11ppg & 5rpg is way more than I expected from him.
Wish Wilson, Wagner, and Doyle would make those leaps.
I said month ago - I think the mono sickness Mark had last year really took affect.
If you haven’t had mono, it really messes with you physically and emotionally.
I believe he’s hitting his stride and that’s why he had a slow start. Good for him.
Right and there were others penciling in Doyle as a guy to make a big step and that hasn’t happened. Aubrey Dawkins the same thing after last year and now he’s hardly getting any court time. Things change, players improve, players regress and at the end of the day it matters what the team is doing as a collective unit. Should someone start a thread about Doyle and Dawkins?
Players are constantly under re-evaluation. I doubt I would have said it but I actually would not have objected to the statement that “Donnal would struggle in D2” if the comment was made in the earlier parts of this season. All of our bigs played horribly! The entire point of this post, which is titled “The evolution of Mark Donnal”, has the built in implication that Donnal was playing bad and now is playing good. I am happy for Donnal. We need our bigs to figure it out.
Truth - I remember seeing Twitter pics on here with people marveling at how ripped Doyle looked with his shirt off, and how he’d be able to hang with the big boys now. Instead he’s a step slower, and his weaknesses from before are still his weaknesses today.
(in fairness, a couple of those dropped passes yesterday were more a byproduct of him being in the right spot and the passes going straight under the hoop)
It’s fine to re-evaluate players. But if you make sweeping, negative statements about a center on “your” team early in his career and reject any wait-and-see approach, the least you could do is admit you were wrong instead of throwing a tantrum. It really shouldn’t be such a big deal.
Someone started a thread about Donnal to post a relevant article about Donnal. That’s why we are talking about Donnal.
True. We never can predict how these players are going to develop. Happy for Donnal.
I started the thread and it was to share an article written about donnal so calm down.
Mark’s offensive stats would probably be more consistent if our guard play was more consistent.
Our guards are trigger happy and don’t break down the defense nearly like they have in the past seasons.
Some games we have it. Others not. And the 1 guy that really attacks hard (MAAR) isn’t the greatest setup man/passer - which is fine with me.
I was a huge donall hater last year. Good for him. Of late I’ve been wishing we went to him more, especially on the pop. Even when he’s been missing you can tell he can stroke it. I knew he was due for a breakout from behind the arc. I also wouldn’t mind a few low post touches. He has decent moves on the block and could draw some fouls too. Balance is key for this offende. Lots of touches and looks for everybody. Someone is bound to get hot.him and rahkmsm got more looks and look what happened. Our balance is our strength
Thought it was really interesting how effective MAAR was driving in ISO situations and finding Donnal. That’s how Donnal got a ton of his offense in the B10 opener except it was from LeVert.
Before Sunday, MAAR and Donnal haven’t really shown that sort of chemistry and the majority of Donnal’s bunnies have been via the PNR.
As a result, MAAR comes away with 9 dimes and Mark has a huge game.
I think that testimony to the consistency can be found in UMHoopsFan’s stats, two doors above you there. I was one of those, early on, lamenting that Donnal just wasn’t ever going to cut it. My badski; have to be happy to be proven wrong on this kind of stuff.
The Big Ten numbers for Mark are pretty dang good, all things considered:
11.2 points per game in league play. 3rd in the conference in eFG%, 6th in offensive rebounding rate, 9th in block rate, 5th in 2-point shooting (63%) and even hitting 37% from three after last game.
If you’re talking strictly points, then I totally agree. For Donnal to be a difference maker, the guards have to beat their man and force Donnal’s man to help, leaving Donnal open for uncontested lay-ups. Donnal was a complete after thought in Maryland’s defensive game plan. Credit to Donnal for taking advantage and laying the ball in. Now, as far as his 2 made 3 pointers, I hope that’s a shot he can continue to make, however, I also hope he doesn’t fall in love with it.
The rest of Donnal’s game, it’s as inconsistent as you can get. I encourage you to look at Donnal’s game logs in the Big Ten. http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/mark-donnal-1/gamelog/2016/ Literally, just 2 weeks ago, he went on a 4 game stretch where he averaged 6pts and 2 rebounds. That includes back to back games with 1 total rebound.
He’s coming off arguably his best 2 games, if he continues to play like he has been since Ohio State going forward, I may allow myself to get excited about the future of our team with him at center.
Forgive me if I’m not celebrating his success yet.
The jury is still out for me.
I am definitely a skeptic, but I am quite prepared to change my opinion when I read a game preview against a team with a mean, muscular 7-footer that includes the statement, “Michigan should match up well down low…”
Unless Teske or Davis end up far better than projected they should reconsider that reclassification for Mark. We already made that mistake once with Max. No need to do it again.
Glad the jury’s still out for you on Donnal. I think you’ve sentenced and hung most of the rest of the squad. But that’s the kind of glorious promise that the internet offers us all. And I myself have hung and dried a few in my time.
To me, there’s something totally miraculous about people who can toss a 9 1/2 inch sphere through a hole not much bigger from 15-23 feet. If a kid establishes he can do it repeatedly in practice then I have to believe doing it in games is about what’s between his ears. And that is a delicate thing.
I’m fair with both my criticism and praise.
I can see Donnal has improved. What’s that exactly mean though, considering there was literally no direction to go but up?
He hasn’t played consistent enough basketball for me to get excited about him.
As far as hanging the rest of the team, point to a player who deserves praise for their play this year outside of MAAR? We have an average set of players. Sometimes they play above average, more often than not, below.
I’m actually starting to get excited about Donnal’s potential on offense. He has a nice stroke. If he can consistently hit the 3, that will help tremendously. It will help our spacing and help draw shot-blocking bigs out of the lane. He has decent hands. I’d like to see him go up stronger and finish better through contact.
I unfortunately don’t see him ever being great defensively. If he can block a couple shots per game / alter a few others, that would help.
I can get behind this Alum it he continues to play like he has the last 2 games.
You basically describe what I think is the ideal off-the bench big. Unfortunately, he’s the best we have by a wide margin.