Portal time and names

[Anti-Homer]

Put me in Hop's and Miller's camp. Also. Joe & Byron. Djoko was a big loss. I hope he goes and kills it, becaue it was a rare, but big issue with Miller this year: Player Mgmt. I knoe he expected some to leave, but also strongly believe he wanted Nzeh & Djoko to stay. BTW, here are the freshman year ppg averages of other X players:

Jason Love: 2006 1.1
Sean O’Mara 1.1
Farr 3.2
Justin Martin 2.9
Dante Jackson 2.4
BJ Raymond 2.1
Duncan 3.4

No other bigs on this list were able to guard on the perimeter like Djoko, and again, his offensive prowess was lauded by Miller, Sunderman, Larkin, and others. Even an elite, highly successful 20-year coach like Miller can grow. Hopefully, lesson learned.

[lionelchalmers0]

Put me in Hop's and Miller's camp. Also. Joe & Byron. Djoko was a big loss. I hope he goes and kills it, becaue it was a rare, but big issue with Miller this year: Player Mgmt. I knoe he expected some to leave, but also strongly believe he wanted Nzeh & Djoko to stay. BTW, here are the freshman year ppg averages of other X players:

Jason Love: 2006 1.1
Sean O’Mara 1.1
Farr 3.2
Justin Martin 2.9
Dante Jackson 2.4
BJ Raymond 2.1
Duncan 3.4

No other bigs on this list were able to guard on the perimeter like Djoko, and again, his offensive prowess was lauded by Miller, Sunderman, Larkin, and others. Even an elite, highly successful 20-year coach like Miller can grow. Hopefully, lesson learned.

Therein lies the challenge of the portal/NIL era. Trying to juggle minutes between transfers that have come in and freshmen you want to develop hoping you don’t piss off the freshmen due to low minutes.

In Sean’s defense, while you can see that Lazar is smooth and has great stretch 4 potential, miller gave him opportunities. The guy came out and missed lots of 3s, and wasn’t exactly a strong defender/rebounder. Which is fine, typical freshman play. But not sure he deserved more minutes. Just a shame because I could see him developing like the guys on your list given the time and tutelage under miller and crew.

[Kevin Reilly]

Good post Lionelchalmers0. I agree with everything you said. I don't believe Miller mismanaged the team at all. He was trying to win with a average talent level team. Times have changed. It is a lot harder to play freshman when half your team are 3-4 year players. He gave most of the freshman time and for the most part they were not ready. I think the one guy who deserved more time was Nzeh. As far as soft I agree with X-lucidity. Djokovic was pushed around and knocked off his spot with regularity. He would catch the ball close to the basket and either got bumped and lost his balance or just lost the ball because he wasn't strong enough to hold his own against normal banging and fighting for his spot. Green, Swain and DJokovic were all soft. Ciani, Nzeh and Ousmane were not soft.

[Anti-Homer]

X had four true freshmen this past year rated between 50 to 150 in the rankings. I think it's safe to say that only 1 of the 4 can be seen as a success. There were also three int'l players, one highly coveted in Djoko who did not meet expectations. So, SM is batting about 150. If this is deemed as good/adequate player management/development, I would hate to see what failure looks like.

[Anti-Homer]

Good post Lionelchalmers0. I agree with everything you said. I don't believe Miller mismanaged the team at all. He was trying to win with a average talent level team. Times have changed. It is a lot harder to play freshman when half your team are 3-4 year players. He gave most of the freshman time and for the most part they were not ready. I think the one guy who deserved more time was Nzeh. As far as soft I agree with X-lucidity. Djokovic was pushed around and knocked off his spot with regularity. He would catch the ball close to the basket and either got bumped and lost his balance or just lost the ball because he wasn't strong enough to hold his own against normal banging and fighting for his spot. Green, Swain and DJokovic were all soft. Ciani, Nzeh and Ousmane were not soft.

Seriously? 2-3 minutes at a clip until a player makes one mistake hardly constitutes "time" in my mind. They all played tentatively, knowing that was the case. Nemiksa and Swain were given more rope. Was it just that 6 of the 7 newbies underperformed? Were the high ratings and being the MVP of the most prestigious high school tournaments just misses and anomalies? Claude got 21 minutes a game last year, and avg.ed 5 pts/gm, at a shooting clip of %42 fg, 57% from the line, and 29% from 3. He also was the most turnover prone player along with Freemantle, at a much lower usage rate.

Does that scream "I deserve 21 min a game" to you? I think the vast improvement shown is because he wasn't pulled after multiple mistakes and was given a chance to work on his deficiencies. it's probably why he didn't transfer. If Miller had "freshman" Claude on this year's team and managed him accordingly, I suspect he would have gotten about 12 minutes a game and would be looking at portal options. Ironically, he is probably doing that anyway. Karma?

[X-lucidity]

AH, me thinks you’re getting a big high on the horse lately. We all follow the gm, we all gave opinions. dojo did significantly underwhelm first 65% of the season . Should he have been awarded minutes just so he would not bolt? Would that have been fair to Quincy? Who had only one year to try to make the tournament? I do agree that Coach should have played Colbert less and given those minutes to Trey Greene, the jury is out on whether he will stay, or whether that maneuver is a sore spot on his mind. Back to Lazar, let’s all pocket this discussion, and see how the next two years play out. Time will tell.

[lionelchalmers0]

Good post Lionelchalmers0. I agree with everything you said. I don't believe Miller mismanaged the team at all. He was trying to win with a average talent level team. Times have changed. It is a lot harder to play freshman when half your team are 3-4 year players. He gave most of the freshman time and for the most part they were not ready. I think the one guy who deserved more time was Nzeh. As far as soft I agree with X-lucidity. Djokovic was pushed around and knocked off his spot with regularity. He would catch the ball close to the basket and either got bumped and lost his balance or just lost the ball because he wasn't strong enough to hold his own against normal banging and fighting for his spot. Green, Swain and DJokovic were all soft. Ciani, Nzeh and Ousmane were not soft.

Seriously? 2-3 minutes at a clip until a player makes one mistake hardly constitutes "time" in my mind. They all played tentatively, knowing that was the case. Nemiksa and Swain were given more rope. Was it just that 6 of the 7 newbies underperformed? Were the high ratings and being the MVP of the most prestigious high school tournaments just misses and anomalies? Claude got 21 minutes a game last year, and avg.ed 5 pts/gm, at a shooting clip of %42 fg, 57% from the line, and 29% from 3. He also was the most turnover prone player along with Freemantle, at a much lower usage rate.

Does that scream "I deserve 21 min a game" to you? I think the vast improvement shown is because he wasn't pulled after multiple mistakes and was given a chance to work on his deficiencies. it's probably why he didn't transfer. If Miller had "freshman" Claude on this year's team and managed him accordingly, I suspect he would have gotten about 12 minutes a game and would be looking at portal options. Ironically, he is probably doing that anyway. Karma?

Lazar played in 28 games and averaged 14.4 minutes per game. He shot 30% and 25% from three. I think 14 minutes is a good amount or rope for that.

Although I’ve argued that when you realize you’ve got a 16 win caliber team you should just be playing the guys you want here next year. So in that case sure I’d throw him and nzeh out there and suffer through it for their upside. But coaches don’t just do that.

[XU'59]

Here's one to pluck! Vladislav Goldin FAU 7-1 220 lb. Center.
Just hit the portal. I live in Florida and became somewhat of a fan for FAU.. This kid can play. Probably leaving because coach is moving on after a fine time at the school.
Check him out!

[skyhops]

He will be going to the highest bidder

[XU'59]

Skyhops, I understand that, but shouldn't we be proactive when a proven quantity is out there? Are we selling XAVIER short? We're in a top conference with a quality coach.
Maybe I'm a very old Muskie, but I still bleed blue and I'm anxious to see SM right this ship. I'll be checking the portals everyday. I watch a lot of Basketball ...lol!