BB Recruiting Coastal Carolina transfer G Rasheed Jones commits to Rutgers
- Thread starter Richie O
- Start date
I agree with you, it was kept pretty quiet. The best part about it now, is that for the most part we have options across the floor, although still think Syndor the only actual 4, don't love Buchannon there, but it is what it is.
Better competition and older plus in the one case didnt sit out last year
Oh no. I think I am getting optimistic about next season!
Looks good but all stats should be nullified in games played on that court.
Sydnor is very interesting.
Regarding the missed year - I know there isn’t much info about it known, but we think it was treated like a regular redshirt, correct? If so, that would mean Sydnor practiced and trained with Manhattan all last season. Not necessarily a big negative. I really like his rebounding numbers. Also at 6-8, if he put on some muscle since frosh season, might give us a stretch 5 option in certain situations.
No way Tariq goes back to the bench. Figure it out Steve. Put five players that can score on the floor. Get modern. Take a page out of these winners' playbooks:
Your comment reminded me of the classic line by Dennis Hopper: “Once we’re done with the 90s, the 80s are gonna make the 70s look like the 60s.”
3 years is a long way off and Zinn made it abundantly clear Pike is coaching for the here and now. At the moment it’s not close at all. Powers is 2 inches shorter and behind Jones in every measurable metric out there.
Auriemma is not one of the two best coaches in the sport - not even close. It's about a hundred times easier to coach women than men - just saying.
What point is that? J Mike is a dinosaur. Very few kids stick with a program through their senior year these days. Predictions about possible development 3 years out mean nothing.
In my opinion, unless Kaden drastically improves over the offseason in multiple facets of his game, he’s going to struggle to see the floor much unless several of the guys we brought in turn out to be busts.
Kaden’s challenge with our current roster make up is that the newcomers who play his position who are as good or better than he performed last year from deep, have scoring ability in isolation, are taller than him, and aren’t likely to be materially worse than him on defense (even Darin Smith - because Powers was really weak on D too last season). Hes not a strong ball handler so won’t be getting primary PG minutes either. It’s not like he even drastically outrebounded the smaller guards either to make a compelling argument for him over a two smaller guard combo. Again - things do change in off seasons so we’ll see but as of right now that’s how I see it.
Odd as it may seem, I think it’s Tariq’s servicable defense (not as a standalone but in combination with the offense he brings relative to other options) that’s going to keep him easily locked in as a top 5 mpg player on the roster. He’s far from a “good” defender but he clogs in only slightly net negative on that end while a guy like Smith graded out bottom 5% nationally. Gurdak also projects to be only serviceable on that end and on a whole we may lack defensive playmakers to stick in the rotation to be able to afford massive liabilities on the court with certain rotation combinations (this is where Powers needs to improve a lot too similar to Smith IMO if he wants to see time).
It all depends on what we get from Sydnor on D. I consider Buchanan a slight net positive but not an impact defender (his individual metrics are skewed by playing out of position and covering for others mistakes - he’s better than how he rates but he’s far from great).
The wild card will be if we add another true defensive stopper or or either Wooton (known for D in Hs) or Duarte (a long time ago but old scoutings said he played D) come in with strong defense. If Wooten comes in for instance - even at Jalen Miller frosh level D for his position, he could end up competing for time. There’s still a gap in the roster on this front in my opinion and if it gets filled - that allows for guys like Smith - if he shows he can be a similar level scorer to be on the court without Tariq and not hurt us by completely losing his guy on D (help defense hides a lot). We’ll see.
He played over 75 percent of the games last year off the bench and the team talent was atrocious.
We upgraded the talent at every position except PG., and added 3/4 ball dominant pieces.
If he wants to operate similar to last year he should be coming off the bench. If Pike uses his loyalty once again it will limit Tariq’s effectiveness. His best role is running the second unit unless Pike is smart and burrys JMike and Lino deep on the bench. That could open up more mins.
Will be interesting
“Starting” is pretty irrelevant. He always played within the top 5 minutes played of everyone on the team whether he came in off the bench or not. Who gets the bulk of the 40 min is the more important question in my opinion. And it seems to me our biggest limitations are going to be on the defensive end. I’m of the opinion that a better front court / wing help defensive unit with upgraded overall rebounded would’ve made our D a lot better last season. I know others disagreed, but I actually felt the height of our backcourt was the least of our problems on D last season. Powers extra inches guarding the perimeter certainly didn’t help us.
The roster is nearly complete but there has been little mention regarding the coaching staff.Rutgers half court offense needs a major improvement and with the same coaching staff, I have doubts there will be noticeable improvement.Iso NBA type offense doesn't work with Rutgers talent level.
Sydnor should be a solid player for us. I only saw him play in his first college game which was against Maryland with Queen as their center. It wasn’t pretty watching him defend Queen but it wasn’t a good matchup for him and it was his first college game. That said he brings a lot of skills and scoring ability and likely can be effective at either the 3 or the 4.
Lino is a baller. He should have a productive season and given the team outside shooting is now much better he should have some trust to pass it out to the perimeter when driving into a crowded lane.
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I mean - Sydnor is a 4 not a 5. Lathan and company on our team gave up 29 points and 15 rebounds to Queen. Also - I didn’t watch that game but according to the box score, it was close at halftime (3 point margin).
not bashing Lino - but a legit question I think: has Lino shown ANY ability to drive and dish?
You make it sound like him driving to the rim all the time (rather than dish) was a conscious decision each time - that he made the deliberate decision not to pass since he didn’t trust his team mate would make the shot?
frankly I saw no evidence of that. I saw a kid who used his speed to slash to the hoop (great) but once he made that decision - he was taking the shot!!!
I would hope what you seem to be insinuating to be true - that he has the ability to facilitate- but I saw virtually no evidence of that. At all
He put up 17 pts 5 rebs 5 assists in BigTen tourney loss to UCLA. UCLA was a pretty good team…a 7 seed who had to face UConn in the second round of the BigDance.
5 assists in one game . Great
Was that the manner of those assists (drive and dishing back out)? Otherwise - it’s not responsive to my post
In the comment I was responding to you made it seem like he CHOSE not to drive and dish (since he didn’t “trust” his teammates) but there’s literally ZERO evidence that he is even CAPABLE of it
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Lino’s biggest strength as a distributor in my opinion is the way he passes in stride when running the offense. The other 2 (JMike and Tariq) bring the ball up much slower and allow the halfcourt D more time to get set.
In terms of kicking out off penetration, a lot of frosh don’t do that. J Mike certainly never did as a frosh for instance, but as a junior did a lot more. The poster you are responding to probably framed what he said incorrectly - I highly doubt Lino actively chose not to kick out because he didn’t trust others and rather was simply looking to prove what he could do. Again, pretty common with frosh. Hopefully he matures year over year in this regard. A lot of players do so there’s reason to hope.
But that said - the skill you are referring to wouldn’t have been all the helpful from him on last year’s roster anyway as our options were pretty limited in terms of perimeter catch and shoot guys. Our best statistical 3 point shooter (J Mike) wasn’t on the floor with Lino often. Our second best guy (Tariq) is actually better off the dribble from long range (vs catch and shoot).
Never said he would be better at Rutgers, only that he would be better in three years. Actually, with a real coach it might only take two years. In his first year at Coastal Jones averaged 11.6 ppg. Powers could have averaged double figures in the Sun Belt last year. Powers averaged 6.1 ppg vs a Big 10 schedule last year in less than 16 mpg., as compared to Jones' 14.6 ppg. in the Sun Belt two years ago in more than 31 mpg. So Jones scored double the amount of points than Powers in double the amount of minutes, and vs. lesser competition, and being younger Powers might even improve more next year. All of this makes for a pretty good argument that Powers could have scored 15 ppg. last year for Coastal Carolina.
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So Lino's greatest strength is "the way he passes in stride?" Number 1 - when he is in stride going toward the basket he almost never passes, and number 2 - really good players don't pass off the dribble. They either drive all the way to the basket or come to a jump stop before leaving their feet and passing. This is something Lino never does.
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And Powers scored more than that in a half vs. UCLA. For the most part Mark was a brick layer.
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Come on. You can’t just look at 6 ppg and conclude that’d be double with twice the minutes. 34.9% shooting from the field is really poor. Unless you play for a flat out awful offensive team (like RU 23-24) nobody is getting that much full game usage to put up double digits despite such poor pure efficiency (it’s not like Powers gets to the line much either). So no - you cannot assume with more minutes he’d score a ton more because unless he made a higher percentage of shots he wouldn’t be playing. It’s not like he’s a net positive on D.
Also, it’s apples and oranges really to compare their per minute ppg the way you are for a go to starter who is the focus of the defense to a 15 ppg role player.
I’m not talking about passing off of dribble penetration into the paint. I’m saying that of the 3, Lino gets the offense started the quickest of the 3 by far - yes sometimes that’s by trying to beat everyone to the rim himself but other times he pushes the ball over halfcourt with pace and then quickly makes a pass to someone in stride who ran ahead and is open on the perimeter. Tariq and J Mike more often walk it over and do a lot of slow dribbling themselves above the perimeter eating up the shot clock and allowing the defense to get a set before getting the flow of the offense started.
But Lino brought other things to the table. He was excellent at drawing fouls and able to challenge defenders and score at the rim. He also added a spark on defense. Powers did none of that - his strength was supposed to be sharp shooting except he just wasn’t very efficient.
If you took that UCLA game where he was on fire out of his metrics, Powers shot 33.1% from the field and 30.9% from 3 in the rest of the games. That’s pretty brick-like to me for someone whose strength is supposed to be shooting.
If 34.9% from the field is awfull for Powers, as you say, then what is 39.8% against Sun Belt competition? Powers was also rated higher out of high school. Jones was rated the 30th best player in Indiana. Powers was the 37th rated shooting guard in the country and at 167 overall. You seem to like ratings. Powers is several years younger. As I said originally, Powers ends up the better player in a couple of years. There is little doubt.
Your not making any sense. Your comparing the recruiting rating of kids who are 3 classes apart - why? Who cares what scouts thought then or what Powers might or might not be like 2 or 3 years from now compared to what Jones is now. Powers is not that now and now is the only thing that matters.
As for the efficiency numbers, you cannot compare the pure field goal percentage of a player like Powers who showed very little ability to get to the FT line (only 19 attempts on the season) to players whose games focus on trying to draw contact? Jones took 114 FTs. Lino Mark (who played similar minutes to Powers) took 65 (over 3 times as many as Powers).
I only brought up percentages because you did. Powers projects as a better player a couple of years from now - simple as that. And forget comparing Powers' first year in the Big 10 to Jones' first year at Coastal anyway. Instead, compare it to Jones' JUCO year where he averaged 11 ppg. Just guessing Powers might have scored more than 11 ppg. last year at NW Florida Junior College.
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Hah. You can't pick and choose the games you want to throw out. Regardless, you don't want to include Powers' performance against a much superior UCLA team? OK, I'll play that game. Lets not include Mark's hot 3-3 from 3 against Minnesota, one of the worst teams in the league. If we throw that one out then Mark shoots less than 17% from 3 on the season, which would be about 5 percentage points less than JMike shot as a freshmen, and about 15 percentage points less than, as you put it, Powers "brick-like' performance this past year. That's right - about 15 percentage points. It's OK though. I see where you're coming from. Mark has that extra star. You want him on that wall. You need him on that wall. Listen, I'm rooting for the kid. I hope he becomes the player you foresee, but as of right now, with the players who have come in so far, he should back up Davis, at least to start the season.
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Again - why would you compare Powers to the player Jones was 3 seasons ago? He’s obviously much improved now (after playing 2 additional seasons). You have no idea what Powers will be like after playing 2 more seasons - you (and all of us) can only guess since it hasn’t happened yet - but as BAC said, there’s very little chance Powers will be playing for Rutgers at that point anyway. So it really doesn’t matter.
At present time, Jones is a much better all around player. But beyond this - Jones took over half of his shots from 3 and shot over 36% on them en route to his 39.8% overall shooting mark. His 2 point shooting was around 43% and he got to the line for 114 shots along the way. Powers only took 44% of his shots from 3, shot over 32% on them and still didn’t break 35% overall shooting. Competition level difference or not 36.6% from two is simply horrendous when you barely draw any fouls. It basically means nearly all your twos are midrange jumpers and your not good at drawing contact on them either à la Tariq. This doesn’t mean Powers won’t get better but this is simply the reality of the math today. The fact that he was the worst defensive player on a historically poor defensive team is the cherry on top.