Very interesting considering the talent he had around him, six former top 50 HS players.
I’m having some serious misgivings about Zoom Diallo. Typically when we get a player from the portal that came from an underperforming team in a major conference, you do so anticipating they didn’t have enough talent around them and hope that by putting ballers around them will make them even better. Washington was stacked with freshmen and portal players. 5 star Steinbach averaged 18 and 11 with 1.2 blocks but aside from him and Diallo, no one really improved their game from the prior year. They had three additional guards from the portal that we went after. Wesley Yates, Desmond Claude, and Quimari Peterson. All three underperformed and the only common factor is who their PG was. He’s highly rated because of his size but the scouting report basically says he can’t shoot from deep and is a defensive liability. This is attributed to smaller guards being able to get by. I get that he’s 6’4” but I don’t see the fit in his game. And he was surrounded in talent. They had 6 guys that were top 50 in high school. If that doesn’t give pause then I think we’re getting a little over excited to sign someone. The next PG in 247 is Wilkins who we’ve been in contact with as well. He’s 6’5” but much quicker than Zoom even though his name would suggest he’s fast. Like Soeedy Clayton lol remember him? I’m going to be supportive of what we decide but I really suggest you all look closer.
We dodged a bullet with Thomas I feel. Not sure about this one. I still think you could get Wilkins and Blyden for the hype around this kid and probably get them both for what he is asking. Then you get size, speed, shooting, defense and rebounding plus have injury security so Mason doesn’t have to be thrown into a situation where all the responsibilities end up falling him. And both those guys came from teams with winning records from two man show squads. It’s going to be interesting to see what he’s asking for. I’m actually pretty confident that Pope would take Blyden and Wilkins over him if he could be certain to get them both. I think the fan pressure to just “get anyone” has somewhat tainted the process due to pressure, which I do understand. But this portal is loaded so I think we can have confidence in getting a good squad, but a loaded and great squad is what we want and that makes this decision more intriguing. We actually could still get the other two if we got Diallo because they both can play on or off the ball but I don’t really feel great about him being our game manager.
I’m having some serious misgivings about Zoom Diallo. Typically when we get a player from the portal that came from an underperforming team in a major conference, you do so anticipating they didn’t have enough talent around them and hope that by putting ballers around them will make them even better. Washington was stacked with freshmen and portal players. 5 star Steinbach averaged 18 and 11 with 1.2 blocks but aside from him and Diallo, no one really improved their game from the prior year. They had three additional guards from the portal that we went after. Wesley Yates, Desmond Claude, and Quimari Peterson. All three underperformed and the only common factor is who their PG was. He’s highly rated because of his size but the scouting report basically says he can’t shoot from deep and is a defensive liability. This is attributed to smaller guards being able to get by. I get that he’s 6’4” but I don’t see the fit in his game. And he was surrounded in talent. They had 6 guys that were top 50 in high school. If that doesn’t give pause then I think we’re getting a little over excited to sign someone. The next PG in 247 is Wilkins who we’ve been in contact with as well. He’s 6’5” but much quicker than Zoom even though his name would suggest he’s fast. Like Soeedy Clayton lol remember him? I’m going to be supportive of what we decide but I really suggest you all look closer.
We dodged a bullet with Thomas I feel. Not sure about this one. I still think you could get Wilkins and Blyden for the hype around this kid and probably get them both for what he is asking. Then you get size, speed, shooting, defense and rebounding plus have injury security so Mason doesn’t have to be thrown into a situation where all the responsibilities end up falling him. And both those guys came from teams with winning records from two man show squads. It’s going to be interesting to see what he’s asking for. I’m actually pretty confident that Pope would take Blyden and Wilkins over him if he could be certain to get them both. I think the fan pressure to just “get anyone” has somewhat tainted the process due to pressure, which I do understand. But this portal is loaded so I think we can have confidence in getting a good squad, but a loaded and great squad is what we want and that makes this decision more intriguing. We actually could still get the other two if we got Diallo because they both can play on or off the ball but I don’t really feel great about him being our game manager.
