I stayed for about an hour. It was in the practice gym as the main floor is set up for tonight's volleyball match. It was a normal practice with lots of drills and running. I'm not much of a scout but the team does look a bit more athletic this year. I didn't see Justin Amadi in the practice and Jared Garcia didn't participate in all of the drills.
Tyshawn Archie looks as smooth as ever. He nailed a rainbow three that got my attention. Jaye Nash and Dwon Odom both look like very physical players. Ian Smikle is big and athletic with long arms. I bet he plays quite a bit. Matt Reed actually looked too skinny to me, but the baby fat is gone. Braeden Carrington is a little taller than I thought. I think that Jesiah McWright can be the Darien Jackson of this team. Isiah Barnes is still pretty slim but he's more of a slasher than interior player.
After this dismal football season, I'm really looking forward to hoops.
The Jesiah McWright comment is the only one I really have trouble with. Him necessitating playtime because other guys were underperforming really hurt us for the past two seasons. He's someone I would have asked to transfer because many players (even some high schoolers) would probably have been an upgrade.
Jackson barely played his Freshman season, but in his sophomore season when he was pretty bad offensively, his PER was still 13.8 because he had decent shooting splits outside of his 3 point shots and he had a sky high defensive plus minus because of his ability to steal the ball.
McWright at the same time is worse or much worse in every statistical category on defense (He rebounds worse even though he's 2 inches taller than Jackson was and he's much worse at steals) and offensively he is an efficiency black hole at 5.2 PER. If this team is going to win, he either shouldn't play or he HAS to make more of the baskets he takes, get his teammates better looks and up his defensive game substantially (basically learn to play basketball).
Good news, there are a couple of players who were around that bad early on and managed to be decent by their Junior / Senior seasons. Korita & Joiner were both statistically terrible early, but ended up being okay.
