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Nwoko development

King of Allapattah said:
Good college teams/programs rarely rely on freshmen to be major contributors their first year unless they're 5-star prospects coming out of high school. It's a bit different with bad teams or lower tier programs. Unrealistic for anyone to think Nwoko (3/4 star recruit) would just waltz right in and start or play big minutes at an ACC school coming off of an Elite 8 and Final 4 run in back to back years. To answer your question, I hope it doesn't take him 3 years. I'm sure that's not the plan. Hopefully, we'll see more development as the season progresses. I don't think he's far off. Just a matter of putting it all together.
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Exactly the reason this staff should have gone all out last off season to get a good big... instead we were lackadaisical..
 
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L’s kryptonite of late seems to be developing bigs out of high school.

The last time we did it with any sort of success was Ebuka Izundu
 
Gables Canes said:
L’s kryptonite of late seems to be developing bigs out of high school.

The last time we did it with any sort of success was Ebuka Izundu
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Rodney miller developed. It wasn’t into a starting caliber player in the acc but it was still tremendous development for how bad he really was.

Nwoko has a chance to be as good if not better than both izundu and jekiri. If we continue to land guys like Nwoko we are finally entering big boy basketball from a roster construction standpoint.
 
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Allabouttheu95 said:
Rodney miller developed. It wasn’t into a starting caliber player in the acc but it was still tremendous development for how bad he really was.

Nwoko has a chance to be as good if not better than both izundu and jekiri. If we continue to land guys like Nwoko we are finally entering big boy basketball from a roster construction standpoint.
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At the height of his "development," he remained unplayable.
 
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hotshot said:
At the height of his "development," he remained unplayable.
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Yes he was but if you remember he had a very solid back to basket offensive game in half court setting. He was unplayable because he was no question about it the most unathletic player in the acc on scholarship
 
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Allabouttheu95 said:
Yes he was but if you remember he had a a very solid back to basket offensive game in a half court setting. He was unplayable because he was no question about it the most unathletic player in the acc on scholarship
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He did improve by his last season. Interesting thing was that he was a Queens kid, a 4 star Prep school recruit out of Oak Hill, the hoops factory in VA. We weren't the only ones fooled/mis-evaluating.
 
caneworld said:
Exactly the reason this staff should have gone all out last off season to get a good big... instead we were lackadaisical..
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I don't disagree with you. Ideally, it would've been great to get some more size on the team. However, good 7 footers don't grow on trees. Not defending their inability to find one. Just saying it's a lot harder than some may think.
 
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Ebuka was rough as a true fresh. I remember against Florida he had a rough few minutes and got pulled for good. I don't remember Tonye in 2013 how he fared. Nwoko has potential for sure, just has to gain confidence. We might need him this year if Omier gets into foul trouble.
 
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I mean Edey was like an 8 and 3 kid and played 10-15 minutes a game as a freshman. If by the end of the year we are getting 5/3 and 10 minutes to spell Omier I’d say that’s a positive first year.
 
Mklein13 said:
Ebuka was rough as a true fresh. I remember against Florida he had a rough few minutes and got pulled for good. I don't remember Tonye in 2013 how he fared. Nwoko has potential for sure, just has to gain confidence. We might need him this year if Omier gets into foul trouble.
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Tonye stunk as a Freshman, to his credit he worked and got better, significantly by year 4.
 
RBradleigh said:
Tonye stunk as a Freshman, to his credit he worked and got better, significantly by year 4.
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Tonye was an average big as a freshman, far from stinking. Glenn Batemon, that's a guy that stunk at Miami, dude never played and was completely unplayable, despite there being a surplus of minutes available. L didn't have Tonye do much, besides be tall, be physical and be willing to hustle. Tonye did all of that as a freshman, flashing legit potential. Once the upperclassmen moved on and he started getting minutes and gained some functional strength, he developed rapidly. People forget how big of a jump he took from his sophomore to junior year.
 
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Canedude08 said:
He could eat minutes, and considering that he couldn't even do that when he first arrived, that's a massive improvement. Rodney also was a solid intangibles guy, dude was a legit locker room presence.
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I wouldn't call it a "massive" improvement. He basically finally reached what might several years before have been considered his "floor."

I give you that Rodney improved in his last season and gave us some good things we hadn't seen previously. I wonder how much the staff really worked with Rodney on his post game. There are things like "big man camps" and coaches (the legendary Pete Newell used to be one) who specialize in big man development. He was a 4 star recruit out of hoops factory Oak Hill after all so more schools than UM liked him.
 
Canedude08 said:
Tonye was an average big as a freshman, far from stinking. Glenn Batemon, that's a guy that stunk at Miami, dude never played and was completely unplayable, despite there being a surplus of minutes available. L didn't have Tonye do much, besides be tall, be physical and be willing to hustle. Tonye did all of that as a freshman, flashing legit potential. Once the upperclassmen moved on and he started getting minutes and gained some functional strength, he developed rapidly. People forget how big of a jump he took from his sophomore to junior year.
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30,000ft level
Fr - more or less what U said but I still say stunk as a basketball player (think F Wooga)
So - Serviceable
Jr - Above average to Good
Sr - Very good

I made multiple comments last year that I’d love for Tonye (soccer player) to come back to Gables and work on footwork with Wooga.

Footwork can be improved but ball handling not so much.
 
Watching Nwoko in his time against North Florida was shockingly bad.

The guy has bad footwork, bad feet and terrible hands.

For a highly ranked recruit, he looks entirely out of place.

Don't know if all of that is fixable.
 
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gordonsolie said:
Watching Nwoko in his time against North Florida was shockingly bad.

The guy has bad footwork, bad feet and terrible hands.

For a highly ranked recruit, he looks entirely out of place.

Don't know if all of that is fixable.
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It's not. I was there. He's awful, and will be of no use at all in the postseason.

Neither will Casey.

We will be trying to win with a lineup of 6'5"- 6'7" guys. I hope it works. We made it far last year.
 
Nwoko looks like he's completely out of it. He has digressed over the last few weeks. Body language is bad. Has been bad for a few games now. Night and day from the player I saw on opening night. Had a pep to his step. A certain energy about him. Not anymore. For whatever reason seems like things took a turn for the worse after the Kentucky game. Don't know if he's in the doghouse or what, but he used to be one of the first guys off the bench and now he's one of the last. Would be nice if he could get things turned around. We're going to need his size the next few weeks.
 
King of Allapattah said:
Nwoko looks like he's completely out of it. He has digressed over the last few weeks. Body language is bad. Has been bad for a few games now. Night and day from the player I saw on opening night. Had a pep to his step. A certain energy about him. Not anymore. For whatever reason seems like things took a turn for the worse after the Kentucky game. Don't know if he's in the doghouse or what, but he used to be one of the first guys off the bench and now he's one of the last. Would be nice if he could get things turned around. We're going to need his size the next few weeks.
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I agree, with Norchad's foul trouble we need him to be able to at least give us a few minutes. Casey has done ok against the bad competition we have played against recently, but I really don't have much confidence in him long term. Looking beyond this year, I think it is obvious Coach L is going to have to hit the portal hard for a transfer C next year as we aren't going anywhere in a frontcout of Nwoko and Casey.
 
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