Posted by strongpoint on 10/19/2009, 4:22 am, in reply to ""Midnight" Madness Review"
let's see here ...
Mikey Williams: 20-26 from 3pt land during the three-point contest. Odd stroke but effective!
"odd stroke" just begins to cover it for both of the frosh guards. williams looks like he's throwing two-handed chest passes at the basket, while DOC throws set-shot 3's off his shoulder -- probably a bad release point for a small player; he may have to modify that.
Most impressive newcomer during the 10 minute scrimmage? Definitely Nikola Stojiljkovic. Made a number of really nice plays and looks like he has a good head for the game.
god, i hate to feed the stereotype of the european player, but this kid showed off a bunch of subtleties in his game -- body positioning, footwork, court awareness, rebounding position -- that you don't often see in college freshmen. luckily, the whole better-basketball-player-than-athlete trope doesn't apply here, either -- he's pretty fast, quick afoot, well-balanced and apparently a quick thinker.
O'Connor is stunningly small. Didn't stand next to him, but 5'10" is a stretch. 1st time I have seen him in person. But quick as hell.
"quick as hell" only begins to describe o'connor. for those of you who weren't there, all the agility and burst seen on the highlight video from a couple of months ago are exactly as advertised. twice in the scrimmage he attacked hard off a pick-and-roll at the right elbow -- the first time, he went right at the bigger defender (diarra, i think), blew by him and missed a lefty scoop floater just short. the second time, he drove hard across the free-throw line with the big man draped all over him and dropped a spin move into a stepback J ... that got swatted fairly hard, i believe by stojiljkovic, his original defender.
strangely, they had stojiljkovic defending o'connor a lot, which makes me wonder which player was being challenged to do what by the coaching staff.
o'connor is smaller than peter smith; williams is slightly larger. vaughn, bryant and green are all the next size up.
strongpoint made a um, strong point about Perris Blackwell: from the waist down, he looks exactly like Hondre Brewer. Thick lower body, huge feet. The good: He had some nice dunks during warmups that Brewer would never have thought of attempting. The bad: he moved a lot like Brewer during the scrimmage. Maybe not in the best shape right now?
the brewer parallel is not 100 percent accurate. hondre was a lot lankier than blackwell; blackwell is clearly faster and more agile. that's not saying much -- i think blackwell is the slowest of the new big men, but he's also thick and strong, and i expect he'll contribute right away using those assets. i'm reserving judgement on his hands.
Diarra and Bruha are both very large and clearly are more talented than Hyman Taylor and James Morgan (not saying much, but still...). I am soooo happy for Dior Lowhorn.
hell yes, they are. diarra is thick but quick, and he looked like he wanted to attack the basket on every touch. the few times he did, he was moderately effective.
bruha, who is lanky and athletic, only took one shot, a jump hook from about 8 feet that went wide, but he looked utterly confident in shooting it, and his release was absolutely gorgeous. he didn't seem frazzled with the ball in his hands like a lot of young big men do.
lowhorn is going to be freed up to do a lot of things this year.
Usually when you see this many guys in a scrimmage there are a few guys who clearly cannot hang...But this Dons team seems to have talent up and down the roster. I.e., there were no total stiffs on the floor at all last night.
agreed.
Dior did little in the scrimmage. Not a worry.
agreed. i don't recall him having more than three or four touches the entire time.
Kwame had a number of nice passes that resulted in poor finishes (a couple by Blackwell).
hence my reserving judgment about blackwell's hands. vaughn looked cool, smooth and confident. also with several nice passes but no love on the finishes: rashad green, who took a few shots but never really found his range.
as it stands, it's impossible to tell what a game rotation might look like. i can't wait to see this team against live competition so we can see who's ready now and who still needs work.
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