Don't try to compare one player to another. Be thankful that we got a big player that we really wanted. Got to give the coach and staff credit on this one. Everything that you hear is so positive so let's keep it that way. Welcome to ISU, Jacob. We should have a good nucleus next year to build around. Looking forward to it of course after football...........
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'19 IN PF Jacob LaRavia (Transferred to Wake Forest)
- Thread starter Jason Svoboda
- Start date
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So can I pencil him in to average 20 and 10 next year?
Does everyone realize that we, basically, have 7 new players next year? Over half of the team.
Let's just hope the new look has a great year.
Let's just hope the new look has a great year.
And I appreciated Carl and Many for what they did. Many was good at shooting contested jumpers, etc, but I didn't like that he didn't get many easy points. It seemed to me that he liked to fade away instead of creating space, and didn't get many putbacks or layups.
Best not expect anything from freshmen. I want our returning players to play better. I think they are capable.
Golden put out an updated story just now
https://www.tribstar.com/sports/upd...cle_067bd370-5e73-11e9-958a-971669f3d02b.html
https://www.tribstar.com/sports/upd...cle_067bd370-5e73-11e9-958a-971669f3d02b.html
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The MIC is one of the strongest conferences, probably, in the nation. His stats are pretty impressive.
It was tongue in cheek.
I know
I would like to compare these comparisons by comparing apples and oranges. Seriously though the way I look at it is, are the guys coming in
more talented than the guys leaving. I think yes they are. That means an overall improvement in team talent which is a good thing. I liked the statement
he made about fitting in with the team quickly and feeling comfortable while playing with them. Now I am always thinking about recruiting this time of year
for next year with all the AAU events beginning and I hope this gives us a chance with Nigel Pack, although I think some big boys are starting to recruit him more. It never hurts to have kids from a city close by that produces national talent year in and year out though.
more talented than the guys leaving. I think yes they are. That means an overall improvement in team talent which is a good thing. I liked the statement
he made about fitting in with the team quickly and feeling comfortable while playing with them. Now I am always thinking about recruiting this time of year
for next year with all the AAU events beginning and I hope this gives us a chance with Nigel Pack, although I think some big boys are starting to recruit him more. It never hurts to have kids from a city close by that produces national talent year in and year out though.
Excited to have you on board Jake! Good luck in your higher ed academic and athletic career!
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Very happy to hear Jake chose ISU! We can debate who he will be as a player, but there are a couple of things that stick out to me:
1) As it's been mentioned, we don't have anyone on the roster quite like Jake. Our high ball screen offense require the 4/5 to come to the top of the key to set screens, but if that player has ZERO threat to pick-and-pop it does nothing but bring an extra defender towards the ball handlers. Having a threat to shoot or rim-run puts significant pressure on the defense. I mean...the offense might actually work the way it's designed. Shocking, I know.
2) Jake can handle the ball, especially for his size. This gives us another component to the offense. Not only can he pick and pop off the screen, but we can actually run pick-and-roll action out of the standard offensive sets because we can (hopefully) trust Jake to handle the ball and navigate the lane.
3) Our roster is now, dare I say it, somewhat deep with talented players. At least on paper. We all knew which players last year were not contributing nor improving, and Jake's addition to an already good recruiting class only adds depth to the roster. Depth, real depth, creates competition which creates better and more motivated players. There are no givens on this roster. Every starter has a talented backup who wants his minutes. This is a good thing.
4) Our coaches seem like they can close when they choose their targeted players. I'm not sure what an official visit to ISU for basketball looks like, but Lansing and his staff have done a good job getting verbals during those visits. Once we get a kid on campus that we really want, we usually get them.
We now have one of the best top-to-bottom rosters in a long time. Man do I hope we can do something with it.
1) As it's been mentioned, we don't have anyone on the roster quite like Jake. Our high ball screen offense require the 4/5 to come to the top of the key to set screens, but if that player has ZERO threat to pick-and-pop it does nothing but bring an extra defender towards the ball handlers. Having a threat to shoot or rim-run puts significant pressure on the defense. I mean...the offense might actually work the way it's designed. Shocking, I know.
2) Jake can handle the ball, especially for his size. This gives us another component to the offense. Not only can he pick and pop off the screen, but we can actually run pick-and-roll action out of the standard offensive sets because we can (hopefully) trust Jake to handle the ball and navigate the lane.
3) Our roster is now, dare I say it, somewhat deep with talented players. At least on paper. We all knew which players last year were not contributing nor improving, and Jake's addition to an already good recruiting class only adds depth to the roster. Depth, real depth, creates competition which creates better and more motivated players. There are no givens on this roster. Every starter has a talented backup who wants his minutes. This is a good thing.
4) Our coaches seem like they can close when they choose their targeted players. I'm not sure what an official visit to ISU for basketball looks like, but Lansing and his staff have done a good job getting verbals during those visits. Once we get a kid on campus that we really want, we usually get them.
We now have one of the best top-to-bottom rosters in a long time. Man do I hope we can do something with it.
southernindianaballer
The Starter Level
Welcome to ISU Jake... You made good decision... Great business school at ISU! We appreciate you playing basketball here.
I think we will have better skilled offensive players next year. We had too many liabilities last year IMO.
We're getting taller too.
Yeah, we'll have decent height for the MVC. Won't have anyone as big as Rickman (?) but he wasn't very polished offensively and wasn't a great rebounder either. Not a huge loss.
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I know what you're saying. But, I always hate it when we say something like, not a huge loss. For two reasons. 1. Those kinds of statements have come back to bight us in the butt later. Like not missing Kitchell or Walker for example. And, 2 regardless of how Rickman panned out, he did his best and never got into trouble, as far as I know.
Oh nothing against him personally I think he was probably a good kid. He just had his faults as a player. He wasn't consistent enough for us. I think he got jabbed (and frustrated) with petty foul calls against him at times. Again.....NOTHING against the kid I just feel potentially the guys coming in at least appear to be more polished offensively which we sorely lacked last year.
The unfortunate thing for our program is that Rickman and Kessinger couldn't make a shot until their fourth year here. I don't want to attack any of the players, but we could have won some more games if Barnes had not slumped and, also, if Neese/Williams would have been available all year.
Not sure what happened to Thomas and Hughes.
Not really - once Neese and Williams became eligible this group took several games to become comfortable and as I recalled played miserably other than a few decent wins in Hawaii once these two came back. Williams showed flashes of brilliance but never really was able to put it together for 40 minutes let alone multiple games. Neese was probably our second best player on the floor during the last month or two of the season once he got comfortable with things. I'm not sure them being avaliable all year really makes that much of a difference record wise - perhaps to your point it accelerates the team chemistry because you're not adding two new guys midway through the non conference season but again - they addition of them didn't really help that much.