Basketball Recruiting - Five transfers that could be poised for breakout sophomore seasons
Former Arkansas guard Layden Blocker should thrive against Big East competition at DePaul.
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Rivals: Five transfers that could be poised for breakout sophomore seasons
- Thread starter Halldan1
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Without a doubt in my mind our best transfer. Unlimited potential and should be a no doubt about it starter.
Presuming DAW comes back, then our 3 best players, Coleman, Middleton and DAW are all 2's/3's.
Seems as though all 3 should be starters, yet I can't see any of them playing the 1, 4 or 5. Don't see them filling the shorter 4 spot that Dre excelled at.
Could argue that all 3 of these players are best at the 3 spot. From what I've seen neither Coleman or DAW have great handles to play guard full time. And from what I've heard Middleton will probably be our best outside threat and is a pure wing.
I know the game is a lot more positionless basketball and that we could go 4 guards/wings etc.
Will be interesting to debate and to see how it will all play out.
Seems as though all 3 should be starters, yet I can't see any of them playing the 1, 4 or 5. Don't see them filling the shorter 4 spot that Dre excelled at.
Could argue that all 3 of these players are best at the 3 spot. From what I've seen neither Coleman or DAW have great handles to play guard full time. And from what I've heard Middleton will probably be our best outside threat and is a pure wing.
I know the game is a lot more positionless basketball and that we could go 4 guards/wings etc.
Will be interesting to debate and to see how it will all play out.
I have a good feeling about Middleton, Harmon and Yalden.
KW did play Kaiser, unfortunately he was a shooter who couldn’t shoot at Maryland.
I like Middleton and Harmon right from the jump. I think Yalden will take longer to round into shape, but he can give us decent minutes at the 3/4 if he's not overused too soon. He is not, to me, a center. We still need one of those.
He's a 4 who can shoot from the perimeter. Add a decent center and we should be in good shape.
Willard rarely plays freshmen, as we well know.
But a freshman who is a shooter on a team that doesn’t create offensively is a recipe for failure.
I bet he shoots upper 30% with Matta
Kaiser played nearly 20 minutes a game. Or slightly more than Isaiah Coleman.
I watched a number of Maryland games this past season. Kaiser got plenty of opportunities to make an impact. I think I saw him make one 3 in all the games I saw. Hopefully he’ll be better as a sophomore.
There’s no way Yalden can play the 3.
He’s a skillful 4 with big upside that can play the 5 for limited minutes
Coleman and Middleton could be a dynamic duo. The only concern is that they/the team will take time to mesh.
Dashawn Harris-smith (another freshman) played nearly 30mpg. Not sure where this myth about Willard and Freshmen comes from.
Agree…Jenkins/Harmon transition will be key as both Coleman and Middleton play off the ball but will likely carry a good chunk of the offensive load. I dread using the word “depth”, but if Wusu is back, Sha has six capable guys at the 1, 2 and 3. Last year he essentially had one sub (freshman Coleman), as Sanders and Brown really never contributed much.
Sorry—I wasn’t clear. My point was that since KW hasn’t had a history of playing freshmen often, he doesn’t draw up many plays or create confidence in freshmen offensively.
making the jump from high school to college is a big transition for most players outside of the five star variety. A kid like Kaiser probably needed some specific plays drawn up for him to get clean open looks to score.
He shot nearly 3/4 of his attempts from 3 last season. That’s a lot. But it didn’t seem to affect his free throw shooting.
I was at Willard's first SHU game ever, at Temple. He surprised many by not starting a touted transfer whose name I forget, instead going with a frosh named Edwin.
I can think of no frosh who should have started but Khadeen, and we know the story behind that.
So Harris-Smith was a top 30 talent. Not playing a top 30 kid in this day and age could lead to transferring.
So it could have been pressure on Willard to play him more than he wanted to.
And how did KW’s squad fare this past season?
No, he played DHS because he was one of their best players. And Maryland wasn't good last year because DHS was one of their best players.
Willard always played freshman if they were either good enough to contribute or if there were minutes available to play.
On some of our better teams, roles were clearly defined and minutes weren't readily available because the freshmen were not better options than what was there.
It was in his last few years this reputation took hold and that was an indictment of his recruiting. If players like Dimingus Stevens or Ryan Conway et al were good enough to play regular minutes, they would have.
In the current world of college basketball, if you can get 15-plus minutes a night from a freshman, consider yourself fortunate and call it a day.
The number of freshmen who can productively play big minutes on a good team is pretty small.
You could probably have skipped the last seven words. In a world where fifth-year seniors are now the norm (though that will start to revert with the elimination of the COVID year) it's harder than ever to find productive freshmen.
This year's all Big East freshman team:
Finley Bizjack - Butler - 14.9 mpg, 4.2 ppg, 1.2 rpg, 0.9 apg
Stephon Castle - UConn - 26.9 mpg, 11.1 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 2.9 apg
Rich Barron - PC - 15.8 mpg, 4.4 ppg, 1.4 rpg, 0.5 apg
Isaiah Coleman - SHU - 18.2 mpg, 5.4 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 0.5 apg
Trey Green - Xavier - 13.6 mpg, 5.6 ppg, 1.0 rpg, 1.1 apg
Dailyn Swain - Xavier - 19.0 mpg, 4.6 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 1.2 apg
This is the Big East's cream of the freshman crop. One player averaged over 20 mpg six ppg, four rpg and three apg. Some nice players beyond Castle, hopefully a few of them develop into better.
Our own frosh, other than Coleman:
Brown - 18 games, 4.2 minutes, 1.3 points, 0.3 rebounds, 0.6 assists
Tubek - 16 games, 5.1 minutes, 0.8 points, 0.8 rebounds, 0.1 assists
Ozdogan - 20 games, 2.7 minutes 0.7 points, 0.3 rebounds, zero assists
