I think we just finished in 2nd place for three separate elite guards in the 2020 class, didn’t we? Moody, Burnett, Christopher. Maybe even Springer. Ugh
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Better off without him!!! Never wanted him anyway!!!
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Dude, it’s a massive decision in a kids life.
ASU will be Top 15 next year. What are you talking about?
Arizona State has made 1 sweet 16 in the last 45 years (and never advanced farther), that’s what he’s talking about. Sure, they might be good next year but they are historically about on par with Penn State.
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I’m not so sure of that. DDJ wasn’t getting 30 minutes at PG no matter what JC did.
I was always leery with how excited everyone got that Howard was pulling a chair up to the 5-star table. On the one hand, I realized that it was the one area he could potentially exceed Beilein’s ceiling as a coach and I was all for it. On the other hand, playing with these 5-stars is a dangerous game. It was why Beilein picked his battles and eventually started shying away from them. It is why Izzo mostly did the same. Izzo tried for years to get some 5-stars out of Chicago and kept missing out until (the rumors suggest) he started bending the rules more to get Bridges and Jackson.
Now we find ourselves without a true shooting guard, without a facilitator on offense, without our returning 6th man, without any other recruits left on the board, and without any other names in the transfer market. I’m glad Juwan is willing to go after these guys, but he just learned his first lesson with roster management and recruiting 5-stars.
We’ll see, fwiw everything ive heard is Martin is expected to stay in the draft and thats a roster full of a bunch of ball dominant guards and little shooting. Looks talented on paper but I am not a fan of how it fits together.
Dylan - I know you’ve said that the DDJ departure was in the works a while ago. I previously haven’t heard that said by the media and in fact heard more discussions about it being more of a surprise. Two questions:
1 - Do you have any thoughts on why DDJ was planning to leave given the opportunity ahead of him?
2 - Do you believe that Howard thought Josh was in the bag (silent commit, lock to sign, etc.) given that they announced Jace would take a walk-on spot?
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Curious why you say that. DDJ got 22mpg this season off the bench and about 32mpg just graduated from the back-court. I don’t know that DDJ would have been in line for a huge breakout, I don’t know whether Mike Smith comes if DDJ stays, but my logic suggests that Howard likely uses a 3-guard rotation like he did last year and thus all three guys get 25-30 minutes - whether that was going to be DDJ/Eli/JC or Smith/Eli/JC or whatever other situation we’re going to have next year.
Now you figure Eli plays as many minutes as he can, despite his limitations, Smith is likely going to have to take on a little more of his Columbia role with minutes/creation, and Jackson/Bajema both actually have a chance to play out of dire need.
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I say that because I don’t think DDJ is a true pg. I’d have him behind Brooks and Smith at PG. He’d get minutes at both guard spots but not 30.
We need to get Bajema on a regimen of HGH sandwiches.
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This was my thing too. I do understand there are reasons (mostly non-basketball) for wanting to go to a school like ASU, but for a kid with such an eye on his brand, it’s a weird move. I think people on the west coast may not realize how irrelevant the Pac 12 is to the rest of the country. Most of the country and casual hoops fans probably don’t even know who Isaiah Stewart or Jaden McDaniels are… if they went to a Blueblood instead of Washington they’d be household names
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I think there’s some evidence to suggest he’s more of a combo guard than a true point guard and I know Dylan has posted some good stuff on that topic. But I think we’re projecting a little because we’ve just watched four years of Simpson be as close to an old school true PG that there is and DDJ play 10-20mpg at both guard spots as a back-up who was still finding his way. I’ve watched some old games recently and there are a lot of similarities with how Derrick Walton played PG and DDJ - though admittedly DDJ had shown less to this point than you’d like. Walton never had the assist rates that Simpson, Morris, and Burke put up. (Though I’ll concede that DDJ’s assist rate was quite low.)
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If he had chose Michigan they would have been a contender, top 15 are you kidding that’s a laugh.
Yeah, I’m not sure which of the many narratives help me wrap my head around this. ASU will improve, but they’re not going to be a national program even if they’re very good because of the west coast and Pac-12. The “closer to home” argument doesn’t hold water because he’s hundreds of miles away. It isn’t about playing time.
So I guess maybe he really did want to play with his brother, he really hates cold weather, and/or it has something to do with Covid.
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As someone who grew up in a pac 12 state and still lives in one, programs like UM and OSU have bigger fan bases in pac 12 states like Colorado, Arizona and California than any pac 12 school in those states other than the hometown school. College sports for the most part are pretty much irrelevant in the western us, its all about pro teams. The most passionate college fans are almost always transplants. Pac 12 teams are irrelevant locally and more irrelevant nationally.
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Is it possible that DDJ returns?
Dylan said he was planning to leave during the season, so it seems unlikely. I’m not sure what was driving his reasons to leave but you’d hope that the coaches at least reach out to him and talk. It seems very unlikely, however.
At this point I’m just hoping Livers stays and that Todd doesn’t pull a similar stunt.
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I don’t think Dave could come back at this point, but Josh’s camp has been leaking that he was a lock to U of M since early January. That very much falls within the timeframe of the season that it could affect Dave’s thought process. I don’t think the fact that it was discussed during the seasons disproves that’s Christopher was a factor.