He has two years to work on strength and quickness. And you probably laughed at the Joker in Denver too.
Don’t love that JP Pegues played in such a weak conference. Trey Bonham struggled mightily here two years ago, and then went back to the same conference last year and put up 16 a game on 48/41/84 splits. Would much rather have Jordan Pope who produced in a P5 conference.
I love Jokic but this kid is not Jokic just because he's got perimeter game and is white. Sure some threes here and there would be great but we'd be giving up rim protection and rebounding pretty much at the most critical spot. Not to mention the kid probably doesn't have us anywhere near his radar so why even contemplate this?
I get it and have expressed a similar concern. That said, Pegues had far more success at that level than Bonham did prior to his arrival, so I think he could contribute more immediately. I just don’t know how much he moves the needle. But I have the same concern about Pope. He produced, but for a bad team in about as bad of a P5 league as it gets. His game overlaps too much with Clayton for my liking—both the good and the bad. I actually hope we wait a little before taking anyone. Guys are still filing into the portal. There are fewer quality bigs, so you need to pounce there. But I think there will be plenty of guards available who would have a comparable impact to either Pope or Pegues, but possibly fit better.
If I recall correctly…I think Pegues, per Fawcetts podcast, actually played a harder kenpom schedule than Pope, even with Pope in the pac 12. Apparently the pac 12 and Popes OOC schedule were quite low on the kenpom rankings. If that (my memory) is correct, Fawcett was stating that Pegues actually played better competition than Pope.
Replacing Pullin & Samuel are going to be hard to do, but Coach Golden surorised everybody last year with not only the quality of the portal players, but how good his freshman Condon & Haugh turned out to be. I'm very interested to see what he comes up with.
I would bet even TG was surprised at how good ZP was. I don’t think anyone was expecting an all SEC PG…gonna be hard to replicate that success, but we have more stability in the other pieces this year hopefully, which makes it it important but a tad less critical to hit a grand slam home run with that slot.
I’ve been thinking about this exact point. We basically know what we will get in Clayton and Richard. We can reasonably expect a lot more from Condon, Haugh, and Aberdeen with their experience this year plus added minutes and development. That gives us a decent core with much more predictability and continuity than a year ago. Anything from Brown or the international guys is a bonus. So how do you complement that core? I am curious to see if Golden doubles down on offense. We were much better and more entertaining this year by focusing on tempo and offensive rebounding, as well as FT rate. Ended up among the best nationally in those. Yet we still didn’t shoot terribly well, from the arc or in the paint. And there is pretty good evidence that offensive efficiency translates best come March. I am hopeful the development of Aberdeen and the freshmen bigs will improve our poorer metrics defensively (foul rate, defensive rebounding, turnovers). Those guys generally were better than the kids are replacing in those areas.
TG pretty much admitted as much. He said the staff all knew they there getting a good one in ZP, just not THAT good.
I can’t share much, but let’s just say our coaches are working hard. They are doing their homework and our in on some good players. Will be exciting to see who we bring in this transfer class.
Pegues no longer visiting. Apparently a mutual decision. I take that as a good sign that we are targeting bigger fish.
I also read that while Pope is still a target it is bigger fish we are looking at. I have no idea who.
That makes sense to me. Lots of bigs who fit what we want out there right now, and we have some promising visits lined up. But we have to nail this point guard acquisition.
