He was consistently our best player against the best teams on our schedule last year once Levert went down. He also bailed us out with his defensive hustle so many times I lost count.
Irvin and Walton disappeared against the top half of the conference far too often even though they both had the green light to get their offensive games going at all times.
Maybe in an alternative universe where Zak doesn’t blow out his back and Walton doesn’t get turf toe, those two guys are our best players. As it stands now, MAAR is the guy.
Well there’s something to be said about our better opponents’ ability to have the players and game plan to make it more difficult for Walton and Irvin. Perhaps they chose to clamp down on those two less than Abdur-Rahkman.
Spike, in all likelihood, is not going to be healthy enough to be the player he was before. It’s not even clear he’ll be able to play at all.
Simpson was Mr. Basketball (and averaged 29 a game) in a state with several quality Division I guys (Funderburke, Moyer, Towns, Ward to name a few). I’d be pretty surprised if he can’t give us some quality minutes next year.
I would say that anyone expecting any freshman to be the national player of the year by their sophomore season is setting themselves up for disappointment.
I think X probably gives us 5-8 mins a game. To be honest, while Ohio has some nice talent this year for the state in its entirety, Lima wasn’t really playing top notch comp in the same mold as the Columbus schools. X’s midrange jumper and floater will be things that translate sooner rather than later IMO. Not sure he’s the elite passer JB says he is, but hopefully he is.
I think that is pretty dead on, although I could see Wilson taking over Kam’s minutes if Kam leaves or Wilson really develops this off season. Also, I think Watson will get some minutes be default unless a grad transfer is added.
I think Ibi is a more fluid version of Dawkins, but not the shooter Aubrey was. Ibi is going to really struggle on defense early on. He gets beat pretty routinely on D in nearly every film I’ve seen of him. Effort is a huge part of that IMO.
It just really depends on the game. In our home wins against Maryland and Purdue (probably our two best of the year until Indiana), Irvin had 22 in each game, MAAR had 5 and 9. When healthy, his ceiling is higher than MAAR’s, but who knows what his back situation will be going forward. In the ND game, he could barely toss the ball up there, and he was awful.
Looking beyond next year I just took a look at High School MAAR and compared it to Xavier’s videos. I am pretty sure my opinion will not be a popular one, but after comparing all of recent point guards high school videos, I would be surprised if Xavier will be the best option for point guard before his Junior year. I think a lot of people are comfortable letting Spike go based on the assumption that 1) X will be ready to go from day one; and 2) X will be our clear cut best PG option in his sophomore year and thus be MUST get a lot of time his Freshman year. I honestly am skeptical that either of those assumptions are true. I think if Spike stays X will be the third PG. X will likely be the second best option at pg his sophomore year behind MAAR. Not trying to knock X. I preferred him to Winston. just throwing my opinion out there after, just now, viewing consecutive high school videos of Burke, Walton, MAAR, Spike and X. I found it very revealing…
As it stands now we are in the off-season–who knows how Walton and Irvin will be playing next year? Do agree with you that MAAR has looked like the best driver on the team, though.
Why do you continue to ignore Spike’s injury status as if it doesn’t matter?
I like MAAR a lot, but he’s not a natural PG. He doesn’t see the court well, they don’t use him in the pick and roll very often (for a reason), and he’s not a real adept passer. He would serve us best by continuing to hone his existing skills, IMO.
His minutes probably depend a fair amount on whether Watson can give us quality minutes at the two, so we don’t have to play Walton there when MAAR is out of the game. I’m glad to hear Watson’s defensive issues are mainly effort - good coaching can fix that.
I hope our new assistant specializes in perimeter defense. That is one thing about JB that frustrates me - his “no foul” approach leads to some really passive perimeter defense (in a conference where most teams are just the opposite).
I mean, he was a second away from winning the State Finals with a team around him that had absolutely no size. Seems like he was able to handle quality competition in the State Tournament pretty well.
i am not ignoring Spike’s health status as much as not truly knowing what his status is. He seems to think he can play? Is he lying? Is he delusional? Is Spike definitely going to be worse than he was when playing on two bad hips? I don’t know after six months of resting and healing it is possible that Spike will be better or the same, no? My 2 big takeaways from the Spike situation was that 1) he was rushed back too soon from double hip surgery–not that he is completely washed up; and 2) it was perhaps foreseeable (at least possible) that Spike would need to take a medical redshirt last year and we should have planned for his return next year–not that we could not have known that Spike wouldn’t be ready to go after double hip surgery. But my original posts were not motivated out of a desire to see spike return, those posts were more of my reaction to watching the high school videos consecutively of point guards Burke through Simpson. I found it very revealing, and truthfully, I was not expecting to have the opinion that Burke, Walton and MAAR seemed to be be in one class and Spike and Xavier another. Just my opinion based upon what I saw.
They dont guard each other much in this video but they highlight X vs Frank Jackson against the same level of competition. I was super impressed with Jackson at the McDonalds game this year and granted they are different sizes but I wouldnt say that they were light years different in this video. I think it was last summer that it was taken
When thinking about next year, it helps to remember what happened last year. The team generally went as Zak did, and couldn’t beat good teams without him having good games. They could beat good teams with MAAR having relatively quiet nights, like against MD and PU. When Zak played well, the team generally won. When he didn’t, the team generally lost. Some of MAAR’s best games in losses. This could just be happenstance, but it suggests that while MAAR was sometimes our best option, he wasn’t always a very good one. It’s also worth noting that as he got more touches, our offense dropped considerably in offensive efficiency: we spent much of the season in the top 20 and ended up 42 in kenpom. Of course, the drop coincided somewhat with Robinson’s slump and inconsistency from other players. But it’s also pretty clear that our offense was at its best when it ran through Zak and to some extent Walton (think the first half against ND), when they were playing well. Let’s also remember that, despite getting significantly more minutes in conference play, MAAR scored less points than Mark Donnal and Duncan Robinson.
But we also have to remember that the sets weren’t really designed with MAAR in mind. I think starting next year that JB will have a whole offseason to tweak sets to take best advantage of MAAR’s skill set. Even look to the end of last year - MAAR scored 9 or more points in 11 of his last 12 games. I think we’ll see a lot of sets that give MAAR an opportunity to drive. And we may see more clear outs for MAAR, especially late in the clock. However, the offense will run primarily first and foremost though Zak and possibly Derrick.