Friday, January 4, 2013

Passing the eye test

Steve Shields’ teams typically do not pass the “eye test,” that is, they tend not to look flashy and athletic and thus fans (and hopefully opponents) underrate them. I suspect opposing coaches who are familiar with his teams do not underrate them. All this is in keeping with Steve’s defense-first philosophy, of course.




One downside to this has been that “eye test” teams typically do better at tournament times than non-eye test teams, because they have crunch time scorers. However, this group may have overcome that deficiency. James White is as impressive an athlete on the court as I have seen in Little Rock, and John Gillon has the same quickness/shooter combination that Solomon Bozeman had. What we are lacking at the moment is a go-to post-up scorer. Javes does not seem willing to it, and presently without his 3-point shots falling, Will Neighbour has been reduced to fade-away jump shots and is not effective at all offensively. It is possible that Gus Leeper can fill this role. He is strong enough, and has a nice touch. In limited play, he is 4 for 7 from the field so far. But we have to get the ball to him in the post for him to do it.

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