Lat at the 5 and Shamiel/Thor at the 4. It more resembles Hoiberg’s best Iowa State teams. He would often start a guy like Anthony Booker (6’9” 255lbs.), but only play them 10 to 12 minutes a game, and have Niang move to the “5” for the majority of the game. A lot of NBA teams do this (Javale McGee started every regular season game for the Lakers but was like 10th on the team in minutes played).

Maybe. But it's not surprising no Power 5 coaches wanted him after he decided to transfer. There's certain players you can't win with, no matter how talented they are. Cam needs the ball in his hands to be productive, and he's what they call a "ball-stopper". A guy like that usually isn't happy playing next to other playmakers.

Some behind a paywall notes (from a "source" who attends practice), so I wont copy and paste... The starting 5 is what we thought it would be. But we essentially have 7 starters. 6th and 7th guys are Kobe ("players and coaches have raved about his play") and Shamiel ("phenomenal"). If Thor is our 8th guy, I think that's a real good sign. He was arguably the most consistent player on our team last year. Sounds like some mutual interest between Kobe and Hoiberg on Kobe returning for another year. This would be great, especially since he's apparently willing to accept a role as a non-starter. We're gonna play Creighton.

Teddy's off court issues are well known. But, there's plenty of evidence that shows his teammates like him. For example: his teammates at West Virginia voted him rookie of the year. Over fellow freshman Wesley Harris, who started every game (Teddy didn't start any games).

So now Eric Bossi and Jerry Meyer think he’s N. I’m getting my hopes up. Bossi hasn’t missed a prediction since he started at 247.

I just had visions of freshman year Brian Conklin. We had real talent on that team, with Belcher, Ffriend, Bradford and Cochran. Had some big wins that year, and it seemed like a ton of real close losses. This was back when we had to listen to most of the games on the radio, especially early in the season. For awhile, I thought the announcers were mispronouncing Cochran. Seemed like the kid never missed.

This. Once you have a roster full of talented players, having 13 of them can really cause chemistry issues. The coaches have been vocal about how it’s impossible to keep 13 guys happy, which is why they’ve always preferred to take a couple sit-out transfers. With the new one-time transfer rule, there won’t be nearly as many sit-out transfers. I hope we always have a guy like Arop on scholarship, even if we never need them for significant minutes.

I know Donovan Williams had said this. Wasn't aware Hunter felt that way.