RE: North Texas Mean Green
McGhee is good. AAC level player. He isn't a true point guard to me. Still more of a combo guard.
Butta is good. AAC level player. He is definitely, without a doubt, not a point guard.
AJ is good. AAC level player. He is definitely, without a doubt, not a point guard.
Tyren Moore is pretty good, *I think*. His shooting has improved a lot lately. He still sucks on defense, though, so it may be a wash. But anyways, He is not a point guard. He's a Temu Jelly Walker.
EG started out as the sloppiest, lowest Basketball IQ player I'd ever seen at any level, but he miraculously turned into a heady, floor general type PG by the end of his second year. Until he did that, we did not have a PG on that team either. He started as what - a waifish combo guard who didn't fit the mold of a PG or a SG? Anyways, not a point guard - to start.
Jelly was not a PG, Ertel was not a PG, Quan was not a PG. Jamal was not a PG, Justin Brown was not a point guard. Was Locure a point guard?? He played about 2-3 months for that team, and was still more of a score-first, shoot-first guard.
AK HAS to stop trying the committee approach with guards and just hoping we can get 2-3 guys who can run an offense decently enough. That obviously hasn't worked. Our half court offense is disjointed, sloppy, and way too reliant on one-on-one drives to the basket when things break down. What is our "go to" play? What can we go to when we HAVE to get a bucket? Is it a Yax post up? Is it a Butta 3 off a curl screen? Is it a one on one dribble drive from AJ from the 3 point line? Is it a jumper or a drive to the basket from CC from no man's land outside the paint? When does our offense actually look functional? It's rare. A true point guard would help immensely in that respect.
And you guys quoting the shooting %'s for Butta, AJ, and Moore - my retort to that would be: they still aren't consistent, knock down, RELIABLE shooters. They have decent %s on the season now, but all started abysmally bad. How much of their production from the 3-point line has come recently, against some of the worst teams in d1? Said another way, what is their "schedule adjusted" three point percentage? I don't disagree they are all pretty good shooters, but they aren't reliable, consistent, knock down shooters to me. I THOUGHT Butta fit that mold, but he's been in a season long slump, which is extending to almost a full 3rd of his college career at this point.
PGs and knock down shooters are two places that AK has failed mightily in recruiting. He's brought in raw talent and athleticism, but low IQ, soft, sloppy players that don't fit specific positions. Soft, sloppy, low basketball IQ Especially fits this group.
===============================================================================================================
We aren't a team. We are a disparate, disjointed, hodgepodge of good parts. AK has done a terrible job and fitting those parts together this year. I *think* AK is better than Davis, and Haase. He would have to really tank to be worse than Ehsan. But what has really thrown me off about this year is that AK has shown a floor that I did not think existed with a coach of his level. I never in a million years thought we would be THIS bad with a group this good, outside of multiple catastrophic injuries. That worries me for the future.
And I don't think he's done enough to be infallible at this point, as a lot of ya'll do. This team and both of Jelly's teams had the rosters to be top 25, at large bid, regular season championship winning teams. None of those teams have sniffed any of those things. We also haven't won any tournament games in 4 years. It is not trending to look like we will this year either. We have only won conference tournaments bc we've gotten insanely easy draws.
2022 - we avoided UNT, a team that beat us twice and was clearly better. Did our best to lose to an MTSU game we had beaten by 30 points a few weeks prior, which would have made the matchup with La Tech (who we had already beaten twice) null and void.
2024 - we avoided FAU and Memphis, and also avoided Charlotte, SMU, and UNT. Yes we beat USF - but if you are being honest with yourself - who would you have rather played? USF the regular season champ, or FAU the 2023 Final Four participant or Memphis - the team with top 10 talent who had recently outscored us by 40+ in about 20 minutes of basketball?
Long winded way of saying I'm not completely out on AK, but this year has taken a TON of the shine off of him. He's shown a floor that I didn't think was possible, outside of injury. He's shown that he can fail with good talent, good experience, and a good roster.
|