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Post by gart79 on Mar 24, 2016 15:40:53 GMT -8
I was thinking of how good this years freshman were and I went back and did a little research on the 96-97 team coached by Eddie Payne. These were the freshman in that class - I think 4 of them were POY in their state at the time. Corey Benjamin - 14.9 ppg left early to go to NBA JB Bickerstaff - 5.2 ppg Played two years and transferred to Minnesota; currently interim HC at Houston Rockets. Ron Grady - 9.3 ppg Played two years and finished at Colorado State Nick Greene - 1.7 ppg Played two years and finished at San Diego Nate Knight - 3.0 ppg Played one year; looks like he may have gone to a JC then ended up one year at Kentucky and played final year at BYU. By Comparison Derrick Bruce - 4.0 ppg Drew Eubanks - 7.6 ppg Rakocevic - 1.5 ppg Stephen Thompson - 10.6 ppg Tres Trinkle - 13.1 ppg. Two others did not play much Kendal Manual and Noah Togia. Kendal was injured and RS, while Noah sat on the bench and eventually decided to concentrate on football. What is amazing is that Noah originally committed to Utah for BB only. How big a mistake would that have been to go there and not play FB and sit on the bench without the option for football?  |
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Post by beavobill on Mar 24, 2016 17:50:59 GMT -8
pretty weak research, where's Carson Cunningham, the best of the bunch? (he left after 1 yr for purdue)
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2016 17:58:17 GMT -8
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Post by gzrbvr on Mar 24, 2016 18:31:20 GMT -8
I was thinking of how good this years freshman were and I went back and did a little research on the 96-97 team coached by Eddie Payne. These were the freshman in that class - I think 4 of them were POY in their state at the time. Corey Benjamin - 14.9 ppg left early to go to NBA JB Bickerstaff - 5.2 ppg Played two years and transferred to Minnesota; currently interim HC at Houston Rockets. Ron Grady - 9.3 ppg Played two years and finished at Colorado State Nick Greene - 1.7 ppg Played two years and finished at San Diego Nate Knight - 3.0 ppg Played one year; looks like he may have gone to a JC then ended up one year at Kentucky and played final year at BYU. By Comparison Derrick Bruce - 4.0 ppg Drew Eubanks - 7.6 ppg Rakocevic - 1.5 ppg Stephen Thompson - 10.6 ppg Tres Trinkle - 13.1 ppg. Two others did not play much Kendal Manual and Noah Togia. Kendal was injured and RS, while Noah sat on the bench and eventually decided to concentrate on football. What is amazing is that Noah originally committed to Utah for BB only. How big a mistake would that have been to go there and not play FB and sit on the bench without the option for football? So, seriously, what is your point??? If you are looking for opinions, then I would say that Payne's class had a lot more talent than WT's class. Let me qualify that, they had more physical talent--they were massively lacking in mental talent and attitude. Payne's class underachieved in a big way--I would guess that even the sainted John Wooden would have taken to drink with that group. I thought Payne was a pretty good coach--his first class really screwed him. |
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Post by beaverstever on Mar 24, 2016 20:55:31 GMT -8
Those frosh got a lot of PT across the board, and were a bad team. We'll see where these guys end up, but I believe this class is miles better than that class. Specifically:
Corey Benjamin, the star of that class, peaked at the level of 15 pts 4 rebs at a .315 3pt shooter. Jared Cunningham was at 15/3 and .360 from range as a sophomore. Very similar players, athletic and streaky, although Corey was bulkier. Fun to watch, not fun to depend on.
Carson Cunningham looked like he would become the best college-level player of the crew, and he was a 15pt/5 assist and a .378 3 point shooter. Ironically, he never came close to putting up those kind of numbers at Purdue, even with the same minutes. He wasn't asked to there really until his senior year, but even his assists peaked at OSU. His sr year he was asked to carry more load, and all that happened was his efficiency numbers dropped.
JB Bickerstaff was a skinny, athletic kid that looked like he could eventually bulk up and be a force. He slowly improved, but his senior year at Minn, he was an 11/6 guy who never developed any outside game.
Ron Grady put up basically the same stats all 4 years. The rest aren't notable.
We'll see how this pans out, but to me this crew is miles ahead. It's one thing to put up numbers on a 3-conference win team, it's another to get PT on a team making the Dance... and I believe Thompson, Eubanks and Bruce have significantly higher upsides than what we've seen out of them so far.
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Post by drunkandstoopidbeav on Mar 27, 2016 21:25:04 GMT -8
I thought losing Cunningham and Grady were our two biggest losses in that crew. Transferring out probably did nothing to boost their careers stats-wise, in Grady's case I gotta wonder if he ever fully recovered from the lacerated kidney, I'm talking emotionally, it had to have been rough. He had a certain fire to his game that is rarely seen.
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Post by georgevonbeaverstrom on Mar 28, 2016 6:41:22 GMT -8
FYI - Bickerstaff (and Jason Terry) were court side at the OSU/UW game at Gill. They picked a good one...or I should say Rockets scheduling worked out well.
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