Our next great player.

[sedz]

Skillings has the first 4 turnover game of the season, and suddenly the narrative is that he is a turnover machine (not directed at you DAH, I've seen this idea pop up all over the place since Wednesday).

Players with a higher turnover rate than Skillings: Jizzle, Day Day, Simas, Newman, Aziz, Jamille, Vik, Ody, Reed ... Zach Edey, Tristen Newton, Jamal Shead, Caleb Love, Johnell Davis, Kevin McCullar, Tyler Kolek, Baylor Scheierman, Anton Watson. It's a long list full of great players.

I'm not saying Skillings is great with the ball or has good court vision. But turnovers are not a liability for him. He has a high usage rate now and turnovers are expected for high usage players. They are a part of basketball and completely eliminating them isn't reasonable. Tyler Kolek has 9 games this year with 4+ turnovers. Kevin McCullar has 5 games with 5+ turnovers. Tristen Newton has a couple of 6 turnover games.

[D.A.H.]

Dans gone after this year, so his improvement will come at the next level. JJames is certainly a star in the making. Wish he would get more playing time in the 2nd half of games. He brings electricity to the offense and his teammates feed off of that. As does the crowd. Super frustrated by Wes Millers rotation and I believe it’s cost them at least 2 games. At least.

he's not good on defense (which may be fine "at the next level", and he also sucks as a ball handler - horrible decisions with the ball. with that said, i do like him. he's just young and out of control at times.

[leo from jersey]

The next great player may not be on the team yet.

[longtimefan]

Seriously? How did you arrive at that?

I was about to ask the same thing.

[Jeff Burk]

Dans gone after this year, so his improvement will come at the next level. JJames is certainly a star in the making. Wish he would get more playing time in the 2nd half of games. He brings electricity to the offense and his teammates feed off of that. As does the crowd. Super frustrated by Wes Millers rotation and I believe it’s cost them at least 2 games. At least.

Seriously? How did you arrive at that?

[Oldtimer_UC_fan]

Dans gone after this year, so his improvement will come at the next level. JJames is certainly a star in the making. Wish he would get more playing time in the 2nd half of games. He brings electricity to the offense and his teammates feed off of that. As does the crowd. Super frustrated by Wes Millers rotation and I believe it’s cost them at least 2 games. At least.

Why would Dan be gone? He is nowhere near ready for the NBA.

[GunSlinger]

Dans gone after this year, so his improvement will come at the next level. JJames is certainly a star in the making. Wish he would get more playing time in the 2nd half of games. He brings electricity to the offense and his teammates feed off of that. As does the crowd. Super frustrated by Wes Millers rotation and I believe it’s cost them at least 2 games. At least.

[sedz]

Skillings has star potential. He's got NBA length and is still just a sophomore. He's improved in all areas of his game, and I'd expect that to continue going forward. You mentioned that he hands the ball to the other team, but he has the lowest turnover rate on our squad outside of CJ. When he does turn it over it looks wild, but in general he takes care of the ball. His shooting percentages, rebounding rate, assist rate, free throw rate, and steal rate are all up, while turnover and foul rates are down - all with increased usage. He still needs to work on his defense and awareness/staying in control when driving, but he's got the tools to become a superstar.

Certainly Jizzle as well. He's very crafty and able to throw defenders off balance already. I think he needs to work on finishing at the rim rather than settling for midrange fadeaways. He's converting under 50% at the rim, which is bad. Those fadeaways look pretty when they go in, but he's only hitting 42% of them - it's even worse than his current bad rim conversion rate. And because he shies away from the rim, he doesn't get fouled much. He's also got a lot of work to do on the defensive end. But the tools are there for Jizzle.

[leo from jersey]

Some of the better defensive coaches like Sampson at Houston recruit scorers and then teach defense. Wes seems to be following that mold, and we have proof in redshirting Rayvon. Further proof is the great progression Reed has shown from year 1 to year 2 on defense, and it is getting him significant playing time. Reed will be our next great defensive lockdown specialist like Newmann. Wes didn't have the luxury to redshirt Jizzle because of roster turnover last year that improved other positions. DayDay is doing better than Jizzle on defense and gets the nod.

You are correct, Jizzle will be a big star. I think Rayvon will be too. I think we will also see greatly improved defense from both next year. We didn't lose that game last night for lack of scoring. It wasn't really bad defense for the most part. Ok St is not usuallyu a great shooting team, but they were hot from beyond the arc last night. Tough pill to swallow losing to a much lower ranked Net team who was winless on the road in conference play, but sometimes the other team just hits the shots you expect them to miss.

agreed - My opinion is that Josh Reed is the most improved player and a product of CWM teaching. One thing if you have bad defense and really want to win the game, what is your alternative. Mine would be outscore opponent who has a pathetic defense. Stop driving in one on two or three because even if they are poor defensively, the numbers usually win. You have little space to put up the ball. CWM knows the defense is putrid. He said as much on the post game. Offense becomes the key to victory and not just good offense, but more offense than your opponent. Since the defense was inept, how would you win the game?

[red_n_black_attack]

Some of the better defensive coaches like Sampson at Houston recruit scorers and then teach defense. Wes seems to be following that mold, and we have proof in redshirting Rayvon. Further proof is the great progression Reed has shown from year 1 to year 2 on defense, and it is getting him significant playing time. Reed will be our next great defensive lockdown specialist like Newmann. Wes didn't have the luxury to redshirt Jizzle because of roster turnover last year that improved other positions. DayDay is doing better than Jizzle on defense and gets the nod.

You are correct, Jizzle will be a big star. I think Rayvon will be too. I think we will also see greatly improved defense from both next year. We didn't lose that game last night for lack of scoring. It wasn't really bad defense for the most part. Ok St is not usuallyu a great shooting team, but they were hot from beyond the arc last night. Tough pill to swallow losing to a much lower ranked Net team who was winless on the road in conference play, but sometimes the other team just hits the shots you expect them to miss.