H78
PhD Student
Posts: 1458
Loc: Los Angeles, CA
Reg: 01-06-11
|
11-13-16 08:06 AM - Post#213159
In response to SRP
Agree with lots in SRP's and Mike Porter's analyses. Aiken, as acknowledged by both Siyani and him, is more of a shoot-first guard. If he's going to play a major role in the motion offense as a point guard, and work with high quality teammates like Lewis, Towns, Zena, Baker, Welsh, etc., he'll have to learn to pass more often and not take those "iffy" (well-phrased!) shots. Hopefully, he'll have open ears, eyes and mind to what he can learn from Siyani and TA this year.
To "borrow" a comment from iabhoops, Welsh and Juzang, both coming from highly competitive CIF (Calif. Interscholastic Federation) basketball programs in the Los Angeles area, are showing more court-readiness than their ESPN ratings might have indicated. Surprised that Baker made no appearance. Not sure why. Perhaps they felt he couldn't cover Stanford's bigs as well as his teammates could. Nor did Corbin Miller, whose 3 point shooting could have helped. Perhaps the coaches felt he'd be a defensive liability.
Corey had few good looks, and shot poorly, as did the other returning players from last year's team, Zena and Chris Egi. Stunningly, Egi made all his (2) free throw attempts, though Zena, who did play well against top competition last year, was a total bust. I think that Reid Travis may have scrimmaged vs. him when visiting Harvard, and just "knew" how to cover him. It would have helped if Z remembered to pass out of a double or triple team, and I'm sure on the long plane trip back, he'll get a little "loving" message from Coach TA on that unfortunate regression to his first 1 ½ years at Harvard.
Lastly, I concur with both HGD and mrjames that this team will improve quite significantly over the season, whether in 1 month or 3... Amaker may be having a few somewhat Calipari-esque moments over the coming 4-8 weeks, as he gets these freshmen to play well together. I say "somewhat" because I believe these freshmen are all planning to complete their 4 year college programs before heading onward.
|
