Game changers 🌟@TheAndyKatz ranks the top 16 guards in the nation ✍️ pic.twitter.com/DcW46I1ppx
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Andy Katz Top 16 Guards
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Last: 3 mo ago by AggByMarriage
Good pub for Wade. I expect a great season from him.
There aren't going to be seven guards better than Wade Taylor this season.
Not overalll, but good chance Sears outplays him when we play.bobinator said:
There aren't going to be seven guards better than Wade Taylor this season.
bobinator said:
There aren't going to be seven guards better than Wade Taylor this season.
Yep. Nailed it. By the end of the season, Wade will move up this list.
Well yeah, Alabama is going to be loaded and I think their style of play is a problem for us.
Wait? Isn't Zakai Ziegler like 40 at this point?!
40 inches tall...CapCityAg89 said:
Wait? Isn't Zakai Ziegler like 40 at this point?!
The Marksman said:40 inches tall...CapCityAg89 said:
Wait? Isn't Zakai Ziegler like 40 at this point?!
Ok… laughed out loud at that.
Method Man said:Not overalll, but good chance Sears outplays him when we play.bobinator said:
There aren't going to be seven guards better than Wade Taylor this season.
Sears is so good. Wish he had gone pro.
Love it
So many of the guys on this list I feel like have been in college for forever
As much as NIL has made college sports feel more like minor leagues it does feel that most of these guys have been with their particular schools for several years. I think that's the positive to NIL that some guys are postponing entering the draft and causing CBB to have a higher level of player as a whole.
Yeah, I thought all along that the two sports that were going to really benefit from NIL were men's hoops and baseball.
Pretty sure Armando Bacot went from NIL directly to social security.bobinator said:
Yeah, I thought all along that the two sports that were going to really benefit from NIL were men's hoops and baseball.
94chem,
That, sir, was the greatest post in the history of TexAgs. I salute you. -- Dough
That, sir, was the greatest post in the history of TexAgs. I salute you. -- Dough
Caleb love seems like he has been around forever too.
Agreed, but I wouldn't expect Katz to rank him very high after the way he played for most of last year
I'm sure other people think Wade has been around forever
Murrell has been at Ole Miss I feel forever as well
2x first team all SEC
Yeah I'm not hating on Katz for having him as the 8th best guard in college basketball. At that level of player you're in "eye of the beholder" territory, but I'm not sure what you mean "after the way he played most of last year."nelsonagholor said:
Agreed, but I wouldn't expect Katz to rank him very high after the way he played for most of last year
Wade was extremely good last year. I just think the makeup of this roster compared to last year's is going to make him even better.
It's funny because due to some of the Covid players, actual four-year Freshman-to-senior-on-the-same-team guys don't feel quite as old as they used to. Zeigler and Taylor are four year players, but RJ Davis is a fifth year guy that's been at Carolina the whole time.MarcAg said:
I'm sure other people think Wade has been around forever
Coleman, Hefner and Garcia are all fifth year guys for us, though only Hefner has been here the whole time.
He was definitely good last year, he just didn't quite meet the expectations he had coming into the season, especially efficiency-wise (32% on threes isn't great). We've seen him play like the best guard in the nation at times but he wasn't super consistent last year, to take the next step I'd just like to see him be less streaky shooting and be smarter about getting good shots when he's not shooting well.
Anytime our guards can't count on teammates they fall into their worst weaknesses, you said?
Without pointing fingers, Buzz needs to figure all of this out.
Without pointing fingers, Buzz needs to figure all of this out.
He was preseason first team All-SEC and then actually made the post-season first team All-SEC. I'm not sure what people want from a guard on a team that didn't have any other shooters and no low post scoring threat. He's like a QB with bad receivers and no run game.
32% is a bit low, and he had a stretch where he really struggled, but considering the three shooters who had the most attempts behind him shot 28% (Radford), 29% (Hefner), and 25% (Carter) it's pretty good. For a lot of the season Taylor had to shoot some bad shots because even his bad shots were better than anyone else's good ones. Hopefully we're a little better at creating offense overall this season which should up his efficiency a bit.
The other thing that wasn't talked about enough that slowed Taylor at times last year is that nobody else on the team could pass the ball. At all. Taylor had an assist rate of 26.8% but the next best on the team was Boots at 17.8%, Obaseki snuck up to 11% with that late surge, but nobody else was even above 10%. Phelps only had an assist rate of 17% at SMU but I'd expect that to go up on a team where he's not the primary scorer.
Taylor's not a perfect player, he's not particularly athletic so he has to stretch the floor to get shots up which is going to lead to some streaky shooting. He's also just a flat out defensive liability at times, if we're going to talk about what's keeping him from being at the top of this list it's his defense, but he was still incredibly good last year.
But at this point Taylor is who he is, the difference between whether he has another great season or some kind of legendary season is going to be the pieces around him. If Obaseki can play close to the level he closed at, and then you add in Phelps, that's an overall upgrade in the backcourt and if Payne is any kind of threat to score in the post then I think we'll be in business on the offensive end.
32% is a bit low, and he had a stretch where he really struggled, but considering the three shooters who had the most attempts behind him shot 28% (Radford), 29% (Hefner), and 25% (Carter) it's pretty good. For a lot of the season Taylor had to shoot some bad shots because even his bad shots were better than anyone else's good ones. Hopefully we're a little better at creating offense overall this season which should up his efficiency a bit.
The other thing that wasn't talked about enough that slowed Taylor at times last year is that nobody else on the team could pass the ball. At all. Taylor had an assist rate of 26.8% but the next best on the team was Boots at 17.8%, Obaseki snuck up to 11% with that late surge, but nobody else was even above 10%. Phelps only had an assist rate of 17% at SMU but I'd expect that to go up on a team where he's not the primary scorer.
Taylor's not a perfect player, he's not particularly athletic so he has to stretch the floor to get shots up which is going to lead to some streaky shooting. He's also just a flat out defensive liability at times, if we're going to talk about what's keeping him from being at the top of this list it's his defense, but he was still incredibly good last year.
But at this point Taylor is who he is, the difference between whether he has another great season or some kind of legendary season is going to be the pieces around him. If Obaseki can play close to the level he closed at, and then you add in Phelps, that's an overall upgrade in the backcourt and if Payne is any kind of threat to score in the post then I think we'll be in business on the offensive end.
MarcAg said:
I'm sure other people think Wade has been around forever
As a senior on a D-1 team he has been. I hate the new normal of 1-and-done or 2 years max.
I don't think that's a "new normal," if anything it's starting to trend back the other way thanks to NIL. For like a 15 year stretch from when the one-and-done rule was put in in 2007 only one player returned to college after being the national player of the year (Hansbrough.) Now there's been a couple in a row (Tshiebwe, Edey.)AggByMarriage said:MarcAg said:
I'm sure other people think Wade has been around forever
As a senior on a D-1 team he has been. I hate the new normal of 1-and-done or 2 years max.
Look at last year's AP First team All-Americans, who were all seniors, compared to say 10-15 years ago:
2024: Edey (senior), Knecht (senior), Davis (senior but returning for a super senior season), Shead (senior), Newton (senior)
2008: Two freshmen (Love and Beasley), a sophomore (Augustin) and two juniors (Douglas-Roberts, Hansbrough)
2009: Three sophomores (Blair, Griffin, Harden), a junior (Curry) and a senior (Hansbrough)
2010: A freshman (Wall), two juniors (Johnson and Turner) and two seniors (Collins and Reynolds)
2011: outlier here where there were three seniors (Fredette, Johnson, Smith) a freshman (Sullinger) and a junior (Walker)
2012: A freshman (Davis), two sophomores (McDermott and Sullinger) a junior (Robinson) and a senior (Green)
We probably could have kept a player like Tyler Davis around for another year if he played these days.
bobinator said:I don't think that's a "new normal," if anything it's starting to trend back the other way thanks to NIL. For like a 15 year stretch from when the one-and-done rule was put in in 2007 only one player returned to college after being the national player of the year (Hansbrough.) Now there's been a couple in a row (Tshiebwe, Edey.)AggByMarriage said:MarcAg said:
I'm sure other people think Wade has been around forever
As a senior on a D-1 team he has been. I hate the new normal of 1-and-done or 2 years max.
Look at last year's AP First team All-Americans, who were all seniors, compared to say 10-15 years ago:
2024: Edey (senior), Knecht (senior), Davis (senior but returning for a super senior season), Shead (senior), Newton (senior)
2008: Two freshmen (Love and Beasley), a sophomore (Augustin) and two juniors (Douglas-Roberts, Hansbrough)
2009: Three sophomores (Blair, Griffin, Harden), a junior (Curry) and a senior (Hansbrough)
2010: A freshman (Wall), two juniors (Johnson and Turner) and two seniors (Collins and Reynolds)
2011: outlier here where there were three seniors (Fredette, Johnson, Smith) a freshman (Sullinger) and a junior (Walker)
2012: A freshman (Davis), two sophomores (McDermott and Sullinger) a junior (Robinson) and a senior (Green)
We probably could have kept a player like Tyler Davis around for another year if he played these days.
Interesting perspective and I'll have to think about it. It was a short time ago that basketball players were leaving prematurely for the draft. Some had a good tournament performance or others didn't have the academic chops to stay in or others were bowing to family pressure to cash out.
I think the players who can jump to the NBA will AND the players who _want to_, but probably SHOULD NOT will end up staying. Now instead of leaving college, not getting drafted, then going overseas, the new path is going to 3-4 different schools, getting some degree like a BS in Eligibility, then going overseas.
Maybe a more interesting metric for the future is roster turnover.
I don't know just guessing and speculating.
I am very happy that Wade is still here. Hope he has his best season.
Assuming the House v. NCAA settlement indeed rewards past players to 2016 and fairly distributes future revenue to football and basketball players (thereby gutting the Title IX distributions EXCEPT for basic funding not college-paid NIL for the colleges use of athletes for marketing purposes), you likely could see a shift back to longer tenures in college for the more workemen players while the more athletically gifted still go one and done or really work hard and go G league.
Assuming we know how all of this ends is might sporty imho.
Assuming we know how all of this ends is might sporty imho.
greg.w.h said:
Assuming the House v. NCAA settlement indeed rewards past players to 2016 and fairly distributes future revenue to football and basketball players (thereby gutting the Title IX distributions EXCEPT for basic funding not college-paid NIL for the colleges use of athletes for marketing purposes), you likely could see a shift back to longer tenures in college for the more workemen players while the more athletically gifted still go one and done or really work hard and go G league.
Assuming we know how all of this ends is might sporty imho.
Mostly agree, but do you see the G League lasting more than a few more years?
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