Jake Odum on Historic Pace

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SycamoreStateofMind

SycamoreStateofMind

The Odum Level
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So I am going to be doing some blogging on both sycamorehoops.com and sycamorerunner.com the two forums that I am most active in. Take a look at my first posting and let's have a further discussion.

What prompted this was MVCFans suggesting that Odum had a "Sophomore Slump" and other sites failing to mention Odum in the MVC Conference Previews. I personally find it a bit disrespectful for a kid who has already accomplished so much.

Did Odum have a poor/bad/slump Sophomore year?

http://www.sycamorehoops.com/?p=79
 

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It's easy for others to pile on Jake because is the team's floor general and good point guards usually get the blame being the "coach on the floor" and all. Those folks also quickly forget that he played through his foot troubles all year long despite obviously being a step slower and we had major team chemistry issues as well as widely "rumored" off-the-court issues with certain players. What I'm getting at is it was a bum rap.

Jake singlehandedly kept us in some games that we would have likely been blown out of. Like all of the preseason prognostications, I'm thankful of the low rankings and low expectations from others. As if they didn't have enough motivation from last season's disappointment after going to the NCAA tournament the previous year. Can't wait for hoops season and to see how the guys that return will respond.
 
OX 92 said:
Well said. I wish we had 8 Jakes on the team
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Read the "other" site, the numbers are the numbers though Twitchell gets some of them wrong. 646 rbs would place Jake 10th on the current list, Renn is 4th (789).

Let's count Jake's numbers when his career is over; I hope he surpasses all of his past averages. However, until he leads the Trees to the Final Four (like Larry), whether he receives some 'miracle finishes' (like Larry); let's not compare him to Larry.

That being said, Jake is a heckuva player who 'fell' into our laps; let's hope he and the rest of the Fightin' Trees have two more successful seasons
 
4Q_iu said:
Read the "other" site, the numbers are the numbers though Twitchell gets some of them wrong. 646 rbs would place Jake 10th on the current list, Renn is 4th (789).

Let's count Jake's numbers when his career is over; I hope he surpasses all of his past averages. However, until he leads the Trees to the Final Four (like Larry), whether he receives some 'miracle finishes' (like Larry); let's not compare him to Larry.

That being said, Jake is a heckuva player who 'fell' into our laps; let's hope he and the rest of the Fightin' Trees have two more successful seasons
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The stat is not wrong, the comparison to Renn was indeed incorrect - thank you very much for reading and checking my math. I meant to say that he was ahead of both Moss and Grenn. I will make the correction.

I NEVER have once compared him to Larry Bird, nor have I said that these will in fact be his numbers. The point of the article was to prove that he hasn't really had any sort of a down year at this point in his career. He's not beyond criticism, but this was you being more critical of the content of my post than Jake himself. I think it's fair to say if he is able to maintain those statistics he will go down as one of the all time greats, by saying that I am simply stating the obvious not my personal opinion.
 
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4Q_iu said:
However, until he leads the Trees to the Final Four (like Larry), whether he receives some 'miracle finishes' (like Larry); let's not compare him to Larry.
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Who's comparing him to Larry?


I've been satisfied and pleasantly surprised by what he has been able to do so far. And I don't think we've seen his best. If he continues to improve and build on his experience, he will be mentioned with some of our greats.
 

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dont think he compared him to larry. Just saying he is on pace to be in some elite company if he only duplicates what he did in the first two years (which most people improve in their final two years). I agree we should look at his numbers after 4 years and then see where he stacks up but hard to argue he has had a very productive fr and soph season. I think the point of the article was to make people appreciate how good he has been so far instead of looking for his imperfections.
 
Southgrad07 said:
dont think he compared him to larry. Just saying he is on pace to be in some elite company if he only duplicates what he did in the first two years (which most people improve in their final two years). I agree we should look at his numbers after 4 years and then see where he stacks up but hard to argue he has had a very productive fr and soph season. I think the point of the article was to make people appreciate how good he has been so far instead of looking for his imperfections.
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Indeed! As I further attempted to qualify the article at the beginning of this thread on here. I am set off by the suggestion that the guy had a bad year last year. Simply saying that 2 more years just like last year puts him in elite company, so how did he have a bad year? That is my point of the article - based on historical data, how can anyone say he didn't have a good year. I think that historical numbers and his averages over two years is the most fair information I could use to prove that he indeed was pretty good last year.
 
SycamoreStateofMind said:
Indeed! As I further attempted to qualify the article at the beginning of this thread on here. I am set off by the suggestion that the guy had a bad year last year. Simply saying that 2 more years just like last year puts him in elite company, so how did he have a bad year? That is my point of the article - based on historical data, how can anyone say he didn't have a good year. I think that historical numbers and his averages over two years is the most fair information I could use to prove that he indeed was pretty good last year.
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And you are correct.

I think a lot of times when people talk about a soph slump, what really happens is that their expectations are too high.
 
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Well written the numbers are what they are . I think the fact that Jake produced the numbers he did last year goes to show you that despite the injuries and other team factors he is on pace to be one of the best to ever wear royal blue. Much like others have said its all projected as there are many things that can happen to either improve these numbers as well as things that can make these numbers decline but those are things that will have to play out on their own . I think if you look at his production last year there is not a single team in the conference that would not die to have this kind of overall production from their point guard.
 

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Jake received (some) of the criticism because of the season the team had and Jake was presented (fairly or not) as the leader, ergo it's "Jake's Team."

Your team? It did poorly?? You did poorly! Like it or not, that's life; sports or otherwise. Is it fair? No.

I don't mind comparing numbers, stats, players; I just think we need to compare careers to careers. Quite frankly, if the team doesn't have the same success as Larry's teams, or the Nate/Matt/Michael teams, who gives two :censored: about his numbers or anyone else's?

I don't think Jake had a bad season; everyone knew he was injured/banged up. I hope his FT %% improves; according to his projected FT numbers, he'll have a career FT% .734 That's good; as a fan, if I were a coach, I'd want it to be .834 or higher.

I hope he and the rest of the team worked on their weaknesses (and all of them have some).

Golden's latest

http://tribstar.com/sports/x328560123/Cooking-Sycamores-ISU-hones-raw-material-over-summer
 
4Q_iu said:
Quite frankly, if the team doesn't have the same success as Larry's teams, or the Nate/Matt/Michael teams, who gives two :censored: about his numbers or anyone else's?

]
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I can guarantee we will not have the success ever again that Larry's teams had. But I know what you are saying. We want success for the team.
I remember one game, years ago, we had two players combine for 80 pts. People don't talk too much about those two because our team wasn't that good.
 
A missed shot at the end of the game was the difference between 3rd and 7th place last year . I think had that shot gone in many here would have been talking alot different about last years success. I think failing to miss the Thursday game finished this team . Regardless of the turmoil among the players If that shot falls are we really talking about what a crappy season it was ? We mostly projected ourselves to be third and if we acomplish that then I would say that many attitudes ( Mine included) would have been better.
 
Well whatever the case is, teams he has been a part of are batting .500 now. He has won a MVC Conference Tournament title and earned a birth to the NCAA Tourney. That might not quite put him in the same sentence as Menser, Renn and Green but I can tell you what, it puts him on the door step. Either you can be in denial about that or you can accept it and appreciate it.

You obviously didn't read the post very closely. I acknowledge that from a team perspective that it is fair to say that he had a bad season. For the last time (follow my thinking for just a minute) I was trying to discredit that notion by showing what type of pace he is on statistically proving that he has yet to have a bad season.

At the end of the Jake Odum is 37-25 as a starter while at Indiana State and that aint half bad.
 
Considering that Menser/Renn teams started their careers at 16-11 and 15-12 during their first two seasons (with Green being a year older), I'd say the Odum/Mahurin/and Co. starting their first two seasons at 20-14 (NCAA berth) and 18-15 is absolutely just as successful as previous team's success.
 

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SSOM a quick question for your friends over at Valleytalk . What is the production comparisons of Jake and their point guard? I dont think there would be many if any that has turned in these type of numbers . Yes a leader is judged on his teams overall success , but winning 60% of your games in your first 2 years us pretty good considering the history of your team. Menser/Renn lead teams won 54% so to answer the debate of 4 Q yes he is on pace to be one of the greatest all time Sycamores if you compare the first 2 years won loss records.
 
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Daveinth said:
SSOM a quick question for your friends over at Valleytalk . What is the production comparisons of Jake and their point guard? I dont think there would be many if any that has turned in these type of numbers . Yes a leader is judged on his teams overall success , but winning 60% of your games in your first 2 years us pretty good considering the history of your team. Menser/Renn lead teams won 54% so to answer the debate of 4 Q yes he is on pace to be one of the greatest all time Sycamores if you compare the first 2 years won loss records.
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Let's reserve final judgement until his career is finished. This debate is (almost) like the Mike and The Herd argument this a.m. ....

--- per Phil Simms; T. Coughlin and E. Manning are HoFers RIGHT NOW!



Or THIS one (and it's my favorite...) T. Tebow is the BEST QB ever!!!


The Jake-led teams have reached two post-season tourneys; good, win another conf titles and some post-season games. Are players judged by their numbers or the team record? Yes.

QBs, PGs (or the 'designated team leader...') are judged as much or more on team record; most QBs and PGs know that; do they like it? Some do, others don't. But as that wing-nut in tx always says "and that's just the way it is."
 
It has to be pointed out for the sake of statistical comparisons that Bird accumulated his numbers in just three years thus skewing any comparison. For the sake of fairness we should average his numbers for his three years and use that as a fourth year. Seems reasonable.
 
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