Puzzled that he only played a minute in an exhibition in which we were short handed. Hopefully he logs 10+ tonight. If wayward senior forwards can’t get it together, he becomes an important piece to this team.
I sound like a homer here, but he looked good in that minute. Got a pass inside and went up strong for the layup (was hacked and missed both FTs). Blocked a shot from the weakside and looks to be a good athlete.
I hope he does earn more minutes. I have high hopes for this guy. I think he may turn out to be a steal.
Mike mentioned he has been hurt and missed some practices and was not in game shape.
Yea CMA said he would play more this game. And I agree with Navyhog that was a productive minute he had last week. I can tell he’s going to be a solid player for us. I don’t ever think he’ll average double figures in scoring and his stat lines may not jump out at you, but I believe he can be a guy that just goes out there and hustles makes good plays with minimal mistakes. I can tell he takes pride in defense as well, he was very vocal when he was out there on the defensive end.
Watched him shoot tonight before the game and his shot is pretty flat. Decent mechanics. Was taking mostly corner 3s, which will be an important shot for him.
But I’ve liked what I’ve seen from him in practices and his limited minutes. He is not bashful on offense. His length really shows up on defense.
Between him, Darious, and Jordan Phillips, they’ll have some long wing/combo forward guys the next few years. And C.J. and Isaiah are in that 6-5, 6-6 range.
Well it looks like it was no minutes for Gabe tonight. Is there a chance that will red shirt?
I doubt it, Coach Anderson doesn’t really like to redshirt guys. And I can’t really blame him, you really don’t wanna hold up a scholarship for another year when you don’t know how a guy will pan out.
There will be a few blowout games and games where guys get in foul trouble that Gabe will get some game experience in. I was thinking he may be able to get more time since Cook and Thomas are out, but looks like CMA may not think he’s ready yet. He kinda did this last year with CJ Jones, he kept giving the impression he’d get minutes at the beginning of the season, but never happened. I’m guessing he does this to keep them competing for minutes and staying ready.
I’m a huge fan of CMA and don’t find much to criticize him about. However, I think there have been a couple of not red shirting decisions that have hurt. Manny and Trey come to mind. With Garland out, it sure would be nice to have an experienced 5th year Guard like Manny.
There are very few redshirts in college basketball, unless it’s for medical reasons. You only have 13 scholarships to work with, tieing a scholarship up for 5 years just isn’t worth it in most cases.
And to address the two examples you used… At the time Manny Watkins joined the team he was a walk-on. Why would you redshirt a walk-on in basketball? 95% of the time the walk-ons don’t stay the whole 4 years anyway, Manny was the exception here. As far as Trey Thompson, they got him minutes in clean-up time and got him experience that way. And I like Trey Thompson, but let’s say he’s a red-shirt junior this year, that means either Ethan Henderson or Reggie Chaney wouldn’t be a Hog because we wouldn’t have the room. Both of these guys are rated higher than Trey was, and both have higher upsides. I’m sorry but, I’d rather go with higher rated guys with more potential than keeping a guy with a career average of 2 PPG around another year just to say hey we redshirted him because he wasn’t going to play much his freshman year.