gokinsmen
Postdoc
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Reg: 02-06-10
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08-07-11 06:34 PM - Post#107264
Yale fans should be excited...wherever they are. Mangano for another year. Morgan and Kreisberg for two and three more. And highly touted recruits like Sherrod and Cotton coming in. Duren might be a steal, too.
http://ghpabball.com/news/85-college-baske tball-in...
http://articles.courant.com/2011-07-28/sports/hc- p...
Once completely out of shape, he lost 100 pounds (down to 215) before his sophomore year ...Having put on 20 pounds of muscle since his life-changing weight loss, he's now a chiseled 6-foot-6, 235-pound small forward who will play next season at Yale...He will start off as a power forward at Yale with an eye toward becoming a small forward, perhaps as early as his sophomore year.
Between that blurb and the video of his impressive post move, he seems very Hummer-esque. He was also his state's Gatorade POY like Hummer was.
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TheLine
Professor
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08-08-11 09:41 AM - Post#107266
In response to gokinsmen
Sherrod is the type of kid that is easy to root for. His back story is pretty amazing.
He is not a small forward - he's an undersized PF. Has a great motor and is a really good leaper. I saw some game footage of him a year ago - his moves seemed very mechanical at the time. If the clip in the link above is indicative of his current play then he's smoothed out his post move considerably, which is a very good sign. I'd reserve judgment before proclaiming Sherrod the next Ian Hummer, though.
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gokinsmen
Postdoc
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Reg: 02-06-10
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Recent features on Brandon Sherrod 08-08-11 11:41 PM - Post#107277
In response to TheLine
Hey, no argument here -- there's only one Ian Hummer.
But Sherrod does seem to have a lot in common with him, and I'm increasingly interested in guys like Hummer, Sherrod, and Kenyatta Smith -- big men who were elite high school players but not elite college recruits due to their tweener status (Smith came close, though). In other words, the NBA may be out of the question for them, but they can still wreak havoc at the college-level.
Getting those types of big men, I think, should be the focus of Ivy recruiting.
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penn62
PhD Student
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Reg: 11-27-05
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Re: cent features on Brandon Sherrod 08-09-11 07:49 PM - Post#107280
In response to gokinsmen
Agree...up until the last sentence. Guards win Ivy titles. Correction...NCAA titles.
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gokinsmen
Postdoc
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Reg: 02-06-10
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Recent features on Brandon Sherrod 08-10-11 01:47 AM - Post#107285
In response to penn62
Yeah, but the Ivy has no shortage of quality guards. So it's usually the big men who make the difference. Maddox and Foote, for instance, were the X-factors that separated '11 Princeton and '10 Cornell from the next-best team.
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Silver Maple
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08-10-11 08:24 AM - Post#107288
In response to gokinsmen
Where do you get 'usually?" You're right about '10 and '11, but for most of the past 30+ years it's been a superior backcourt that has been the key to winning the conference.
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gokinsmen
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Recent features on Brandon Sherrod 08-10-11 06:07 PM - Post#107310
In response to Silver Maple
Has it? Maddox, Foote for Cornell's 3-year run, Onyekwe, Zoller, Wallace, Goodrich (though that's as far my qualitative memory serves). I feel like the '99 and '00 Princeton teams with Chris Young are the only recent-ish exceptions where the contender with the best big man didn't win the title.
To put it another way: as good as Curry, Webster, and Rivard are, it's definitely Harvard's frontcourt -- Wright, Casey and potentially Smith -- that make them the clear favorites.
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mrjames
Professor
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Re: cent features on Brandon Sherrod 08-10-11 10:33 PM - Post#107314
In response to gokinsmen
I'll look into this - but my initial reaction is (though I am familiar with the expression) that the most balanced teams win the title.
The only reason why big men don't appear to be as important is because the crop of big men has historically been less talented than guards, so it takes less talented big men to have above average players at the 4/5 vs. the 1/2/3. That's just a guess. I will put it on the list of things to examine.
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gokinsmen
Postdoc
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Recent features on Brandon Sherrod 08-10-11 11:16 PM - Post#107315
In response to mrjames
I don't disagree that the most balanced teams win the title. It's just that the biggest obstacle to "balance" in the Ivy is finding a high-caliber big man. So I think "most balanced" usually means "best big(s)."
And if forced to choose, I would rather tip my team's balance towards the frontcourt rather than the backcourt. That might be a more testable statement...although I doubt there's many Ivy teams whose talent was weighted that way. That's what made '11 Princeton a bit of an anomaly, IMO.
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mrjames
Professor
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Re: cent features on Brandon Sherrod 08-11-11 08:27 AM - Post#107317
In response to gokinsmen
Test away, I shall. It'll be interesting to find the answer. Thinking of a methodology that will work as we speak.
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TheLine
Professor
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08-11-11 08:48 AM - Post#107319
In response to mrjames
I think we Penn alums are a bit blinded by all the amazing guards we had over the years - Bilsky, Wohl, Salters, Allen, Maloney, Jordan, Toole, Jaaber to name a few - that we forget we also had pretty good front court players on the better teams. For example as much as Ibby meant to the most recent Penn dynasty, that team also needed Zoller. Even the guard-heavy Allen/Maloney teams had two pretty good frontcourt players in Trice and Moore.
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mrjames
Professor
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08-11-11 09:50 AM - Post#107320
In response to TheLine
I need to do more than just this, but when I look at team rebounding, some of the worst teams in the league (100% - (offensive reb% + defensive reb%)) still managed to win titles (three in Bottom 20). To be fair, there is a huge split here between offensive and defensive rebounding. Lots of title winners were strong on the defensive boards, but offensive rebounding seems to matter much, much less.
Also, a few of the worst teams at getting to the line (something good big men do well) won titles (two in Bottom 20, seven outside top 75 of 120).
However, when I sort by 3PT%, half of the 18 title winners in the last 15 years were among the top 21, 14/18 were in the top half and 17/18 were in the Top 75 (none in Bottom 20). Sorting by 3PT/FGA, there are fewer in the Top 21 (just 5), but 14/18 in the top half and 16/18 in the top 75 (none in Bottom 20).
Maybe the league does tilt toward the guard spots. Still more work to be done here, though.
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gokinsmen
Postdoc
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Recent features on Brandon Sherrod 08-12-11 03:54 AM - Post#107330
In response to mrjames
Agreed -- that doesn't really tell us anything. For instance, up until last year, I doubt Princeton teams had great rebounding numbers even when they won the title and had the best big(s). Besides, being guard-driven doesn't preclude having the best big(s).
Again, my argument is not that Ivy title teams aren't guard-heavy. It's that what puts them over the top is having the best bigs. For instance, '10 Cornell shot 3s at an incredible clip...but Jeff Foote was clearly the biggest reason they avoided an upset bid by Princeton not once but twice.
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TheLine
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08-12-11 09:48 AM - Post#107331
In response to gokinsmen
I don't think the Ibby-Zoeller teams had the best front court in the league, but did have a good front court and the best player (Ibby) in the league.
Same with the Allen/Maloney teams, which won because they had the best back court in the league by far. As much as Trice and Moore contributed, that was a guard-heavy team.
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Silver Maple
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08-12-11 11:50 AM - Post#107333
In response to TheLine
Agreed. Trice & Moore and Zoller & Danley were all tough, smart, team oriented players who had good fundamental skills and did what needed to be done. But you really couldn't consider either of those pairings to represent the best front lines in the conference. Those teams won because each had a backcourt that the other teams simply couldn't handle.
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