Yeah Bagley is important to them for sure. That being said they still struggled against Cal with him and he has a 106 ORTG. Getting him back would help, but I think he’d need to improve beyond where he is now to really start to fix any of ASU’s problems.
I don’t think you can downplay the Bagley injury. Probably a good time to buy low on ASU given how bad the Pac 12 is and how much he means to that team. You can’t just say that not having a top-40 freshman big who is playing 30 mpg doesn’t matter. Even if he had a bad shooting game against Cal.
I mean that’s probably fair. I do agree that ASU is a good buy low pick, especially with how bad the Pac-12 is. And like I said, I think Bagley is an important piece who’d help for sure and him breaking out is a potential fix for them.
That being said we see plenty of top 40 players who aren’t instant impact players or game changers every year, so I don’t think that alone is enough to say he’s gonna be the solution. Also he was bad against Cal and Villanova, and good against Rhode Island and Houston Baptist. So against teams with a pulse he’s had 1 good game out of 3. Obviously a ton of kids will struggle against Nova and he is a freshman so he’ll get better, but I definitely don’t think there’s enough there to say Bagley fixes ASU
Even if Bagley isn’t as good as one may think, they are getting literally nothing from anyone outside the three guards this year. Without Bagley, Christopher is literally the best rebounder on the team in terms of rate aside from one guy who play 12 minutes.
Also, without Bagley there really isn’t anyone here outside Verge who can make a 3. Christopher is at 23%, Martin 27%, a bunch of other guys barely over 30%. Martin has never shot it well, and Christopher wasn’t expected to.
They also suck defensively (part of it is being tiny across the board, and even their small guys are really small for the heights - Martin and Verge are both under 170 pounds), and foul a ton.
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Yeesh, so other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
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Interested in seeing how Arizona does this year a roster that is filled of players from 6 different countries excluding the USA.
I also think that a team as young and talented as they are has a better chance of making rapid improvement during the season.
Josh Christopher by the numbers since the season started:
Turnovers: 12
Assists: 8
Instagram posts: 6
Threes made: 6
ASU wins: 4
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Does anyone remember if the NET rankings are a game by game update thing like Kenpom or if they do a dramatic weekly reveal? And when do they start releasing it?
As much as everyone is enjoying trashing Christopher, he’s really not the problem at all - the team has pretty grave personnel issues.
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I think Dylan mentioned there wouldn’t be NET rankings, but maybe he was just assuming
I mean he’s also posting 58% true shooting on a pretty good volume. I think he’s as advertised for the most part.
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Interesting. It was on my mind because I was thinking of how dumb it is that the NCAA won’t release the actual formula and just has that marketing page with very generic stuff.
I figured the only reason they’d do that is because someone is making money off it not being public. AKA “big weekly release show spectacular,” which would be ruined a bit if a 3rd party had a page updating after every game. But I can’t remember if that actually was a thing or not.
I don’t really get the dogpiling on Christopher. I will giggle at ASU’s struggles cause I don’t like the Hurley’s, and even root for them to lose because it makes me feel good. But I’m personally rooting for Christopher. He’s a fun player and is definitely cementing himself as a 1st rounder.
He’s playing with two small guards that are both going to have a lot of assists and who both take a LOT of unassisted shots. Fairly expected his AST% is low because of that
Josh Christopher is a great basketball player and I wish we had him. I just enjoy trolling him and the situation he finds himself in (a struggling team that refers to themselves as “Guards U”) that is all.
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I’m still a fan of his. I also still think there’s a good chance that if Covid hadn’t happened, he’s in Ann Arbor.
I doubt it happened here, but on 247 people were straight up laughing at Jalen Wilson getting injured last year. Sports fandom is weird.
Eh, Christopher kinda played the Michigan staff. I didn’t feel like his recruitment was a normal recruiting loss. Luckily Chaundee came and filled some of that need at the 2, but by all accounts Michigan was led to believe JC was coming when in hindsight he just wanted to troll everyone and planned on committing to ASU all along. He used Michigan to build up exposure and drama for the 11:24 EST commitment. No one wishes harm on the kid, but I’m okay with the razzing for that reason. I wish him personal success because he’s just a kid having fun, but I’ll be happy if ASU misses the tournament
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It’s hard to imagine a worse environment for him. They have no shooting, so his penetration (his best skill) is infinitely harder, he plays with two other tiny guards which means he has to guard the other team’s 3 as a true freshman without the support of any kind of rim protection because nobody inside is over 6’7”.
They’re a roster construction nightmare right now (deepened by Bagley’s absence), so I will gleefully laugh at Hurley who seems like a grade a a******.
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A genuine question: I have seen it said repeatedly that Christopher was not forthright with Howard and that he “played” Michigan since the entire thing transpired. Was this reported somewhere? Is there a link?