Simpson if remotely college ready would be getting minutes this year by necessity to spell a tiring Walton.
I’d temper any HS hyperbole about his skill set. He is essentially a scoring lead guard who excels in transition and not much else. The opportunities to run here are very limited and not exploited at all.
Scoring in the half court is always going to be difficult for him in this offense. He is so diminutive and not exceptionally athletic or skilled to compensate for it. His limited attempts at the rim have been easily swatted away in recent garbage time action too.
He is reported a solid perimeter defender but will struggle mightily when checking bigger stronger attacking guards on dribble drives. He is so tiny.
It’s obvious he is still struggling with the defensive rotations and concepts as seen by his playing time.
Walton played 39 minutes and all of the 2nd half, while having a horrible game. It was universally acclaimed by the staff in the preseason that Walton needed less minutes to be fresh and effective this year.
If X had impressed JB at all in the last two months he’d be out there. I wouldn’t look for his minutes to rise come B1G time either. It remains to be seen if he will continue to be a long term development project with a low ceiling, or a serious rotation player going forward. It’s a very real question in my mind even only 9 games into his career thus far. We’ll see how it plays out. Be interesting.
Dang dude, pretty harsh for a kid who is 9 games into his collegiate career. JB has been known to ride veterans, and Id venture to guess he preferred the veteran Dwalt and MAAR trying to break the full court press. And X is hardly the only sub-6-foot PG. I’ve thought he looks plenty quick, and hasn’t backed down when guarding bigger guys. And if he was a 35% 3pt guy, that’d about be on par for this team.
It’s perfectly reasonable to be disappointed with X’s lack of production/opportunity to this point, but seems a bit drastic to already question his CAREER utility.
If we are expecting X to eventually fill the role of a half court creator these next 3 years, I’m very doubtful of that functionality at a winning level.
I’m much more understanding of JB taking Brooks for next year now. We are going to really need Matthews to be ready out of the gate next season.
Hope X works out, but I’m not high on him being a difference maker on a team that plays ploddingly slow half court basketball. Not his game.
I think the most important aspect of X’s offensive game has yet to be seen: we have no idea if he’s any good at running the high PNR.
But yeah, taking a combo guard/primary ball-handler always seemed necessary. I think people overreacted to Brooks because of how shiny our recruiting board was at the time, and because Eastern seemed like a legit option.
I also think Matthews will have to provide a lot of offense, even with significantly less volume than Zak. I personally have more hope that Poole will bring more offense than Matthews or X, because he seems to well-suited for the system.
Without someone who can consistently get to the rim we should really explore a few new looks on offense. One that includes some sort of high low post and can take advantage of Mo’s athleticism and our multiple bigs.
Some High / Low post play would be excellent for this team…They use their bigs to screen high right now, and you could take DJ off the perimeter, put him down low and then you’d get that interior pass. He (or whoever the 2nd big is) could do their thing or kick out and you still get the option for threes. DJ is more accustomed to facing the basket though and he would have to be a quick learner with his back to the basket (it will help him going forward)…Moe actually is probably your best low post threat. His footwork is pretty crafty.
I see DJ as more of a perimeter player as well, so was thinking of using Donnal in the low post with Moe up top. And on occasion flipping them as Donnal has shown in the past to be able to hit that mid range jumper. Heck I would even try out Teske.
Teske for sure, give it a go…I don’t ever recall seeing Mark and Moe on the floor at the same time or for that matter any two 5’s at the same time, so Coach would really need to stretch his thinking.
Mo would be the starting center on the team 2 hours to the northwest. He’d probably be a 5 on most teams in college basketball. In any event, Mo and DJ are big enough to do high-low post action. I’d like to see that, with DJ also having the option of heading outside for jumpshots depending on how the defense plays it.
Beilein started Morgan and McGary together before McGary got injured his sophomore year, but that’s the only occasion I can think of.
I just like the action it would create…they do get stuck on the perimeter at times, and a high/low could prevent that and make the defense cover the paint…its about shifting feet and turning heads to gain the advantage.