****Official Class of 2020 Recruiting Thread****
- Thread starter LLCoolCY
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IMO the staff needs to step back and diversify what we do on offense and defense become a more physical style of basketball.
With NBA level jump shooters at 4 or 5 positions, the 1-4 offense was effective. Same goes for the high pick-n-roll and weave.
Without NBA level jump shooters we also need a half court offense where there is more passing, cutting and motion to get paint points and touches. Getting into the paint will result in more free throws, more offensive rebounds and good 3 point shots.
On defense we have to be tougher on the ball. We like to switch picks and screens instead of fighting through or hedging. IMO this creates lazy on-ball defenders. Our switching philosophy leads to a lot of mismatches (Big on Small or Lewis/Bolton on opposing teams good offensive player). IMO these mismatches lead to a scrambling help defense that fouls, gets out-of-position for defensive rebounds and leaves open 3 point shooters
With NBA level jump shooters at 4 or 5 positions, the 1-4 offense was effective. Same goes for the high pick-n-roll and weave.
Without NBA level jump shooters we also need a half court offense where there is more passing, cutting and motion to get paint points and touches. Getting into the paint will result in more free throws, more offensive rebounds and good 3 point shots.
On defense we have to be tougher on the ball. We like to switch picks and screens instead of fighting through or hedging. IMO this creates lazy on-ball defenders. Our switching philosophy leads to a lot of mismatches (Big on Small or Lewis/Bolton on opposing teams good offensive player). IMO these mismatches lead to a scrambling help defense that fouls, gets out-of-position for defensive rebounds and leaves open 3 point shooters
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No one forgets that because for the last 5 years someone has brought it up every time someone brings up a player struggling early in his career (It might have already been mentioned in this very thread). Naz is the go to for freshman, Matt is brought up when discussing upperclassmen who haven't put it together. It's like clockwork. Those people ignore Percy Gibson, Tavon Sledge, Sharon Dorsey-Walker, Kerwin Okoro, Clayton Custer, Brady Ernst, Simeon Carter and Jakolby Long.
Yeah, very rarely are guys ever a contributor if they are not to start.
Matt Thomas was at least a viable rotation guy as a freshman and sophomore, and actually started coming on very strong late in his sophomore year.
Skipping the 2018 season? I mean your selling sunshine so I understand, but if we are still a team with a losing record in 20-21, that would mean out of the 4 teams that were pure Prohm, he had losing seasons in 3 of them. After the best run in program history.
Matt was a starter from day one on campus that got benched because of his lack of production and tendency to step on the sideline when catching a ball. Look at his 3pt% his first two years vs his last two years. And he only got run in the starting 5 because Naz shut it down with his hip problems.
I never understood how good Matt was but had zero court awareness when it came to stepping out of bounds
His quality of play went from bench guy to starter as a sophomore to a junior. Naz being hurt cleared the way, but he was clearly good enough for it.
Give me Kobe King and 1 of Keon Ellis, Justice Hill, or RayQuawndis Mitchell or 2 of the JUCO guys if needed and call it a 2020 Class.
I'll caution not to get our hopes up to much but appearently ISU is still involved with Kerwin Walton. In any case it appears ISU is still looking to add a SG in the spring. (rightfully so)
https://basketballrecruiting.rivals...ucla-khristian-lander-kerwin-walton-mike-brey
(Evans) caught up with Kerwin Walton last week and, sorry to tell you, nothing has changed since the early signing period. He has completed all of his official visits but he is in no rush to make a decision.
Walton even cited what Matthew Hurt, a former travel program teammate, did last year. Hurt waited out the college season, looked at what happened rosters around college rosters and assessed various systems and coaching types before committing. Walton will probably take a similar route.
A final school list has not been formulated but a group consisting of Arizona, Cal, Creighton, Iowa State, Miami, Minnesota, North Carolina, Texas and Vanderbilt remain involved. Arizona garnered most of the talk in the fall and while the Wildcats can be considered one of the leaders, predicting his ultimate landing spot has become more and more difficult the further away that he has gotten from his visits.
https://basketballrecruiting.rivals...ucla-khristian-lander-kerwin-walton-mike-brey
(Evans) caught up with Kerwin Walton last week and, sorry to tell you, nothing has changed since the early signing period. He has completed all of his official visits but he is in no rush to make a decision.
Walton even cited what Matthew Hurt, a former travel program teammate, did last year. Hurt waited out the college season, looked at what happened rosters around college rosters and assessed various systems and coaching types before committing. Walton will probably take a similar route.
A final school list has not been formulated but a group consisting of Arizona, Cal, Creighton, Iowa State, Miami, Minnesota, North Carolina, Texas and Vanderbilt remain involved. Arizona garnered most of the talk in the fall and while the Wildcats can be considered one of the leaders, predicting his ultimate landing spot has become more and more difficult the further away that he has gotten from his visits.
Seems like a long shot but it is good to still be involved just in case. Would me a major addition, obviously.
Haven’t heard much more on this kid and ISU but maybe Prohm doesn’t want 5 HS kids when 2020-21 is such a crucial season.
A late high school/prep school kid might be the best Prohm can do.
Spring recruiting is not as fruitful as many people want to assume, and the competition for those guys is absolutely homicidal sometimes.
But yeah, looking at next year's roster with 4-6 freshman... wolf.
My guess is this. If Prohm has been givin a few years by Jamie. He would not mind taking another freshman and building the program better. If Jamie is telling Prohm he needs to win, I would think we would be going after a Transfer or immediate impact Juco. I think behind the scene's is important and will tell us a lot whom we recruit. Just my opinion.
I'm confident that Steve wants to win now, regardless of what Jamie thinks, and I'm sure he understands what is at stake, both for his career and for the program.
I agree for the most part but this season, you can argue that the young guys playing are playing because we simply don't have any other options. IMO thats why Jackson and Grill are more like Terrence Lewis than Matt Thomas. I'm not sure we really know what we have in them yet. I have a little more confidence in Jackson but right now, physically, he's just overwhelmed most games.
Jackson has more than proven his worth already, IMO. Really good on the ball defender that just needs to develop more confidence on offense. Grill simply hasn't had the minutes to get comfortable at all yet.
To me it doesn't appear Jackson is physically overwhelmed, to me it seems mental like everything is moving too fast for him. That's why Prohm says he doesn't want him to play any PG really this season because he wants to make things less complicated for him as a Freshman. Really the same thing Fred did for Monte. I can tell you right now that he is going to be a really good defender and I think his shot looks great. He is shooting 38% from 3 in conference play. I think it is just a matter of can he develop into a PG or is he going to be an undersized 2.
Grill is a mystery like you said but the coaches believe in him and you can tell the kid works his butt off, as does Jackson which is a huge part of determining whether they will make it here or not.
My guess is if Prohm wants Aquan Smart to be a Cyclone, he'd need to lock down a visit with in the next two weeks and offer him during that visit. Even then, it may be too late. I think he's all, but a lock to commit to Maryland at this point.
ISU is still in the running for Kerwin Walton at this point and that would be a HUGE way to wrap up a class.
I like Jackson, I just his minutes are due to no other options. He's got a nice shot but he's very limited offensively. I think his lack of strength has a lot to do with that. On the offensive end, he's almost playing hot potato, whether passing or shooting, he can't get rid of the ball quick enough. To teams concerned about his shooting, he's really easy to run of the 3 pt line because he has almost no ability to create, hell he barely dribbles the ball at all, he finds a spot and plants himself there, I can only think of few times he even attempted to create inside the 3pt line, let alone had success doing it. That's why you see him hit most of his shots in transition or when a play breaks down, he's really only effective when no one is guarding him. He's got things to be positive about and like i said, I'm optimistic about him. The guy is just really limited right now offensively and we've seen virtually nothing that would make us think he's got more in his arsenal. I think plenty of people felt the way about Terrence Lewis that you do Jackson going in to his soph year but it's becoming obvious that he only played as much as he did as a frosh bc Prohm had no other choice.
The point of my post was more about the idea that Prohm isn't playing him by choice, it's just about a lack of options. That's why it make no sense to compare the development anyone on this team to either Matt or Naz. Naz sat behind guys like Lucious, Tyrus, Babb and Clyburn and never really got a shot to play, Grill has had tons of opportunities and hasn't taken advantage. Matt played 20 minutes a night on a sweet 16 team. Jackson wouldn't have sniffed time on that team. So to me, he's more TL than Matt.
