A Look At The State Of Boston College Basketball After 10 Games
by spideyguy0 on Dec 9, 2011 2:03 PM EST
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Now that we’re a third of the way through the season we can start to take a look at how this team has progressed and what the expectations are moving forward both this year, and in coming years. First of all, I’m happy with the improvement I’ve seen from this team so far. Last night was the first game this year where I didn’t notice a marked improvement over the previous game. They are relying on each other and learning to play more as a team, which is in turn making up for a lot of their individual deficiencies. The whole is going to need to be greater than the sum of its parts with this group. There are no stars on this team.
A couple of the players who have made huge strides the last couple games are Gabe Moton and (never thought I’d say this one) Matt Humphrey. Humphrey seems to have really bought in to the team mentality and is working at becoming a better cog in the offense than he has been previously. He isn’t rushing shots and he’s looking to dish unless he knows he has a high percentage opportunity. He’s also one of the better players at running ball screens, whereas a few too many guys (Cahill, Heckman, Rubin) seem content to just stand there and wait for a play to develop, Humphrey is looking to position himself. As for Moton, he hasn’t changed his game all that much with the exception of relaxing on his impulses to push too hard in transition, but he’s executing much better than he was early in the year. You can chalk that up to experience, mental focus, or a number of other factors. Not having him last night hurt (although Daniels having a very good game helped a lot) and hopefully he’s back soon.
One of the bright spots of the first couple games, Patrick Heckman, seems to have fallen back to Earth. A lot of this probably has to do with him still nursing 2 sore ankles. He was very adept at driving the lane and getting to the line. His moves relied on his ability to pivot and spin quickly, and that’s certainly been difficult for him, and you haven’t seen him try making the types of plays he made against New Hampshire or Saint Louis. Once he’s truly healthy I still think that he’ll mature into one of the best wings in the ACC.
As for the bigs, Caudill and Clifford still continue to be projects with high ceilings. Caudill is still slow, and Clifford is still weak. Both bring a lot of unteachable attributes to the table, but both have weaknesses that overshadow them. Neither one has solidified themselves as an aggressive rebounder yet, and BC is giving up an insane amount of offensive boards that they should be coming down with. Clifford also has trouble protecting the ball around the rim when he goes up for a dunk. He gets blocked in the paint at least once a game, usually more, which for a 7 footer is just unacceptable. He either needs to get stronger or do a better job of hiding the basketball on his way up. Shot fakes are also acceptable here. This is really more a question of technique than strength. Strength is what’s keeping him from rebounding the ball as he gets pushed out of the way easily. He shows great effort though, isn’t afraid to get on the floor, and his a nice mid-range jumper. Additionally, there are maybe only a dozen or so 7-footers in the country who shoot as well as he does from the stripe. That’s absolutely huge. As for Caudill, he’s very very slow. Only knock on his game that I have, but it’s a killer. Keeps him from kicking the ball out to open men, keeps him from snagging rebounds, keeps him from being able to guard a player with good post moves, keeps him from getting the block/charge calls on both ends, I could go on. I’m a little worried about this one because I don’t know if it’s necessarily correctable.
Looking at the team as a whole, these guys will be lucky to win two ACC games this year. I’d honestly settle for just getting 1. Next year will be marginally better. I think the ceiling for these guys is probably #4 or 5 in the ACC as seniors. This squad is never going to challenge for an ACC championship which is a problem when you rebuild your entire team. The goal of a rebuild should be to build a foundation for a team that can challenge for a league championship and this foundation can’t. They just aren’t talented enough. It will take another gutting of the team and another full rebuild to make that possible.
And I know it’s not Donahue’s style, but it will be a heck of a lot easier with higher ranked players. Sure it’s possible to build a winner with underrecruited guys and plenty of teams do it every year. But the trick is that none do it consistently. Butler had 2 great years, VCU had a great year, Harvard is having a great year. Before that it was Southern Illinois or George Mason. Creighton has a good team now, and Cornell had one under Donahue. But none of those schools, or any other mid-major that has had those "diamond in the rough" guys has been able to maintain success. The only schools that maintain success are schools that bring in highly ranked players on a consistent basis. Anyone can get lucky with unheralded guys, but for every school that does, there are 50 mid-majors you’ve never heard of because their unheralded guys suck. This translates in the ACC too. Maryland won a national championship with no McDonalds All-Americans in 2002 and has only pulled a handful of top 50 guys since. And they haven’t been able to duplicate their success. It will be a challenge but BC needs to recruit in that 40-100 range and pull 1 or 2 guys from that pool every year. They at least have to lockdown a foothold in northern New England and I don’t mean by landing guys like Clifford from schools like Bridgewater. I mean by landing guys from the prep schools.
I know I went off on a tangent there but those are my thoughts on the program and where it stands and where it’s going. I really like the guys on the current squad. They seem to have a very good mentality and they’re focused on getting better and winning games. I wish them the best, but I remain skeptical of the program’s ceiling.
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BC BIGS
Do we have an assistant coach who is responsible for working with our big kids? This was a criticism I had of Skinner. I hate to see it continue. If you recruit big kids as projects, you need someone designated to work with them.
In the very old days (back in the caves), Bob Cousy would have Tom Heinsohn over for a “consultation” with the BC kids from time to time. I suppose that would be an NCAA violation now (It probably was then, too).
Somebody has to work on our two guys on technique; e.g., Clifford is constantly getting shoved too far under the basket to be in position to rebound. Maybe that’s a strength issue; but there has to be a techniques aspect as well.
by Leonard E Sienko Jr on Dec 9, 2011 3:24 PM EST reply actions
Last night was the best the Eagles played all season.
by EagleAboveTheRim on Dec 9, 2011 7:04 PM EST reply actions
Seemed that way to me too...
But I don’t agree with spideyguy0 that Humphrey seems to be improving. From my POV he and Heckman are the only ones who have gotten worse.
by formereagledad on Dec 9, 2011 9:52 PM EST up reply actions
You can tell with Humphrey just from the number of shots he’s taking. Prior to the past 2 games there had only been one game Matt had taken less than 10 shots (he took 9). The past 2 he’s taken 6 and 8. In the last 3 games he’s had his best and 3rd best shooting % games of the year. Against Providence he didn’t shoot the ball all that well but the shots he was taking were for the most part good shots. He’s not killing possessions with his insistence on shooting an early pull up or trying to expose a 1-on-1 late. He’s also gotten slightly (slightly) better on the defensive end.
I agree
and I think the biggest reason was ryan anderson, (who wasn’t mentioned in this post). He was the guy that they were trying to get the ball to at the end of the game (not Heckmann as in games past), he’s also our highest ranked recruit (whether that means anything remains to be seen).
The thing about having as many freshman as we do this year is not seeing how they all will develop into good college players, because some of them won’t, rather its seeing which ones will. Its wrong to say that because we have a ton of freshman this year that these guys are going to comprise our team for the next three years as well, some of them are gonna see minutes drop as better options are recruited… what we need this season is to see 3 or 4 of the young guys develop into something we can rely on next year, and then figure out which ones we should already be trying to replace
and by already
i mean after they’re all given a full season of development (obviously too early to be dismissing guys who have seen all of nine college level games)
Great write up Spidey
Its hard not to like Donahue. The only real question mark when they brought him in was his ability (as an Ivy League guy) to recruit. All things considered, how good a recruiting job did you reasonably expect last year and how good a job did you think Donahue did with Clifford and the CA kids? You say that we need to get at least one or two 40-100 ranked kids every year. Should Donahue be up to that at this point and, if not, at what point? I’m no expert but it seems pretty clear that you have to have at least two consistent scorers to truly succeed with the rest filling roles. When you don’t have even one (as in our case) – you are in deep shat.
He's about where I'd expect
in terms of recruiting. That doesn’t mean I’m satisfied with that, but I’m certainly not surprised either way. Getting 4-star kids to come to BC is hard. It’s much harder than selling them on most other BCS programs, and there are a number of reasons for that. But it’s not going to change if Donahue doesn’t spend time and resources working on changing that, and that’s not his philosophy. He did an interview before the season where he basically admitted he’s not going to waste time on high level kids because he doesn’t believe he’ll land them. That’s an Al Skinner response if I ever heard one.
It’s hard to answer your question and say when Donahue should be snatching kids in the 40-100 range because that isn’t his recruiting philosophy, it’s mine, and I’m not coaching this team. It seems to me like Donahue is content to continue to bring in classes very similar to the this year’s class, and that worries me, because it means that BC bball under Donahue is never going to be a perennial contender. It means the best we can hope for is probably 1 contending year every 5 or 6 years. That’s not to say we won’t post winning ACC records, but as far as contending for a league title, or making it past the first weekend of the tournament, you’re looking at once every 5 or 6 years at best with this recruiting system.
Donahue’s right in the sense that you can’t just flip a switch and land 4-star kids, but there needs to be a foundation layed and Donahue isn’t laying it. AFAIK he isn’t in touch with many top 8th-10th graders, which is when you need to start forming relationships to have a legit shot. His assistants aren’t seen at many top high school and AAU events checking out the big time kids. He isn’t making the daily phone calls to the top high school coaches the way other schools are. A lot of it is effort and attention on the part of the coaching staff. In order to land big time guys without breaking rules (and you shouldn’t have to break rules for most guys in the 60-100 range) you need to suck up as much as possible to the recruit, the school, the AAU program, the family, etc. You need to SHOW via attendance at events, phone calls, and other means, that you want these kids. Just going out and watching this kids is a huge part of that and that’s not what Donahue and his guys are focused on at the top 100 level. Instead they’re making trips to Valencia to the find the next Lonnie Jackson.
Finally, yes, I agree with you that we need 2 scorers to be successful. I believe that Heckman is 1, and that we will turn it around once he’s 100% healthy and be a scoring force. Anderson could be #2, and then guys like Jackson and Cliff and Moton could be auxiliary options, but it’s going to take time to develop to that point, and if it never materializes, now you’ve wasted 4 years.
Thanks. The other thing I have noticed in recruiting is that your big scorers always tend to have been big scorers (20 points +) in high school as well (which proves that a lot of shooting consistently is God given). Therefore, I would be surprised if Heckmann turns into a big time scorer as he averaged (I believe) only about 11 points per game prior to BC. I haven’t checked – but I think Jackson was the most proficient scorer from HS on the team.
Going back to recruiting. I remember when Georgetown was virtually unknown and the impact their recruitment of Patrick Ewing had on their entire program. So I tend to agree with you that the effort has to be made to land a few gems. And that effort could at least be focused on the better urban Catholic high schools in the Mid Atlantic and Northeast.
About scoring
How much you score is completely relative. Someone who plays on an elite prep team where they’re the #4 or 5 scoring option and plays their schedule against other elite prep schools will probably average about 6 or 7 PPG, but could actually be a better scorer than someone who went to a small public school and averaged 30 ppg as the #1 option against other small public school kids. My experience has been with Maryland, so I’ll use them as an example.
Last year, MD had 2 recruits, a top 50 kid named Mychael Parker and a pretty unheralded 3-star named Haukur Palson. Parker stared at a school in Virginia that didn’t play much elite competition and he dominated on his athleticism. Palson came off the bench for Montverde in Florida, which was one of the top 5 high school programs in the country. When they got to college Palson developed into the better player and actually signed a pro deal in Europe after his freshman season. Parker only played in about 10 games and then usually only about a minute or 2 a game.
As for Heckman, his time in the states was at a bball academy, where the individual numbers are going to be lower. In Europe it was the same thing, so I’m not gonna be too worried about that. Jackson is the best pure shooter on the team and went to a public high school in Cali which is why his numbers were so high.
I believe Jackson was the top scorer in HS. Averaged 22.8 points, 6.9 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game.
Editor, BC Interruption
While a big high school scoring average isn’t necessarily indicative of college success owing to varying levels of high school competition, I am unaware of any prolific college scorer who was not also a prolific scorer in high school. Looking back to BC’s best I found the following high school averages (the only ones I could not find were for J. Bagley, J. Murphy and B. Curley):
J. Dudley – 23
C. Smith – 23
T. Rice – 27
T. Bell – 36
R. Jackson – 30
D. Barros – 39
M. Adams – 27
Al Skinner didnt recruit the prep schools
that’s pretty much your answer
for comparrison
here’s a look at some of the top scorers in the country who went to prep schools and their senior year numbers there
Thomas Robinson (Kansas/Brewster): 16
Will Barton (Memphis/Brewster): 20
Doron Lamb (Kentucky/ Oak Hill): 23
Myck Kabongo (Texas/Findlay): 16
Kevin Jones (West Virginia/Mt. Vernon): 23
Obviouslly all these guys are much better players than Heckman, but those are some of the top point totals you’ll see from any high level prep school players.
I assume all of those guys had higher scoring averages at their pre prep high schools that would mirror what the best BC scorers had reflected above. Question: is the competition they face in the prep school leagues superior to that faced by a kid who plays for a school like Rice or Molloy, for example, in the NYC Catholic school league or similar leagues in Philly and DC? And are these prep schools attended primarily as a finishing school experience to boost their academic eligibility? I’m probably a little older than you and the prep school route seems to have gotten much more common for premier players than it was in the olden days of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
I think Heckmann looks like he can develop into a solid player but I would be surprised if he becomes enough of a big time scorer to join the list above (due to his pre BC numbers). But if he spends enough time in the gym I suppose anything is possible.
Schools like Findlay, Brewster, Montrose, etc. aren’t so much prep schools or finishing schools as they are basketball academies specifically designed to give players the skills needed to succeed at the division 1 college level. These schools recruit the most elite high school basketball players in the nation to essentially form teams that could compete with some low-major college programs. There isn’t even an actual high school called FIndlay Prep. The school is called something else, and Findlay Prep is the name of the bball program open only to students who attend that high school. The school is an afterthought.
Schools like this don’t play a regular schedule of local schools the way most high schools do. They’ll play a few local schools but the majority of their games are in travel tournaments against other similar schools. If you look at the roster for a school like Brewster or Findlay it’s rare that any of their players actually live within 200 miles of the school. It’s more an extension of the AAU season while you’re also taking some easy high school classes designed specifically to let you qualify than it is a real academic high school. A number of these schools even play 4 or 5 games a year on ESPN
So if you don’t have academic issues and you are Division 1 material coming out of Saint Raymond’s or Mount Vernon HS with a slew of offers – you have no reason to attend these schools?
no, you absolutely have reason to attend these schools. these schools will make you better. your game will jump 5x more at a school like this than at a traditional catholic school. just cause you’re good enough coming out of a normal school to get high major offers doesn’t mean that you’re gonna be content with that and that there’s no room for improvement. a lot of people see these schools as an easy precursor to the one and done route.
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