MarcAg said:
Ill eat some crow here, I figured he would give us nothing this year. I think he has gained a ton of confidence and curious to see what he looks like after an offseason with his new gained confidence.
He's a testament to the fact that pretty much every single guy on every single Division I team has the potential to ball out given the right circumstances. None of these guys got DI offers unless they were alphas on their high school teams and that game is hidden inside all of them somewhere. For a lot of players it just takes a bit of time to adjust to the physicality and length of the college game. This is especially true at the P4 level. I played a lot of ball at the Rec center when I was a student (03-08) and I will always remember the games we played against the team in the rec center over the summer. I was a good rec ball player, but against the length and strength of Martellus, Bryan Davis, Roland, I became essentially useless on the court. Everyone thinks they are a good 3PT shooter until you have a 6'7'' guy close out on your shot from the paint and stuff it. It's just a different world against high level athletes. (for context I'm 6'3'' so in rec ball world that means I'm tall, against college level athletes I'm tiny)
With Zach, it's likely that he just easily dominated his competition in HS as a highly skilled 6'11'' kid, and it's taken time to get used to the fact that what played in HS doesn't work here. We can see him slowly figuring it out though and gaining confidence in a new repertoire of moves that do work. He's even used his body to work inside with a bit more effectiveness recently. There was a stretch early in the season where he probably missed 10 straight layups because he was dodging contact.
The next stage of development for him has to be grabbing more rebounds and figuring out how to not pick up silly fouls.
As for NBA, no way unless he decides he wants to rebound and defend. The only path he has is as a 3&D stretch 4 and he has not shown that specific skillset yet.
