You get the leading rebounder in the JUCO ranks, combine him with Delarosa and Pointer/Obepka/Jones up front with an All-League backcourt in Harrison/Jordan with Greene and Branch as bench help and that is plenty of size, speed and depth next year to win. Thomas and Jones will more then make up for Sanchez, JaKarr hurts but Obekpa is not going to average 3-5 points like he did this year and Jordan will exponentially be better.
The exact point I've been trying to make.. Jordan very well may go from an inconsistent, lost-looking frosh to a potential BE POY candidate... Harrison will be Harrison..
No.
I expect Jordan to be good, but truthfully nothing he did last season makes me think he's a contender for BE POY. You get the leading rebounder in the JUCO ranks, combine him with Delarosa and Pointer/Obepka/Jones up front with an All-League backcourt in Harrison/Jordan with Greene and Branch as bench help and that is plenty of size, speed and depth next year to win. Thomas and Jones will more then make up for Sanchez, JaKarr hurts but Obekpa is not going to average 3-5 points like he did this year and Jordan will exponentially be better.
The exact point I've been trying to make.. Jordan very well may go from an inconsistent, lost-looking frosh to a potential BE POY candidate... Harrison will be Harrison..
Fordham and Boo,
How much better did D'angelo get from fresh to soph year? Jakarr? Obekpa? Dom?
Why do you assume that Jordan will go from being a good player to BE POY? Or that Obekpa will suddenly be much better than he was last year?
Kids improve incrementally. 9 times out of 10, when a kid has a "breakout season", it's because he suddenly gets a lot more playing time. It's the exception to the rule when someone's skills improve so drastically in such a short period of time.
JaKarr was significantly better and so was D’lo. I don’t even think it is close.
Obekpa was SO much better offensively second half of this past season until the injury.
Keep in mind guys like D’lo were asked to do too much their freshmen year because of no depth.
Also Rysheed is unique because he faced both a suspension and several missed games because of serious family issues and health. And he is probably the most talented player on the team. Those things were a huge detriment to his development. Don’t anticipate anything like that.
I don't subscribe to the idea that no one has improved under Lavin, but as much as I appreciate that Jakarr is a good kid, he didn't play within the team concept very often last year. Often he was played playing one type of defense, and the other guys were playing another. I don't have all of the numbers in front of me, but from what I saw, Jakarr didn't improve his all around game, but there were some improvements.
He started going to the basket more often in his soph year, and he became more confident with that 10 footer. It will be damn hard to replace that. By late December, he started to get into more of a groove offensively.
Where he really didn't improve IMO, is in his court awareness, which was probably the worst on the team of the regular rotation players. He didn't rebound as well as a talent like him could have. Some games he'd pull down 15, others, 2 or 3. If you're an NBA forward, you shouldn't be getting out rebounded by low level D1 players, and that happened regularly. Also, he doesn't know his role on the team. He doesn't have the handle, nor does he have the awareness to bring the ball up.
If you look at his freshman to soph season, it's a minor jump. And now, unfortunately for him, he just made a huge one that he's not ready for.