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MBB Game 23: @ Duke - Tuesday 7 pm - ACCN

wakelaw13 said:
I think our bigs are that bad. Marsh is a fun weapon but they are both so slow and have bad hands. Our best bet is Keller improving enough to play the 5 regularly alongside Carr, or just playing small ball with Carr at the 5.
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Yeah I think the bigs are even worse than we think they are. They're one of the major reasons that we're so bad on defense
 
Next year would be Monsanto's 5th year out of HS, and the NBA evaluates players as much on age as anything else. Don't see Damari waiting until he is 24 or older to see how far he can go in pro basketball. To me, Damari is a much better pro prospect than Mucius and Isaiah has played in the G League all year. Hope Damari stays two more years at WF, but four years in college is long enough for most. Maybe RTQ or some other WF benefactor will make an offer that makes staying at WF more lucrative than G League or Europe, but if that happens, would expect a bidding war among all of college hoop for Monsanto (and wouldn't blame him for considering that option). Have no intel at all, but it just seems like most don't realize how much crap he's been through and a viable scenario would be for him to just see where a pro career takes him after 4 years in college.
 
Still shaking my head about that 2nd half possession where Carr passed the ball into Bradford who was basically standing with the towel boys under the backboard.
 
I think if we give Monsanto some NIL money (which we will) then he should stay but who really knows. All we have is speculation.

Bradford looks a step faster in those clips for sure, but even in a couple of those you can see that he's just a little slower than some of the athletic bigs even we've seen at Wake lately. Hell, Marsh gets up better and more aggressively than Bradford does. Bradford definitely has a little bit better "non-dunk" skill set around the rim than Marsh.

Injuries don't explain why neither of them can grab the damn ball. Marsh at least generally gets his boards over time. Bradford....man.
 
Pilchard said:
And Davien essentially can't play because of his back. WF has one true healthy guard on the entire roster. Appleby. Cam went from 2/3 to a 2/1, and that is it for the roster. Where is Myles Lester when you need him? (kidding about Lester), but WF could really use a mediocre combo guard to steal a few minutes.

Marsh can do one thing well: slam a lob pass. That is it. His defense is poor, opposing bigs almost always out-anticipate him for rebounds, and his basketball instincts are just way behind. Maybe they get there. Hope so. Bradford has similarly poor instincts and is less athletic than Marsh. Bradford is strong, and when he is positioned correctly he can be OK on defense. He also will occasionally block a shot, which Marsh never does. Pretty unbelievable that both Marsh and Bradford have played 2 or more seasons of college basketball are 7-0 and have zero post moves. Unless they catch the ball down low with no defender between them and the basket, neither have any hope of scoring. Might want to work in the Mikan drill for each guy at every practice?

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Absolutely spot on, was going to post something similar. I posted a month ago that we were one position away from being a good team. In addition to what you pointed out they are averaging a combined 6 rebounds per game, terrible from your 5. Carr can not play the five, nor should he be expected to. He is perfectly fine at 4 cutting to the basket and hopefully his three point shot will be more consistent. If Keller doesn't get a hell of a lot stronger he won't be a factor. My dream additions for next year would be a legit center, a combo big forward-center, a point guard and maybe a combo guard.
 
I think a highlight reel of Bradford from this year would look surprisingly impressive. He does have 14 dunks this season in limited playing time. That's not meant to be praise of Bradford as much as criticism of some player highlight reels. Not denying he's not as good as he was as a freshman, just saying he's had plenty of good plays this year -- he's just had way more bad ones, which don't show up on highlights.

Was watching the condensed game of last year's game @Duke and the athleticism of Walton (who had the knees of an old man) and Sy is just night and day -- the fastbreak at 9:18 always sticks out to me.




Marsh is gigantic but aside from being useful in the dunker's role, he's basically like having a guard out there with his inability to protect the rim defensively or rebound.
 
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IAppreciateIt said:
I think a highlight reel of Bradford from this year would look surprisingly impressive. He does have 14 dunks this season in limited playing time. That's not meant to be praise of Bradford as much as criticism of some player highlight reels. Not denying he's not as good as he was as a freshman, just saying he's had plenty of good plays this year (just even more bad ones).

Was watching the condensed game of last year's game @Duke and the athleticism of Walton (who had the knees of an old man) and Sy is just night and day.




Marsh is gigantic but aside from being useful in the dunker's role, he's basically like having a guard out there with his inability to protect the rim defensively or rebound.
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This is very fair. He had a couple very nice touch baskets against Pitt or State where he had some solid footwork.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
Maybe a hot take, but I didn't think Kyle's no-call was a moving screen. Looked like he was set and kept his arms in on the slo-mo. The most frustrating thing was immediately calling the "moving" screen on Appleby right after it. That's the inconsistency that drives everybody crazy.
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Nah, not a hot take. When it happened I thought it was a blown call, then I rewatched it - there's a replay in slow-mo after the timeout from the perfect angle. The pick is set well, Monsanto runs straight into him, after the collision as Monsanto goes down Kyle does a weird flippy thing with his arms probably because Monsanto hit him in the stomach while flopping.

Oh, and for those knocking Carr - nope. Monsanto is on the ground, Carr steps down to protect against rounding the corner on the drive which they'd done 20 times and was smart. The pass goes to Kyle and Carr is tight on him. Then it goes back to Proctor because Monsanto is still getting back up after taking his silly dive. Since Proctor had been lighting us up from deep Monsanto totally bites on his shot fake and flies by him instead of recovering properly, and Proctor drives right past him. Now Carr is guarding two people, he takes a step back to help on Proctor which is the correct play since Kyle has made either 1 or zero 3's in all but one ACC game, but of course he makes it and we lose.

Look, I know we need Monsanto and that he can light it up. I hope he comes back next year. But we really, really, really need him to play tough, focused basketball every minute he's on the court. He is too good to be betting an entire game on a stupid goofy flop attempt just because he got picked. All I could think about while he was on the ground and Duke was inevitably going to hit that shot was Forbes saying "Oh no, Monsanto is NOT leading this team. He's NOT" in response to a reporter assuming he'd taken a leadership role. Gotta have more than this from him.
 
IAppreciateIt said:
I think a highlight reel of Bradford from this year would look surprisingly impressive. He does have 14 dunks this season in limited playing time. That's not meant to be praise of Bradford as much as criticism of some player highlight reels. Not denying he's not as good as he was as a freshman, just saying he's had plenty of good plays this year -- he's just had way more bad ones, which don't show up on highlights.

Was watching the condensed game of last year's game @Duke and the athleticism of Walton (who had the knees of an old man) and Sy is just night and day.




Marsh is gigantic but aside from being useful in the dunker's role, he's basically like having a guard out there with his inability to protect the rim defensively or rebound.
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man, watched a few minutes of this and more than once, we get a defensive rebound and Walton SPRINTS to the offensive end, either to get an open three or a dunk. I had forgotten about that aspect of his game, and now I am more sad.
 
warak said:
This is the same guy? Bradford right now plays below the rim. If he can get back to that level, it would be huge!
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Sad, but we've seen absolutely none of that O from Bradford....sometimes it seems he's preoccupied or disinterested in bball.
 
Pilchard said:
Next year would be Monsanto's 5th year out of HS, and the NBA evaluates players as much on age as anything else. Don't see Damari waiting until he is 24 or older to see how far he can go in pro basketball. To me, Damari is a much better pro prospect than Mucius and Isaiah has played in the G League all year. Hope Damari stays two more years at WF, but four years in college is long enough for most. Maybe RTQ or some other WF benefactor will make an offer that makes staying at WF more lucrative than G League or Europe, but if that happens, would expect a bidding war among all of college hoop for Monsanto (and wouldn't blame him for considering that option). Have no intel at all, but it just seems like most don't realize how much crap he's been through and a viable scenario would be for him to just see where a pro career takes him after 4 years in college.
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This.
 
wakelaw13 said:
I think our bigs are that bad. Marsh is a fun weapon but they are both so slow and have bad hands. Our best bet is Keller improving enough to play the 5 regularly alongside Carr, or just playing small ball with Carr at the 5.
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Is that famous big man camp still a thing?
 
If we want to build momentum, we throw NIL at Monsanto. I’d be in if I knew it was going there. I’m not a high roller but a lot of 5ks here and 10ks there, get him. To me, if we want to save the program, it’s NCAAS or bust next year.
 
You know, I think Monsanto stays. He can be “The Man” next year…it is there for him as much or better than most other teams. We need a #1 scorer next year! He is not going to be drafted (not close), teams that want him are looking for auxiliary pieces (mostly). I don’t see the NIL deals out there that make a huge difference, but I really have no idea what it is like now…

Conclusion - if he wants his 15 minutes to make himself a star, Wake is the best position for him. If he wants a better chance at a Championship, @ 15mpg, maybe he goes elsewhere.

$0.02
 
awakegirl said:
If we want to build momentum, we throw NIL at Monsanto. I’d be in if I knew it was going there. I’m not a high roller but a lot of 5ks here and 10ks there, get him. To me, if we want to save the program, it’s NCAAS or bust next year.
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Wake will definitely have NIL money for Monsanto.
 
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