Thomas knows someone-Special

[Obvious]

He keeps the ball moving on offense. He doesn’t try to do things on his own. If he gets an open look he takes it. We’ve all see trey hit big shots

He’s shooting 30.8% from 3pt, nothing close to a shooting specialist. I respect Trey as well and he’s overcome the odds and seems to be an awesome dude. But teams making the tournament have much better players playing 20+ minutes.

He keeps the ball moving on offense. He doesn’t try to do things on his own. If he gets an open look he takes it. We’ve all seen trey hit big shots. He’s not exactly killing us just because he’s not hitting all of his threes. He’s not hurting us either. When some of the freshmen come in they want to take over and love every bad shot they take.

My opinion is that he brings the ball into the front court and picks up his dribble too often 35' from the basket. Quite honestly, Wright could do the exact same thing, as could Lewis. I appreciate wanting to find value, but we have two players on this roster that do more than what Thomas does at point - Manjon and Lewis. At best he is the 3rd best PG on the team, so that isn't why he would be playing (Manjon and Lewis combined for 40 minutes in the last game anyway - so that isn't the reason why Thomas was playing).

As has been noted multiple times, his offense, which is one dimensional and off-track is only one half of Thomas' value. The other half is in defense, where he doesn't rebound, doesn't create steals or blocks, is short, slight of build, and not particularly laterally quick, nor does he possess explosive jumping ability. In other words, he has none of the attributes a good defender should have physically. Now a lot of players get to play in spite of their defense - Tinsley, Ogilvy, etc, but they are typically amazing multi-dimensional players on offense, or are role players who are great shooters (Cage as a freshman, Gordon as a freshman, but don't see the court much). Red Gordon might be a pretty good comparison in terms of height - as a junior he was getting about 23 minutes per game but had a better assist rate, three point percentage, FT rate, steal rate, and ability to score inside, by pretty wide margins over Thomas. Besides that Gordon was a bulldog - physically very strong from playing football and tough as nails.

I guess maybe I'm mis-interpreting these replies - is the thought that Thomas is actually a good player and the best approach (for this year and next) is to give him the whatever minutes Manjon or Lawrence don't use at guard, or is it that Shelby is so raw and unready that CJS has no choice to play Thomas and that somehow our record would have been worse had we tried to give Shelby 10-15 mpg this season?

I suppose there is hope for stackhouse being a psychological guru. Burying the highly touted freshmen so when they do get in they don’t ever want to get back to the bench. I agree that Manjon is our best pg and I think he’s one of our 4-5 best players.

[Jason94]

He keeps the ball moving on offense. He doesn’t try to do things on his own. If he gets an open look he takes it. We’ve all seen trey hit big shots. He’s not exactly killing us just because he’s not hitting all of his threes. He’s not hurting us either. When some of the freshmen come in they want to take over and love every bad shot they take.

My opinion is that he brings the ball into the front court and picks up his dribble too often 35' from the basket. Quite honestly, Wright could do the exact same thing, as could Lewis. I appreciate wanting to find value, but we have two players on this roster that do more than what Thomas does at point - Manjon and Lewis. At best he is the 3rd best PG on the team, so that isn't why he would be playing (Manjon and Lewis combined for 40 minutes in the last game anyway - so that isn't the reason why Thomas was playing).

As has been noted multiple times, his offense, which is one dimensional and off-track is only one half of Thomas' value. The other half is in defense, where he doesn't rebound, doesn't create steals or blocks, is short, slight of build, and not particularly laterally quick, nor does he possess explosive jumping ability. In other words, he has none of the attributes a good defender should have physically. Now a lot of players get to play in spite of their defense - Tinsley, Ogilvy, etc, but they are typically amazing multi-dimensional players on offense, or are role players who are great shooters (Cage as a freshman, Gordon as a freshman, but don't see the court much). Red Gordon might be a pretty good comparison in terms of height - as a junior he was getting about 23 minutes per game but had a better assist rate, three point percentage, FT rate, steal rate, and ability to score inside, by pretty wide margins over Thomas. Besides that Gordon was a bulldog - physically very strong from playing football and tough as nails.

I guess maybe I'm mis-interpreting these replies - is the thought that Thomas is actually a good player and the best approach (for this year and next) is to give him the whatever minutes Manjon or Lawrence don't use at guard, or is it that Shelby is so raw and unready that CJS has no choice to play Thomas and that somehow our record would have been worse had we tried to give Shelby 10-15 mpg this season?

I suppose there is hope for stackhouse being a psychological guru. Burying the highly touted freshmen so when they do get in they don’t ever want to get back to the bench. I agree that Manjon is our best pg and I think he’s one of our 4-5 best players.

CJS has some of the old-school traits that CKS had - preferring to let players play through rough patches instead of calling TO's, using the bench to send messages (remember his sitting Langhi for a half after the UT game?), being seemingly uninterested in recruiting. Those traits eventually burned CKS (though a lot of it was probably prioritizing watching his son as opposed to actually recruiting) and I doubt that CJS is immune as players are probably less understanding of those types of things as they might have been 20 years ago.

[Obvious]

My opinion is that he brings the ball into the front court and picks up his dribble too often 35' from the basket. Quite honestly, Wright could do the exact same thing, as could Lewis. I appreciate wanting to find value, but we have two players on this roster that do more than what Thomas does at point - Manjon and Lewis. At best he is the 3rd best PG on the team, so that isn't why he would be playing (Manjon and Lewis combined for 40 minutes in the last game anyway - so that isn't the reason why Thomas was playing).

As has been noted multiple times, his offense, which is one dimensional and off-track is only one half of Thomas' value. The other half is in defense, where he doesn't rebound, doesn't create steals or blocks, is short, slight of build, and not particularly laterally quick, nor does he possess explosive jumping ability. In other words, he has none of the attributes a good defender should have physically. Now a lot of players get to play in spite of their defense - Tinsley, Ogilvy, etc, but they are typically amazing multi-dimensional players on offense, or are role players who are great shooters (Cage as a freshman, Gordon as a freshman, but don't see the court much). Red Gordon might be a pretty good comparison in terms of height - as a junior he was getting about 23 minutes per game but had a better assist rate, three point percentage, FT rate, steal rate, and ability to score inside, by pretty wide margins over Thomas. Besides that Gordon was a bulldog - physically very strong from playing football and tough as nails.

I guess maybe I'm mis-interpreting these replies - is the thought that Thomas is actually a good player and the best approach (for this year and next) is to give him the whatever minutes Manjon or Lawrence don't use at guard, or is it that Shelby is so raw and unready that CJS has no choice to play Thomas and that somehow our record would have been worse had we tried to give Shelby 10-15 mpg this season?

I suppose there is hope for stackhouse being a psychological guru. Burying the highly touted freshmen so when they do get in they don’t ever want to get back to the bench. I agree that Manjon is our best pg and I think he’s one of our 4-5 best players.

CJS has some of the old-school traits that CKS had - preferring to let players play through rough patches instead of calling TO's, using the bench to send messages (remember his sitting Langhi for a half after the UT game?), being seemingly uninterested in recruiting. Those traits eventually burned CKS (though a lot of it was probably prioritizing watching his son as opposed to actually recruiting) and I doubt that CJS is immune as players are probably less understanding of those types of things as they might have been 20 years ago.

One thing I miss about CKS is he was always able to find the alpha male on the team and make him the go-to-guy. He used to build a kid into a program legend over a 3-4 year period.

[Hutch37]

interesting point about CKS- I think CJS expected Wright to be the guy this year and for whatever reason he just has not played as well as we had hoped. I have enjoyed watching Jordan's progression every year and hopefully he gets back in the flow asap. The shots have just not seemed to fall for him .I think now though we have turned to Lawrence and Robbins. The benching at AL may not be as big a disaster as the fans think- it may have been a sign that so much is expected of Tyrin and nothing less than complete focus will be allowed. He will be the man next year.

[Jason94]

interesting point about CKS- I think CJS expected Wright to be the guy this year and for whatever reason he just has not played as well as we had hoped. I have enjoyed watching Jordan's progression every year and hopefully he gets back in the flow asap. The shots have just not seemed to fall for him .I think now though we have turned to Lawrence and Robbins. The benching at AL may not be as big a disaster as the fans think- it may have been a sign that so much is expected of Tyrin and nothing less than complete focus will be allowed. He will be the man next year.

What CKS and most coaches do is ride their go-to guys. CJS OTOH has played Lawrence 25 mpg and Robbins 22 mpg this season. Wright is also at 24 mpg.

I would hope that someone like Dort would be the man next year, but you may be correct that Lawrence will be (due to the lack of development/PT for Dort this season). I don't think that bodes well for our tournament chances unless he is able to develop a three point shot in the offseason.

[geeznotagain]

What CKS and most coaches do is ride their go-to guys. CJS OTOH has played Lawrence 25 mpg and Robbins 22 mpg this season. Wright is also at 24 mpg.

I would hope that someone like Dort would be the man next year, but you may be correct that Lawrence will be (due to the lack of development/PT for Dort this season). I don't think that bodes well for our tournament chances unless he is able to develop a three point shot in the offseason.

That is doable, sure. But is it likely? Are there many MBB players who drastically improve their shot from one year to the next? Some folks are just not shooters, and for them, I would argue that little will change. Those who do change appreciably are the outliers. Beale is one name that comes to mind as having appreciably improved his shot during his VU career. And I'm sure there are others. But the odds of doing so (to pick a number out of the air) are maybe 25% IMHO.

[Obvious]

What CKS and most coaches do is ride their go-to guys. CJS OTOH has played Lawrence 25 mpg and Robbins 22 mpg this season. Wright is also at 24 mpg.

I would hope that someone like Dort would be the man next year, but you may be correct that Lawrence will be (due to the lack of development/PT for Dort this season). I don't think that bodes well for our tournament chances unless he is able to develop a three point shot in the offseason.

That is doable, sure. But is it likely? Are there many MBB players who drastically improve their shot from one year to the next? Some folks are just not shooters, and for them, I would argue that little will change. Those who do change appreciably are the outliers. Beale is one name that comes to mind as having appreciably improved his shot during his VU career. And I'm sure there are others. But the odds of doing so (to pick a number out of the air) are maybe 25% IMHO.

Jeff Taylor was a .091% shooter from three his sophomore year. He improved to 34% his junior year and 42% his senior year.

[Obvious]

Saben Lee improved his 3 point shooting over time. 3 point shooting comes down to repetition and hours or practice. I don’t see why Lawrence wouldn’t be able to add an outside shot.

[Jason94]

What CKS and most coaches do is ride their go-to guys. CJS OTOH has played Lawrence 25 mpg and Robbins 22 mpg this season. Wright is also at 24 mpg.

I would hope that someone like Dort would be the man next year, but you may be correct that Lawrence will be (due to the lack of development/PT for Dort this season). I don't think that bodes well for our tournament chances unless he is able to develop a three point shot in the offseason.

That is doable, sure. But is it likely? Are there many MBB players who drastically improve their shot from one year to the next? Some folks are just not shooters, and for them, I would argue that little will change. Those who do change appreciably are the outliers. Beale is one name that comes to mind as having appreciably improved his shot during his VU career. And I'm sure there are others. But the odds of doing so (to pick a number out of the air) are maybe 25% IMHO.

Beal did really develop his three point shot over his four seasons in a very impressive way. But he was always an 80% FT shooter. Interestingly enough, Beal shot just 26% from three, just 33% overall, and had a TO rate of over 27% (meaning he turned the ball over in over 1 of every 4 possessions that he ended). Yet he played over 16 mpg on a team that should have been in the Elite 8. His PT went down when we got into crunch time, but it is almost certain that the significant amount of PT against good opposition in meaningful minutes helped his development to becoming one of the league's best PGs in his soph season.

It is ok to let freshmen struggle in game situations - those struggle can lead to good play down the line.

[Hutch37]

I don't have the stats in front of me but i do feel like Lawrence has improved his 3 point shot this year. He is much more willing to take them and seems to make his share. I do think he can keep improving. On paper though its tough to start talking too much about next year since it is hard to see how we will greatly improve from our play this year. I can't quite figure this team out. Not sure how the same team i watched play against memphis and Grambling (and UK and AL) was the same one that played that unbelievable second half against Ark.It might be a stretch but you could argue we were basically demoralized against UK by not having our 2 big men be able to play and Stack just sacrificed the game against Al to make a point he thought he had to make. A win against UT would buy a lot of goodwill for CJS and the morale of this team.

[Jason94]

I don't have the stats in front of me but i do feel like Lawrence has improved his 3 point shot this year. He is much more willing to take them and seems to make his share. I do think he can keep improving. On paper though its tough to start talking too much about next year since it is hard to see how we will greatly improve from our play this year. I can't quite figure this team out. Not sure how the same team i watched play against memphis and Grambling (and UK and AL) was the same one that played that unbelievable second half against Ark.It might be a stretch but you could argue we were basically demoralized against UK by not having our 2 big men be able to play and Stack just sacrificed the game against Al to make a point he thought he had to make. A win against UT would buy a lot of goodwill for CJS and the morale of this team.

He literally has improved his percentage from 20.4% to 26.9%. That is improvement but it isn't dramatic improvement in that he only took 49 3PA last season and the difference between last year's percentages and this year's is three makes at that attempt level. At the moment, he isn't a good three point shooter, certainly not one that the other team is too concerned about him taking those shots - he's basically been left wide open on most all of his attempts, because he is a very dangerous driver to the rim, and opponents will play off him because of these two factors.

If he could get to 35% then he would be pretty dangerous. I said before the season if he could shoot like Thomas he would be a very good player, but Thomas hasn't shot much better than Lawrence, so I would set the mark at 35%. 40% and he is all-sec.

[Obvious]

Lawrence nails the game winning three and finished 3-4 from behind the arc tonight.

[Versus75]

I guess because Tyrin was “not one the other team is too concerned about” and nobody in Orange followed him to the corner.