For those who are claiming that teams don't win national championships with 5'9" guards, and certainly with 5'9" guards who aren't deadeye shooters from 3, do any of you remember who won the last national championship before this year, and who that team's PG was? If you don't, it was Virginia, whose PG was 5'9" freshman Kihei Clark, a guy who shot 34.1% from 3 that season. Repeat after me: there is no one formula for winning college basketball championships. Baylor, Virginia Villanova, and UNC, the last four NCAA champions, were not at all similar in team make-up, ranging from Baylor's rotation of 4 guards, 3 wholly inside players (0 3s made for the year from any) and a stretch 4, to Villanova's every rotation guy except a back-up freshman big was a 3 pont shooter, to UNC's rotation where 2 guys on the team made even one 3 pointer per game on the entire season. Certainly, the starting PGs on those teams could not have been more diverse in size, athleticism, usage rates, and even shooting ability.
College basketball is NOT college football. In football, everyone has to stay 3 years and physically mature. In basketball, prototypical great players often either skip college altogether or form inexperienced "super teams" which have proven over the last six years to be very vulnerable to older, more mature and experienced teams. Put another way, everybody playing college basketball has flaws, either inexperience, size, athleticism, skill, etc., We'd like our PG to have Jaden Bradley's size, Seth Trimble's athleticism, Dug McDaniel's quickness, and Derrick Walton's shooting ability, but guess what--that guy isn't going to play college hoops for more than a year if he's going to play at all. And if he does go to college, he's going to struggle sometimes against quality, older opponents, as even a truly spectacular player like Jalen Suggs did in the championship game until it didn't matter anymore.
Given that premise--everyone has flaws--I'm looking for a guy who has great strengths as well. Dug has those--he's lightening quick, a fantastic passer, a low center of gravity pest on the defensive end, a playmaker, and a guy with an extremely high basketball IQ. He's also incredibly experienced against very high level competition, both in his high school league and on the AAU circuit, which means you don't have to project how he'll do IF he grows or gets stronger--he's already been very good against great players at the size he is. Some have labelled Dug as a bad shooter, but his high school and grassroots stats don't bear that out, nor does his film. The most recent stats I've seen show him in the 36-42% range from 3, which is more than sufficient to prevent people from laying off of him and to allow him to use his quickness, and his film shows him taking, and making, all different types of 3s including catch and shoots, step-backs, and pull-ups. Sometimes, guys get a reputation based upon a bad stretch and it sticks. That's what I think is happening here.
To be sure, Dug is very small (the espn guy compared him to Tyus Edney from UCLA back in the 90s, and that fits very well in my mind), and there are going to be teams which may exploit that. However, as noted, no matter who you have in today's college hoops, there's going to be something to epotentially xploit because there are flaws in everyone. Further, IMO, the small PGs can't function against size mantra is often a matter of correlation, not causation. Case in point--Mike Smith and his performance against bigger PGs, such as those from LSU, in the tournament. If you're going to use that example (or even his game against OSU in the BTT) as "proof" that small PGs get manhandled by bigger guys, you have to consider other games as well...like, for example, his three games against Maryland's Darryl Morsell. While this board, and others, rightfully gave the Big Ten coaches and writers grief for picking Morsell as defensive player of the year over Franz Wagner, I watched Morsell defend a lot of great players, including point guards, and throttle them. Guys as diverse as Marcus Carr, Duane Washington, Ayo Dosemnu and Andre Curbelo were extremely inefficient in games or stretches of games when guarded by Morsell. Smith torched Morsell, a guy easily 8 inches taller than he is, and more athletic to boot, not once, not twice, but three times, including an all-time performance in the BTT. So maybe, just maybe, the idea that size is a killer is a bit overdone.
Dug may or may not be the best PG on our roster--Frankie Collins is going to have something to say about that--but if he turns out to be, I wouldn't despair and lower ceiling expectations just because he's small, and doesn't fit into the box of what everyone traditionally sees as a Big Ten PG. He's going to be good. I'm pretty pumped about this.
To try to provide balance, I asked my law school roommate, a guy who spent two years trying to convince me and everyone else he talked to that Tyler Ulis was going to be an All-Conference high major player before everyone finally figured out that he was right, to look at Dug's film. Mike (my friend) is an Illinois fan (went there for undergrad before we met at Northwestern for law school), so he has no stake in pumping up Dug, or in comparing him to the other targets on our list like Trimble and Bradley. His report--"Yogi Ferrell from high school is a really good comp. He's got an attitude on defense that says I want the other team's best guy when it counts and I'll harass him and shut him down--I love that. Good form and elevation on his shot. Great passer. Very good quickness. What's not to like?"
Welcome aboard, Dug.
College basketball is NOT college football. In football, everyone has to stay 3 years and physically mature. In basketball, prototypical great players often either skip college altogether or form inexperienced "super teams" which have proven over the last six years to be very vulnerable to older, more mature and experienced teams. Put another way, everybody playing college basketball has flaws, either inexperience, size, athleticism, skill, etc., We'd like our PG to have Jaden Bradley's size, Seth Trimble's athleticism, Dug McDaniel's quickness, and Derrick Walton's shooting ability, but guess what--that guy isn't going to play college hoops for more than a year if he's going to play at all. And if he does go to college, he's going to struggle sometimes against quality, older opponents, as even a truly spectacular player like Jalen Suggs did in the championship game until it didn't matter anymore.
Given that premise--everyone has flaws--I'm looking for a guy who has great strengths as well. Dug has those--he's lightening quick, a fantastic passer, a low center of gravity pest on the defensive end, a playmaker, and a guy with an extremely high basketball IQ. He's also incredibly experienced against very high level competition, both in his high school league and on the AAU circuit, which means you don't have to project how he'll do IF he grows or gets stronger--he's already been very good against great players at the size he is. Some have labelled Dug as a bad shooter, but his high school and grassroots stats don't bear that out, nor does his film. The most recent stats I've seen show him in the 36-42% range from 3, which is more than sufficient to prevent people from laying off of him and to allow him to use his quickness, and his film shows him taking, and making, all different types of 3s including catch and shoots, step-backs, and pull-ups. Sometimes, guys get a reputation based upon a bad stretch and it sticks. That's what I think is happening here.
To be sure, Dug is very small (the espn guy compared him to Tyus Edney from UCLA back in the 90s, and that fits very well in my mind), and there are going to be teams which may exploit that. However, as noted, no matter who you have in today's college hoops, there's going to be something to epotentially xploit because there are flaws in everyone. Further, IMO, the small PGs can't function against size mantra is often a matter of correlation, not causation. Case in point--Mike Smith and his performance against bigger PGs, such as those from LSU, in the tournament. If you're going to use that example (or even his game against OSU in the BTT) as "proof" that small PGs get manhandled by bigger guys, you have to consider other games as well...like, for example, his three games against Maryland's Darryl Morsell. While this board, and others, rightfully gave the Big Ten coaches and writers grief for picking Morsell as defensive player of the year over Franz Wagner, I watched Morsell defend a lot of great players, including point guards, and throttle them. Guys as diverse as Marcus Carr, Duane Washington, Ayo Dosemnu and Andre Curbelo were extremely inefficient in games or stretches of games when guarded by Morsell. Smith torched Morsell, a guy easily 8 inches taller than he is, and more athletic to boot, not once, not twice, but three times, including an all-time performance in the BTT. So maybe, just maybe, the idea that size is a killer is a bit overdone.
Dug may or may not be the best PG on our roster--Frankie Collins is going to have something to say about that--but if he turns out to be, I wouldn't despair and lower ceiling expectations just because he's small, and doesn't fit into the box of what everyone traditionally sees as a Big Ten PG. He's going to be good. I'm pretty pumped about this.
To try to provide balance, I asked my law school roommate, a guy who spent two years trying to convince me and everyone else he talked to that Tyler Ulis was going to be an All-Conference high major player before everyone finally figured out that he was right, to look at Dug's film. Mike (my friend) is an Illinois fan (went there for undergrad before we met at Northwestern for law school), so he has no stake in pumping up Dug, or in comparing him to the other targets on our list like Trimble and Bradley. His report--"Yogi Ferrell from high school is a really good comp. He's got an attitude on defense that says I want the other team's best guy when it counts and I'll harass him and shut him down--I love that. Good form and elevation on his shot. Great passer. Very good quickness. What's not to like?"
Welcome aboard, Dug.
