Monday, January 4, 2016

Why Jermaine Ruttley is starting

Jermaine has started every game, playing what in the traditional scheme of things would be the small forward spot. In Steve Shields' system, the 3 spots was usually the defensive stopper. And, it appears that it may be that way at least this season with Ruttley. He is only scoring 4.1 ppg, even though he was a big-time scorer at FAMU. This makes me believe that he is playing a different role here  by design, since he has demonstrated he can put points on the board. But we have scorers here (three guys in double figures), so evidently Ruttley is sliding over to the defensive stopper role. Otherwise, I can't see why he would be playing the minutes he is. And, no matter how much some people downplay it, every team needs a defensive stopper.

Plus, Jermaine is tied for 2nd on the team in rebounding. Plus he has a 1.67 A/TO ratio, which is very good for someone at his position, and is considerably better than Marcus Johnson, who used to play point guard. Jermaine is playing a role, which does not happen to  be scoring, and he is playing that role very well.

No comments: