That was my impression too that he was pulled after passing up on an open 3-point shot. I also have the impression he does better when he's more deliberate and doesn't rush things. Different people surely have different impressions - and we're probably all wrong! That long shot he missed seemed a bit rushed. But, some of his under control step-back threes in other games have been successful (kind of the way Lebron takes them ). Some of his dipsy-doo layups that don't even draw iron seem a little frantic - I think he's starting to put those up softer now even though he (barely) missed another one in that game. In some early games this season, he had a few plays (maybe 4 or 5 or 6) where he had a good drive to the basket for what looked like was going to be thunderous dunk, but an opponent made a great play (yes, they sometimes do that ) to block his dunk. I was frustrated for him! I'm wondering if that got into his head at all. If so, some of his dunks in recent games hopefully will flush (or have flushed) that out.
Actually .96715893561402 but they rounded up. Love these false dreams of precision and significant digits in recruiting rankings and gymnastics scores.
At the end of last year Riley had to be "the man" and he was great at that. This year he doesn't need to be "the man" so in many ways he is looking for his role. He is a tremendous talent but really doesn't have a role on this year's team other than defensive stopper. We have three great scoring guards and a solid rotation of front court players. Riley doesn't fit into that rotation. Next year when we have fewer guards and play an offense with a true 3 he could be a monster.
As long as Clayton Jr. is here, Riley will somewhat be playing out of position when they are on the floor together.
I think Riley will redeem himself during the tournament season. He's too good a player to be down so long.
grant1, I thought he was rated higher as a senior. Still he committed & stayed committed thru the coaching change. If he was just a 3 star, then why all the fan over-scrutiny? When RK has a turnover, heads explode. I don’t like turnovers, but I don’t judge his any differently than those from his teammates. I have been re-thinking how he closed out last year. I thought he performed well, for a freshman. When the NBA talk started, I thought it was ….really pre-mature. Still think that now. He was also kind of a one-man show and was featured a lot. What he showed was potential. He was no where close to a finished product. As fans, we were better at living with his “ game flaws”, since he was all we had once CC went down. I’m hoping that RK stays & continues to develop as a player, teammate & leader. If he leaves, I’ll understand it completely, and wish him well. We can be really tough on players who disappoint us. God forbid either Haugh or Condo take a step back or not meet fan expectations.
The catch and immediate drive to the hoop at 1:07 of that clip is what has been missing. Need more of that decisiveness.
My thoughts exactly. You can tell his confidence was on a different level back then. Wow what a difference a month makes.
Agree. I don't really understand why he gets scrutinized by gator fans this much. He's not the one that makes this team go or fail. The team/coaches are not counting on him to win games. I never saw him acted negatively while sitting on the bench. So what's the reason for criticism?
All the bad apple stuff about Riley is complete and total bullshit. However, Riley‘s play has been mediocre this season and has cost us one or more games. He can’t score at the basket unless he dunks. He doesn’t play within the flow of the offense. He makes careless turnovers. He launches 25 foot jump shots outside the flow of the offense and passes up catch and shoot opportunities. His defense has been okay but not great. When you compare the foregoing to the expectations for Riley this season, you can understand the disappointment. A lottery – pick Riley would have put us into solid Final Four consideration. Instead, we hope when Riley goes into the game that he doesn’t screw up.
I feel like he had a role at the start of the season and shot his way out of it. IF he had made shots, he'd be starting still. I like the kid a lot, but his minutes is directly tied to his performance.
good post on the hesitation, this is the biggest issue I see causing his offensive struggles - like you said, too many times this season the ball gets rotated over to him in good position and instead of taking the simple play that's there or making an extra pass to set somebody else up, he just holds it a couple beats too long, does a jab step or two, then makes a decision on where to go with it. But by that time the defense has caught back up and reset itself, so the degree of difficulty becomes much greater for the play he's trying to make. It's easy to say from the keyboard, but he's got to do a better job of recognizing which opportunities are there and which aren't and playing within himself and the team structure a little more instead of looking to freelance and trying to make things happen on his own. he's got all the physical talent in the world and shows signs of becoming a really good shooter, but his offensive awareness and decision making are still too raw for him to be able to live up to the kind of preseason hype he got this year (and he's got to be dealing with a lot of disappointment after going from preseason All-SEC to barely playing, which you really hate to see for the kid). hopefully he figures it out enough to start making more of a consistently positive impact the rest of this season, our guard rotation gets way too thin with barely any scoring off the bench when he's not playing well.
Your post is on point. The strange thing is that Riley really played great basketball in the 10 games at the end of last season. There was no reason to not expect that he would advance from that point. Instead, he’s gone backwards.
