Last year when he was at LIL, I watched Kiyan's team play against IMG, which had Sadiq White, on ESPN. Was excited to see both recruits in the same game.
Both teams were loaded with D1 prospects, both nationally ranked HS programs.
Sadiq was the best player in the game. He kind of plays a no frills game, and just got the job done inside. Canned a wide open three, when they gave him space and dared him to shoot. Otherwise, it was all non-flashy inside stuff. He worked hard, fought, and did dirty work inside. So while it was clear that he had a lack of offensive versatility overall at that early stage of his developmental curve, you could see that he was a high-end athlete who battled inside despite being skinny, and was relentless. That's pretty much how his freshman year has unfolded, and he played about as I expected. Athlete, somewhat limited offense, but a hard worker with upside.
Kiyan in that game took a TON of shots. Missed most of them. Made some, and did some nice things, too. But my impression of him coming out of that game was that he was a good ball handler, but a high volume shot taker, and not an efficient scorer. Took too many deep threes, but he can make some. Streaky offensive player, but not an efficient one. That's what i expected him to be this year.
When the year began, and JJ got hurt the first game, Kiyan was forced to start several games early and I was surprised by how efficient he was. Shades of Moten to some degree. Now, in hindsight, the level of competition was why he looked so good, but he really tapered off after that hot start. It isn't all bad -- he has played a lot of minutes, and flashed intermittently. Most frosh have ups and downs -- games they play well, sandwiched between games where they don't do much. I still think that Kiyan's best ball is in front of him, but he has a LOT to work on -- notably, his physique and quickness. But he basically ended up being the high volume shot taker, relatively average athlete, and generally inefficient scorer that I saw during that HS matchup.
