For such a struggling PG Joseph sure has a lot of assists.

[jordoo]

Joseph was over 5 assist per before today's game where he must have had 7 or 8. Mike, Trevor & Rakeem have established themselves as the core with Tyler, Chris & Kaleb being mostly complimentary to them when we have played our best ball. At some point Kaleb will really click and get it. If it happens this season and our freshman learn to play defense we will scare some good teams this season.

 

[tee1222]

Mike, Trevor & Rakeem have established themselves as the core with Tyler, Chris & Kaleb being mostly complimentary to them when we have played our best ball.

Everything right there. Great post. Pieces are coming together.

 

[tbonezone]

beautiful bounce pass between defenders to roberson (?) on the break.

 

[pearl31]

He played really well after that What pass to MG out of bounds - his cross court skip pass to MG for the 3 was a great pass

 

[jordoo]

He shows flashes of great and long stretches of What. I believe a lot of it is confidence in himself. On good plays you see it build on bad you see it diminish. Best thing he can do is have a short memory or "get to the next play" as Seth very accurately called it. If he is at SU for 4 years we will all remember him as one of our greats IMO.

 

[dasher]

He played really well after that What pass to MG out of bounds - his cross court skip pass to MG for the 3 was a great pass

too many bad turnovers. They cost games.

 

[MSOrange]

I normally try to come up with something optimistic about each player for each game. But I was really having trouble coming up with much positive about Kaleb today until that stretch in the second half when he showed his potential and really played well. Just going to take some time and there will be some ups and down.

One thing that concerned me is his shots. I was somewhat encouraged by his shooting stroke after he nailed a couple threes in the Michigan game. But I was concerned after watching today today. Looking at the replays, it looked like his shots were really off line. I'm no expert but from what I have read on here, if you are going to miss, long or short is better than being off line. But hopefully he gets in the Melo Center and practice, practice, practice.

 

[NineOneSeven]

The issue is the bad turnover that leads directly to points, forcing shots, and defense.

No doubt he can be a solid distributor in terms of dishing the ball.

 

[jordoo]

Both of our freshman biggest issues are on defense at this point. Yes Kaleb's turnovers that lead to points are his biggest issue but he is a freshman and that's fixable over time.

 

[Ghost]

He shows flashes of great and long stretches of What. I believe a lot of it is confidence in himself. On good plays you see it build on bad you see it diminish. Best thing he can do is have a short memory or "get to the next play" as Seth very accurately called it. If he is at SU for 4 years we will all remember him as one of our greats IMO.

I'm not sure I've seen a "flash of great" yet, but I'm hoping it comes along. Still seems like outside of the occasional short stretch of solid play he's committing a lot of unforced errors and struggling a bit.

It'll be interesting to see how he progresses once ACC play starts. With the other aspects of our offense starting to look better, hopefully Kaleb will feel less pressure and become more consistent.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

He's really not that far away from being a good player. Our fan expectations are so goofy. We're terrified of our young guys playing well and getting draft pub, but when they play like they're inexperienced we freak out about that too. We want them to be so good they don't make mistakes, but not so good that the NBA likes them. Funny stuff.

 

[jdubs30]

The assist numbers look because he's a playmaker...but he doesn't have that "PG look" to him yet. He has to get better at running the offense. He'll get there though

 

[jdubs30]

He's really not that far away from being a good player. Our fan expectations are so goofy. We're terrified of our young guys playing well and getting draft pub, but when they play like they're inexperienced we freak out about that too. We want them to be so good they don't make mistakes, but not so good that the NBA likes them. Funny stuff.

We need something to complain about

 

[OttoinGrotto]

We need something to complain about

That's what I figure football is there for.

Hey-o!

 

[RF2044]

Joseph has very good court vision and is a willing distributor. For a guy who came in labeled a scoring point, setting up his teammates has not been his problem.

Where he's had trouble is in initiating the team's half court offensive sets. And with Gbinije now starting and he and Cooney taking some pressure off from a ball handling standpoint, that's taken one thing off of Kaleb's plate for him to worry about, and he can just play. Both good developments for this team.

 

[jordoo]

I'm not sure I've seen a "flash of great" yet, but I'm hoping it comes along. Still seems like outside of the occasional short stretch of solid play he's committing a lot of unforced errors and struggling a bit.

It'll be interesting to see how he progresses once ACC play starts. With the other aspects of our offense starting to look better, hopefully Kaleb will feel less pressure and become more consistent.

This is really unfair and IMO putting the blinders on. He had a great skip pass to MikeG (our hot shooter) and then needle threading bounce pass to Tyler on the break followed by his own 360 layin shortly after. He had 10 assists against the best team we played (on the road) and a sensational 4minute stretch 2/3rds into the second half in that game. A team that is known and heralded for its excellent guard play.

Aside from what we see looking just at the numbers he's at 5.5 assists per game the same as Tyler last year. Yes likely has more turnovers already than Tyler did all season and struggles on D but he has shown the potential to have a good offensive game and certainly has the ability to set up other guys. IF Kaleb played 4 years 33 games per at 5.5 he would be 2nd all time at SU and tied for 4th with Tyler on a per game rate. Its simply false to say he doesn't show the potential to be an excellent PG when all the indications point to him only needing to learn the game and reduce his turnovers which happens with all PG's with experience.

An interesting note looking at the list: Jonny Flynn was a great college PG! He's 3rd all time in per at 6.01 (behind the usual suspects) and he is 8th all time with 439 in just 73 games.

Edit: And MCW was 6th in per which was stunted due to his limited PT as a frosh. Sherm is of course first but again his almost 7 per like MCW was deflated due to playing sparingly behind Pearl as a freshman.

 

[Halfmooncuse]

How would he be rated today vis a vis current ACC points?

 

[jordoo]

How would he be rated today vis a vis current ACC points?

Whom? Joseph? Scoring? He is second in the ACC in assists.

 

[Halfmooncuse]

yup and 34th in nation

 

[Orangezoo]

Honestly i think the issue here is joseph is still learning when he needs to be a scorer vs when he needs to run the team. His best stretches of play have been when he has been able to focus as being one or the other. So in many ways he really is just a frosh mentally regarding when he should make a certain strategic decision on the court.

If you look at how poor some of UK's pgs have looked since cal took over you would see many of the same things. The difference was the wings filled in the gaps via being aggressive with their shots and and in just trying to make plays. Coupled with a big man to feed downlow. I would be surprised to see joseph not starting to really peak in feb and march. We are a much better team than we were just a couple months ago with the emergence of mike g and cooney.

On that note as well i think cmacs struggles are really more about the fact he is a great athlete with a nice jumper than an elite prospect at this point. Having him be a complementary player is far better than being a feature on offense on this team. We have made a lot of progress and despite our struggles we might just do ok in the acc.

 

[RF2044]

Honestly i think the issue here is joseph is still learning when he needs to be a scorer vs when he needs to run the team. His best stretches of play have been when he has been able to focus as being one or the other. So in many ways he really is just a frosh mentally regarding when he should make a certain strategic decision on the court.

If you look at how poor some of UK's pgs have looked since cal took over you would see many of the same things. The difference was the wings filled in the gaps via being aggressive with their shots and and in just trying to make plays. Coupled with a big man to feed downlow. I would be surprised to see joseph not starting to really peak in feb and march. We are a much better team than we were just a couple months ago with the emergence of mike g and cooney.

On that note as well i think cmacs struggles are really more about the fact he is a great athlete with a nice jumper than an elite prospect at this point. Having him be a complementary player is far better than being a feature on offense on this team. We have made a lot of progress and despite our struggles we might just do ok in the acc.

Agreed. And JB making the adjustment to have Gbinije / Cooney handle the ball a LOT more has enabled Joseph to play more off the ball and figure things out. Nice wrinkle from our coaching staff.

 

[br801]

Joseph was over 5 assist per before today's game where he must have had 7 or 8. Mike, Trevor & Rakeem have established themselves as the core with Tyler, Chris & Kaleb being mostly complimentary to them when we have played our best ball. At some point Kaleb will really click and get it. If it happens this season and our freshman learn to play defense we will scare some good teams this season.

It always bodes well when your crappy freshman point guard who is learning on the job is racking up assists at a high rate.

 

[jordoo]

It always bodes well when your crappy freshman point guard who is learning on the job is racking up assists at a high rate.

That was my point in starting the thread but then I got side tracked into MikeG emergence.

 

[br801]

That was my point in starting the thread but then I got side tracked into MikeG emergence.

Oh, I know. I've seen enough of Joseph to know what he can be once he becomes a reliable and consistent defender. JB is hard at work figuring out a way to Boeheim him if he comes along too quickly.

 

[Orangezoo]

Just to pile on... as fans we have watched JB put together a team that could handle the rigors of the big east and be a national contender. League play success is critical. We did lose some key pieces but now you can start to see a team molded more into the form of a team you would see in the acc. The ability to throw it inside, pushing the pace and gambling a bit more on both sides. In addition the level of physicality is down. All these things are more common in the ACC than the old big east. It bodes well for our future as we are playing to better compete against the type of squads in the acc. We will need good offense. The zone is not enough vs the quality of coaching and bball iq in the acc. Its hard to watch the struggles and the transition but i think the final product this year coupled with what we are bringing in next year will be a real positive when you see how much better we look in league play. Last year throw out the record and look at the eye test and we easily could have been staring at 11-7 in the league. It wasnt pretty and despite the low scoring numbers teams moved the ball with ease vs the zone while we were anemic on offense just clutch enough to keep winning.