JR year Frank Howard vs Sr year Jason Hart | Syracusefan.com

JR year Frank Howard vs Sr year Jason Hart

Apples and oranges. That doesn't mean that their relative values are way different, but that I don't see a lot to compare between those two player in those two years.

Hart had better scorers around him. Seniors Etan Thomas and Ryan Blackwell, junior Damone Brown. So we were less reliant on Hart for scoring. Hart also had better passing guards around him, particularly Allen Griffin. Hart hit a TON of big shots for us that year (and, in fairness, Frank has hit a number of important shots for us this year). Hart was one of the best defenders we've ever had in the zone. Frank is probably better than average but I'm not sure if he's much better than that defensively.

Frank's had a good year, particularly if you consider his year last year. Hart was a key cog in a veteran, 4-seeded team. Frank's been an important player in a very young team that might or might not make the tournament. Both good players, but if I were to compare Frank to another guard's season, it would probably be Gene Waldron in 1982-83. Or maybe Red Autry in 1992-93.
 
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Autry was great his senior year. Put up 16 and 6 with two steals on 45/37/78. Better than what Howard or Hart put up.

Hart did play with better players, turned it over more while taking less shots.
 
Cusefan0307 said:
Autry was great his senior year. Put up 16 and 6 with two steals on 45/37/78. Better than what Howard or Hart put up.

Hart did play with better players, turned it over more while taking less shots.
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My bad, I meant junior-year Red Autry. 1992-93. I'll edit it.
 
Makes Gbinije’s development, outside of his freethrow shooting, all the more incredible.
 
JOC44 said:
Hart was a key cog in a veteran, 4-seeded team.
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And that 2000 team was so underseeded as a result of losing in the BET quarters (Hart had 8 turnovers) to a crappy Georgetown team. Win that game and we're probably a 3 seed at worst and can avoid playing MSU in the Sweet 16.
 
Capt. Tuttle said:
Yeah. If the point of the comparison was to try to prove Frank is a good player, I don't get it. Hart career is largely regarded as mediocre in the history of SU PGs.
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My point was he is as good or better than Hart already at any point Hart was on the hill and Hart was the PG on top 25 teams.
 
Eric15 said:
And that 2000 team was so underseeded as a result of losing in the BET quarters (Hart had 8 turnovers) to a crappy Georgetown team. Win that game and we're probably a 3 seed at worst and can avoid playing MSU in the Sweet 16.
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24-5(13-3) Big East regular season champs, beat a final four Wisconsin team by 20, UCLA, and won at South Carolina in non-conference play...4 seed. Lol. Meanwhile Maryland was the 3 seed in our bracket with a 24-9 record. St. John’s got a 2 with 7 losses just because they won the BET.

Other fans complained in 2003 that we got to play in Albany...I’d say we deserved it because we were underseeded as a 3 that year too.
 
We were underseeded because that’s when the committee was stupid and overweighted your record the last ten games. That hurt us as we went 5-5.
 
Cusefan0307 said:
My point was he is as good or better than Hart already at any point Hart was on the hill and Hart was the PG on top 25 teams.
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I don’t think he is. Somebody has to put up numbers on every team. This team only has 3 guys.

Hart was a much better defender and was way faster(which opened up what the team as a whole could do).

Early career Hart that had to play 40 every game and that missed layups all the time and was much more questionable in his decision making...he took a lot of the same heat as Howard. Probably worse actually.
 
I don’t quite remember how Hart turned the ball over. My memory is more of him playing too fast and throwing the ball away. I didn’t really worry about him and his handle and pushing off. Frank maybe the better shooter. Hart had good speed and was a terrific defender. Two completely different players and stats naturally don’t tell the whole tale. I sort of like the comparison to Red’s junior year.
 
OrangeDW said:
I don’t think he is. Somebody has to put up numbers on every team. This team only has 3 guys.

Hart was a much better defender and was way faster(which opened up what the team as a whole could do).

Early career Hart that had to play 40 every game and that missed layups all the time and was much more questionable in his decision making...he took a lot of the same heat as Howard. Probably worse actually.
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Faster maybe. Shooting and turnover wise they were about the same and Hart played with more talent. I wonder how Hart would have been on this team.
 
Cusefan0307 said:
We were underseeded because that’s when the committee was stupid and overweighted your record the last ten games. That hurt us as we went 5-5.
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Yup. Even if we just got the 3 in that bracket instead of Maryland, we avoid Mich. State for another round and make at least the elite 8. If we get that 2 that they gave St. Johns(we were better than them that year), we’re final 4 bound. 8 seed Wisconsin that we beat by 20 came out of that bracket.
 
Cusefan0307 said:
Faster maybe. Shooting and turnover wise they were about the same and Hart played with more talent. I wonder how Hart would have been on this team.
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That’s a good question. I think Hart would’ve been able to get into the paint easier and cause problems. There still have been many games where Frank has been relegated to moving east-west. It would be a struggle though at times for sure.
 
Cusefan0307 said:
Faster maybe. Shooting and turnover wise they were about the same and Hart played with more talent. I wonder how Hart would have been on this team.
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Faster creates easier baskets, which he may not always get any kind of statistical credit for.

And likewise, stats can’t really tell the story of how much better of a defender he was.

I don’t think Hart was any better as an offensive PG in the half court. I do think his defense and the dynamic speed he brought would get us some more easy baskets and make us a better team with an added dimension.
 
OrangeDW said:
Faster creates easier baskets, which he may not always get any kind of statistical credit for.

And likewise, stats can’t really tell the story of how much better of a defender he was.

I don’t think Hart was any better as an offensive PG in the half court. I do think his defense and the dynamic speed he brought would get us some more easy baskets and make us a better team with an added dimension.
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I know stats don’t tell the entire story, but his usage was considerably lower than Howard and he turned the ball over just as much.
 
Cusefan0307 said:
I know stats don’t tell the entire story, but his usage was considerably lower than Howard and he turned the ball over just as much.
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Fair point. I agree with OrangeDW, though, that Hart probably wasn't any better offensively than Frank is now (though, as I noted above, Hart hit a ton of huge pull-up 16-footers his senior year). The big difference to me is on defense where the comparison is between a slightly-above-average defender and a great defender, and the offensive comparison is difficult to make because their respective roles in their offenses was so different.

As an aside, this is a good thread. Lots of intelligent discussion without anyone personalizing things.
 
Capt. Tuttle said:
Yeah. If the point of the comparison was to try to prove Frank is a good player, I don't get it. Hart career is largely regarded as mediocre in the history of SU PGs.
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Completely agree.

If given the choice, I'd clearly take Howard over Hart. The thing I remember most about Hart is that he would blow down the court as fast as he possibly could to only turn it over half the time.
 
Eric15 said:
And that 2000 team was so underseeded as a result of losing in the BET quarters (Hart had 8 turnovers) to a crappy Georgetown team. Win that game and we're probably a 3 seed at worst and can avoid playing MSU in the Sweet 16.
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I remember the MSU game so well. We built a very nice lead in the first half to the point where I thought we might very well pull the upset. Then Cleaves and the second half happened.

Oh yeah, and I was dry heaving the next morning. Had to call in sick. Just a terrible memory all around.
 
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I think it is difficult to compare stats and form an opinion on that basis alone. The 2000 team was far deeper than this one, and had better offensive balance -- so Hart didn't have to do as much that year, which is why his scoring went down, but he was more effective. That year, he also became much more of a clutch shooter than in previous years.

Ultimately, these are two very different players. I think the main similarity is that they are both about the same size, but in terms of games they diverge quite a bit.

Hart is one of my all-time favorite players from the 'Cuse, but I don't think it is going out on a limb to suggest that he wasn't a naturally instinctive playmaker / ball handler. What he was was an athletic thoroughbred who was a stud defender [a big part of why he stuck in the NBA], and a tremendously hard worker who got better throughout the course of his career to the point where he was an adequate lead guard and a decent scorer.

IMO, Frank is a better offensive player, has a better handle, and is a much more instinctive passer. Of course, he has some limitations [not the fleetest of foot, adequate but not above average defender, etc.] but ultimately these shortcomings are different than Hart's.
 
SoBeCuse said:
That’s a good question. I think Hart would’ve been able to get into the paint easier and cause problems. There still have been many games where Frank has been relegated to moving east-west. It would be a struggle though at times for sure.
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Hart was one of the worst finishers at the rim of any player in SU history. The guy would blow by his man and then throw a torpedo at the backboard. He was an astute passer in the halfcourt, but not so much off the dribble, so even though he got into the lane he didn't really create a lot of offense when he did. His huge turnover numbers were mostly due to speeding up and going to too fast then throwing a laser beam into the second row (I actually caught one of his passes when I was a grad student!), or speeding up and going too fast and running over a defender (charge). He did have a very nice SR year leading a team that was top 25 all season, hitting a ton of big shots, but that was a much more balanced team than this year's team. I hate to think of what he'd look like on a team with only 2 other scorers.

I will say that Hart was probably the best player I ever saw at SU during practices. This kid worked sooooo damn hard and was literally unguardable in practice. If he could have translated his play from practice to gametime, he would have been a 1st team All-American. Must have been really frustrating for Boeheim.
 
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