Ole Miss Basketball: Full of Talent?
by Juco All-American on Mar 24, 2010 1:00 PM EDT
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PrintThere's been a lot of talk this season about how this team is "stuffed to the rafters" with talent. First of all, that's a stupid analogy, especially when considering the relatively low ceiling of the Tad Pad. Secondly, it's a bit misleading, albeit surprisingly influential. It has caused AK's seat to warm up with questions of "how could Andy Kennedy possibly not make the NCAA tournament with a team with this much talent on it?" It has directed much of the Ole Miss Rebel basketball narrative.
But is it accurate?
Let's look at what this team has regarding talent. I'll be listing the players by position and breaking down what I perceive to be their strengths and weaknesses. I'll also be linking their Rivals recruiting profiles, not because I think that's adequate portrayal of their talent; but I do think it's at least a smidge relevant.
PG: JR Chris Warren / SO Will Bogan
Chris Warren:
Strengths: Great shooter, Fast
Weaknesses: Poor defense all-around, lacks size, brings no flow to offense; Entered the season with 1.4 seasons of experience without a legitimate backup at point guard
Will Bogan:
Strengths: Can make an open shot, nearly decent at passing
Weaknesses: Broken hand, poor defense, poor offense, slow, lacks experience
SG: SO Terrico White / SO Trevor Gaskins
Terrico White:
Strengths: Physical freak, can take over games, adequate outside shot, better than average midrange game
Weaknesses: Disappears at times, Horribly inconsistent
Trevor Gaskins:
Strengths: Can hit shots from long range, adequate on-ball defender, adequate ball handler
Weaknesses: VERY streaky shooter, ball hog, poor defense when opposing player does not have the ball, entered the season with one year of experience
SF: JR Zach Graham / JR Eniel Polynice
Zach Graham:
Strengths: Shot selection, deadly three point shot, height, better than average defender
Weaknesses: Disappears at times
Eniel Polynice:
Strengths: Generally a good slasher, strong defender, experience
Weaknesses: Poor shot selection, bad form shooting, indecisive when driving the lane, does not protect the ball well, attitude
PF: SO Murphy Holloway / FR Reginald Buckner
Murphy Holloway:
Strengths: Hustles on every point, fights like a crazed beast for rebounds, plays bigger than his size, draws fouls, accumulates put-back opportunities
Weaknesses: Poor free throw shooter, out of control at times
Reginald Buckner:
Strengths: Solid shot blocker, size
Weaknesses: Inexperience, lack of understanding offensively
C: SO Terrance Henry / SR DeAundre Cranston
Terrance Henry:
Strengths: Great shooter for a big man, size, speed
Weaknesses: Too thin, inexperienced, wants to play wing even when he's in as the five
DeAundre Cranston:
Strengths: Provides up to five fouls a game, tries hard, height
Weaknesses: Inept ball handler, poor defender, slow
What does this all mean?
So, is this team "full of talent?" I would say, no. We have, a passive physical freak, a point guard who can score but can't defend or move the offense, a 6'6" four who tries really hard, inexperience or ineptitude under the basket, and role players. Our team is more exciting than talented.
What sayest thou?
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Pretty fair assessment.
The truth is, ’Rico’s physical tools get people excited. So does Warren’s shooting ability. Those are very noticeable, high-ceiling talents to have, and to be fair, we have a lot of role-players who have the ability to step up in big ways when they put it all together. All of those things conflate to create a false image of the team.
I think we have a ton of versatility,
We have about 4 guys good enough to eventually be an all-sec 2nd team selection, which means the talent is good enough to have a 4-6 seed in the ncaa tourney;
Interesting thought…next year, assuming terrico leaves for the draft(which i think he will), what’s our lineup….i think we’ll shift the lineup to a bigger starting 5; something like this:
1-Warren
2-Graham/Dundrecous/EP
3-Henry
4-Murph
5-Buckner
Murph has a decent midrange jumper and can handle the ball plenty for our 4 man;
Terrence really does have the skill set to be a 3 in this league if we put a premium on size;
this lineup would give us enough size to bang with the big boys and then we have enough on the bench to go small when needed; thoughts?
by porcelainreceiver on Mar 24, 2010 1:19 PM EDT reply actions
As soon as I started reading this post
I knew there was going to be a reference to Cranston’s fouling prowess. Hilarious.
by Greg H on Mar 24, 2010 1:46 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I'll go one further.
Pointing out the teams individual issues with playing defense leads right into this teams biggest problem this year.
Opposing teams shot way more free throws than the Rebels. Too many fouls and not enough good defense.
Could it be we are just getting our usual Ole Miss officiating?
The two games with MSU were pathetic, in the Tad pad they shot twice as many free throws. We don’t even get calls at home.
Should we be more hostile vocally to the refs? Remember no throwing of objects.
by ramblinrebelman on Mar 24, 2010 1:40 PM EDT reply actions
Also, we don't so much make OUR free throws.
Last night was a prime example of this until the very end of the game.
Red Cup Rebellion - Changing the Culture of Ole Miss Athletics
Take a picture, trick.
by The Ghost of Jay Cutler on Mar 24, 2010 2:05 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm still in shock
That Murphy hit those two free throws in the first OT. I thought Hell had frozen over.
by Mitch Planey on Mar 24, 2010 2:19 PM EDT up reply actions
I think the deal is that we have the most talented team we’ve seen in years, perhaps even more so than our teams of the late 90’s and early 00’s, but we’re still in the middle to bottom of the SEC. In other words, we think of it as a lot of talent, but it’s in reality just average.
Zach Graham is a good example, I think. I think most of us consider him a very good player, unsung hero-type. And at times he is excellent (like against Memphis). But he’s probably not any more talented than the random Frankie Sullivan from Auburn (I just picked a name off their roster).
When everyone is playing well, we’re a really good team. This is what happened against Kansas State and Memphis (our best games of the year, in my opinion). But isn’t that true for every SEC team? Georgia was able to beat Vanderbilt and Tennessee. South Carolina beat Kentucky and Vanderbilt.
I’ll put it this way: we are a talented enough team to make the NCAA tournament—if we play well. But we don’t have enough talent to take games off and still win.
Interesting...
Very insightful, weloveum
Red Cup Rebellion -- Changing the Culture of Ole Miss Athletics
by BrianWalker'sElbow on Mar 24, 2010 10:23 PM EDT up reply actions
DeAundre(a) Cranston is really a woman...
get off her back
by PoweKnowsBaseball on Mar 24, 2010 2:19 PM EDT reply actions
The same shit happened in football this year.
How does Ole Miss keep getting overrated?
That’s obscene.
Agree with most points, but compare us to the rest of the SEC...
If you rank the talent team by team, I think you’d put our roster anywhere from 2nd to 4th in the SEC which means we arguably had better talent than Florida, Vandy, and State. This is why everyone is upset. We should be better than those 3 teams. You could argue we are deeper than Tennessee also. If we don’t blow the TN game on the road, split with State, and beat Vandy and Florida at home then we would have lived up to our talent I think. The Arkansas loss was totally unacceptable.
I'm not sure that we're more talented
than ANY of the four teams you mentioned.
Seriously. Take a step back and look at this objectively.
Red Cup Rebellion - An Ole Miss Blog
Blame the Baptists.
by Juco All-American on Mar 24, 2010 9:42 PM EDT up reply actions
Objectively, the experts and analysts thought we underachieved so....
it’s not just my opinion. They also rated our backcourt 2nd to only Kentucky? Do you think they performed as the 2nd best backcourt?
No...
because they weren’t.
Red Cup Rebellion - An Ole Miss Blog
Blame the Baptists.
by Juco All-American on Mar 25, 2010 4:51 PM EDT up reply actions
Experts and analysts bought into the hype.
We had an different individual take over the team in each of the past two years, and everyone thought it would be great for them to play together.
Unfortunately, the environment for Chris Warren and Terrico in the previous two years dictated what they did. Just because each of them was the dominant leader of the team for a year does not mean that they were playing great basketball. Turnovers were forgiven much more easily because, “hey, I would rather them have the ball and trying than give it to another scrub.” No one cared about the vision or defense of our point guard (CW) because, “he can start scoring on his own at any point, especially from three.”
That’s not even a comprehensive presentation of how much people overlooked in the past two years because what they were doing well was that helpful.
After thinking this over, I think Terrico is gone this year, unless he has some overly dominant sense of passion for this university or getting an education. He is that good, and I don’t think that the scouts are worried about his commitment. Why? Well, if you look at the roles (team sport, remember?) that changed between last year and this year, you will see that he was basically our guy. So, like I mentioned above, he could do whatever he wanted and not worry about it. However, this year, he was supposed to move from that position to shooting guard (relying on someone else to get him the ball), and if you don’t understand how good Terrico White’s movement is off the ball, you have definitely missed the last couple of games. I don’t think Terrico’s great games this year have had as much to do with him deciding to play as they do with his teammates ability to find him in scoring opportunities. Terrico is a good passer, he’s patient, he can go hard to the hoop, but he is really good at cutting, receiving the ball in traffic and scoring. His real downfall is his desire to succeed without failing, so he doesn’t take as many chances, something that would be ok if we were as talented as “the experts and analysts” (and maybe even Terrico himself) thought we were. I’d even go so far as to say that AK bought into that hype because he sat Terrico when he made some mistakes from taking chances.
Don’t get me wrong, I am pissed that he didn’t do more this year, but I cannot blame him too much for trying to play his role on the team. I think scouts understand that he really is that good. Unfortunately, the rest of our team is NOT.
(Sorry for the rant/musings. No, I didn’t proofread so eat my arse if you find a typo.)
I'm a Rebel, but I bleed the cherry and silver of the Lobos.
Simply put...
My point was in answer to the question of talent. Should have been good enough to beat Arkansas, State once, and Florida and Vandy at home? If we weren’t that good then we might as well give up on basketball at Ole Miss in my opinion because we aren’t going to have a roster like this very often in a very weak SEC West. Here is a food for thought question—- Todd Abernathy, Bam Doyne, Clarence Sanders, Kenny Williams, and Dwayne Curtis….are they better than our current starting 5? Did AK “coach ’em up” better? More talented? Harder working? AK great coach who was just that much better than Barnes? Would they beat our current team? What was their record? Was the West stronger then? How did they do postseason? Lots of rhetorical questions…
3 Srs, 2 Jrs
I think that has a lot to do with that situation.
I don’t know which team I’d rather have. It’s close.
Red Cup Rebellion - An Ole Miss Blog
Blame the Baptists.
by Juco All-American on Mar 26, 2010 3:02 PM EDT up reply actions
If we had a 5 it would have been a different season.
Imagine if we had Malcolm White. He wasn’t that good, but he was a true 5. That would have been the difference for us. Instead, Holloway is our best down low defender on guts and hustle alone. Buckner will be the guy, but not yet. He would be a better 4 anyway.
It's pathetic that Cranston had by far the best offer sheet...
and Gaskins clearly got on and rated himself a 5 star
by Chubby from TeenWolf on Mar 25, 2010 9:02 AM EDT reply actions
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