Buddy is a little more Janulis than he is Rautins
People might hate this but if there's a sliding scale with Janulis (good player but mostly a shooter) on one end and Rautins (all-BE guard who was a factor on both ends of the floor and a really good passer) on the other, Buddy skews a bit more toward Janulis.
His lateral quickness and foot speed are slow on the defensive end. He makes up for it to a degree with good anticipation and hustle, but he's still working to get to average on that end of the floor.
Offensively he has more to his game than Janulis -- more range, more handle, more ability to make a play going to the basket -- but he's not great at finding a teammate off the dribble, his passing is average and he's not quite the factor in usettled situations that Rautins was.
Again, want to make clear that I'm not hammering buddy. Janulis was a kid who started 114 games in his career, was one of the most consistent shooters we have ever had here and played in a national title game. AND, Buddy is better. But the Rautins comparisons ... just not sure I see that in his game.
Well, Buddy is ahead of Rautins at a similar stage - so far he's about a year ahead of Rautins' development, and is only a sophomore who might be playing a few minutes more than an ideal amount.
I just re-watched the Seattle game, mostly to get a closer look at the Joe Girard show, but I couldn't help but notice that Buddy was just not on his game at all. His defense, honestly, was terrible. He has to do better than that. Girard was a bit of a liability defensively at the top of the zone, too. Seriously, his guy scored about 4 possessions out of five at one point early in the 2nd half. Yes, they got hot shooting, but mostly it was over his head, his close out responsibility.
Now, Joe did a very good job running the offense and pushing things. He's still very raw and learning on the job, but if Carey doesn't go in the tank and transfer in December, I still think he could be an important part of this team for his defense at the top of the zone. He really does cut off driving lanes, has great lateral movement and long arms for a guard. He tips a lot of passes, and plays the bounce pass and those low passes well. Those can be hard to defend.
Buddy and Girard will work for 20-25 minutes a game in the ACC. We will need quicker defenders out there against teams like Louisville, UNC, Florida State, and similar teams who have guys who are strong on the drive.
But wow, Girard "gets" what it is to be a PG better than anybody but Howard Washington. Those 2 guys are our actual PGs. Goodine and Carey (who I hope apologizes for whatever he might have said to get the public benching) are athletic guys with good height for guards.
I kind of hoped that these guys would have been good enough to start for us, and then letter Buddy and Girard come off the bench and bomb away, like those bench guys from Notre Dame always seem to do to us. That was my hope, but Carey is just hurrying too much and is too unsure of his dribble.
Goodine is growing into a guard rotation role with his stop-and-go dribble moves and decent outside shot. Maybe he'll be good enough to earn some minutes at the point. I liked what I saw of Girard and Goodine together out there. They look like they have chemistry. Goodine would help offset Girard's relative lack of height, although you can't completely hide him out there in the zone. But with a quicker guard than Boeheim, that pair work better defensively. We're still going to need 5 minutes of Howard Washington if Carey doesn't make it back into the rotation. Washington and Boeheim might be a decent change of pace from Boeheim and Girard.
I agree right now with your premise that Buddy is closer to Janulis defensively than he is to Rautins at this time. He really has to work on his lateral quickness. He got so much stronger over the summer, how is it possible that he's a step slower? But that's how it looks so far. As they say in English soccer - "He doesn't look match fit yet."
