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(03-31-2020 03:01 PM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  

(03-31-2020 11:56 AM)Prideofalion Wrote:  It’s called player development. At least give the kids a chance to develop. The Greek kid tore his ACL. Tough injury especially for a big. Give him a chance to recover and earn some PT before u call him a bust. If he doesn’t show anything this year then that’s one thing. But I’d give the kid a chance at least. I think Zip and Reece both showed improvement. Kalu can play. Just has to figure out the mental. He produced in limited minutes. He may never play 30 min but I’d expect his 17 min to get up to 23 minutes or so.

If u look at the roster, ODU generally just lists players as guards and forwards. Y’all put way too much stock into what position a player plays. Guys just have to play together. If u look around the country there are a ton of teams playing 4 guards at the same time. Especially at our level where teams don’t have 3 good bigs like UVA or Mich St. This is just where we are. It doesn’t necessarily mean the 4th guard is playing the “4”. J Wade is a guard. Plain and simple. He’s a good ball handler. Can slash. Is a great perimeter defender and overall defender and rebounder. He’s still a guard even though he’s not a knockdown shooter. I will say he shot a bunch of free throws this year and got his numbers up to 66%. Not great but showed better form I thought. He had his best shooting stretch right before the injury as well. Bottom Line is we have to develop our talent.

Some of the guys I think of that showed great improvement...
Frank H
K Bazemore
Trey Porter
Joe Reece
Jason Wade

We will always have to develop our talent. That’s not changing regardless of conference affiliation or coach.

Thanks but I'm entitled to have an opinion even if it is not the same as yours.

I know at least as much as you do about player development having seen numerous ODU players improve over the many decades I have watched them. A year ago we heard here how much Kalu was going to have improved, how much Green was going to have improved. Neither came true. It is one thing to say that it can happen. Of course it can. It is another to actually have it happen. Same will hold true for this returning team. Only significant difference between this off season and most is the impact the Novid-19 Virus has had upon their ability to work out to achieve that improvement. It certainly hasn't helped matters any. Still, that doesn't remove the possibility of any of the players showing a nice improvement from last season. I just don't like to count on it, especially when the team was sub-500 and lost in the first (and only) round of the Conference Tournament to begin with.

NOWHERE did I say that Kariskos is "a bust". I merely stated that we don't know what to expect from him physically or skill wise after almost no playing time last year, and we ALL know that he had a knee issue that contributed to it. Till he shows something on the court - starting with playing some minutes - he is an unknown quantity.

In the words of Jeff Jones, ODU needs to improve its post play. Jeff is still recruiting for next season so the jury on who he has to achieve that goal with is still out.

What makes u think I was even replying to you? No need to get all defensive. I was just speaking to all the comments in this thread.

Obviously not everyone is going to improve at some ridiculous rate. But to just assume everyone is going to stay the same is a bit ridiculous. I’m not saying you said that but some people on here imply that nobody will get better. It’s probably somewhere in the middle. Everyone is in the same boat this off-season with practice time and gym availability. This makes continuity even more important for next season. Teams with a lot of returning players will have a leg up.