True but we have a Top 100 PG coming in next year and Parker and Webster coming back. Adding an unranked PG with no major offers is a bit surprising to me. Hopefully he is a diamond in the rough.
As a junior before he moved to a new school and couldn't play he was receiving interest from many blue blood programs like Kansas and Kentucky. That is not to say if he had played his senior year he would have gotten offers from them. But a program like Nebraska is short a PG late in the recruiting cycle either leaves that PG position open or takes some chances. I see him as a high risk, high reward type player. Might be great, might not
Agreed. Two point guards in the same class is an obvious head scratcher, especially if Watson is the real deal. Webster can easily play back up point as can Parker. That said, this kid sounds like a player. It could be a deal where he is the best player available. Transferred schools once or twice, he could have slipped through the cracks.
I didn't see that. Most reports I've read have raved about his ability to drive & finish, and make decisions off the pick & roll. Seldom do you see a prospect who is equally good at driving and shooting. Supposedly, this kid has a funky shot but decent range. If he really shot 48% from 3, that's a pretty good sign. If he's a legit 6'2", maybe he could maybe play a little off-guard.
Assuming Petteway does not come back I think we need another 2 guard in addition to a big...if not our guard play on paper looks brutal next year. This commit will be interesting because the kid is pretty unknown in that he was not able to play much his junior season and essentially sat at his senior year. The coaches must have liked what they saw when they worked him out on campus.
At this point in time in NU basketball, we are going to have to take bigs like Hammond and try to develop them. I don't see us attracting too many one and done big men just yet. Hammonds has the potential to be a solid big as an upperclassman. Its too bad that we had to throw him to the wolves so early. Eventually you want at least one big that is allowed to mature in the system, redshirts as a freshman, and with spot duty early maybe contributes heavily as an upperclassman. IMO too early to give up on Hammond or Fuller.
Yes you do have to replace the point, but we are in more dire need of bigs right now to get boards and play some interior D for next year, so you are kind of wanting Bigs then your guards to be committed. As long as HCTM fills the remaining spots with bigs that we have that can contribute next year, that is fine, but if we dont get any bigs...then this guard we received is going to do about as much for our fortunes next year as pissing in the wind and hoping not to get any on us.
No, that isn't what I'm wanting. When you lose a position, you replace it, period.
Those guys are unproven Frosh, and entering the best bball conference in the country. They may take a while to get up to speed and may not add much in the paintfor us for a bit. Unless we are looking to totally sacrifice next years season (Which right now I see us as a 14-15 win team next year maybe) then we need some bigs that have experience and can be used until the young guys get up to speed.
Every coach in the country other than the top 10 programs struggle to recruit enough bigs. For a school like NU its even tougher given our historical lack of success. As a percentage of the basketball playing public, guys 6-8 and over that can play at the B1G level are very rare. The competition for them is ferocious. Most schools have to take some projects and try to develop bigs. A very smart now retired college coach that I knew said once that you could develop big men. Guards not so much. College ready big men are very very very rare.
The people criticizing Hammond and Miles for recruiting him this past season are fools. I see things in his game that make me thing that he can develop in to a good B1G caliber big. We need to get a guy like him every year and give them time to develop. It was too bad that we had not choice but to throw him in the fire this year. It will make him better in the long run, but it was kind of a wasted year of elgiblity for him.
Nice board name! Hammond has some game. He needs to add some strength to that game in the offseason. The old roles of the strict point have really been de-emphasized in both the college and pro games. You need ALL your smalls to be able to handle the ball, run the offense AND SCORE to some degree. We had Ray and Benny. The guy we really need to replace is Ray and Tarin didn't really do it. Next man up. Watson could change things immediately.
