Plenty of Talent Here

[721Comstock]

It’s hard to assess for me, both because of the competition in the various eras, and recency bias/my memories.

Seik went up against guys like Ewing. But he was also in the same era as guys like Derek Brower.…

I just remember Seikaly as not having great hands. And being surrounded by other NBA guys.

Probably would be a more appropriate question to ask in the scheme of an entire season, not one game…. And on what team. On this team, I’d want more offense. On a team with better scorers, I’d want someone like Fab to command the paint and do that oop/run the floor and slam impact thing. In a half court, plodding team, I’d want senior year Rak.

LOL, wut??

Listen, I’ve got nothing but love for Jesse, Rak, and Fab.

But, there’s 2 things that the vast majority of Orange fans will likely agree upon:

Etan was our best defensive C ever.

Rony was our best all-around C ever.

Etan averaged nearly FOUR swats/game, for 3 seasons.

Etan Thomas

Syracuse University basketball profile for Etan Thomas, player for the Orangemen. He played his freshman year at Syracuse as Derrick Thomas. NBA player for Washington, Oklahoma City and Atlanta.

orangehoops.org

Rony not only scored a ton and rebounded a ton (while sharing the court with DC AND Stevie!!), he went on to play for a decade in the Association.
During the Era of the Center: Shaq, Dream, Ewing, Admiral, Mourning , etc -
And more than held his own.

Rony Seikaly

 

[Fly Rodder]

That had to do more with the coach rather than Jimmy or Buddy. Q., Bras and Woody didn't play guard. And by the way, none did too much at their next school.

Which is its own problem. Talent evaluation has been pretty meh for the top-100 guys SU has signed the last few seasons. There have been a lot of complete misses (e.g., Carey, Goodine, Kaleb, Moyer, Kadary [if we're being honest with ourselves], Taurean, etc.) who left and haven't really showed anything since. These were high-end recruits. If you're only getting one ore two top-100 kids a season, you can't continually miss on them and hope that the unrated three-star blows up. Benny is on his way and I'm not seeing a lot from Bell here either.

 

[RF2044]

I'm not sure why you posted that in response to my post, but I'll bite. For perspective:

• Bacot averaged 16ppg / an eye popping 13 rpg, with 1 bpg, while shooting 50% from the floor.
• Jesse averaged 12ppg / 6.5 rpg, with 2.8 bpg, which shooting 63% from the floor.

He's not too far off in points / being on par with rebounds seems like it would be a huge stretch, but he exceeds Bacot with respects to blocks and field goal percentage. No argument that Bacot is highly productive, and his junior year rebounding stats are elite, but Jesse could certainly up his points and boards as a senior focal point this year. At minimum, he should be in the same ball park as a scorer and a more effective rebounder this year [although I don't envision he'd get to double figures].

Jesse would need to be a bit more productive to post Bacot like scoring numbers. He's poised to do so.

Interesting to revisit this 1/4 of the way through the season. I never suspected that Jesse would rebound the way he has, but the production makes this comparison even closer:

Jesse also doubles Bacot up on blocks per game [2.7 to 1.4], shoots a much higher FG%, and is better at the FT stripe.

Kudos to Jesse for substantially elevating his game -- especially on the glass. There is no separation between these two players anymore.

 

[br801]

LOL, wut??

Listen, I’ve got nothing but love for Jesse, Rak, and Fab.

But, there’s 2 things that the vast majority of Orange fans will likely agree upon:

Etan was our best defensive C ever.

Rony was our best all-around C ever.

Etan averaged nearly FOUR swats/game, for 3 seasons.

Etan Thomas

Syracuse University basketball profile for Etan Thomas, player for the Orangemen. He played his freshman year at Syracuse as Derrick Thomas. NBA player for Washington, Oklahoma City and Atlanta.

orangehoops.org

Rony not only scored a ton and rebounded a ton (while sharing the court with DC AND Stevie!!), he went on to play for a decade in the Association.
During the Era of the Center: Shaq, Dream, Ewing, Admiral, Mourning , etc -
And more than held his own.

Rony Seikaly

Bill Smith could really play (21 ppg and 13 rpg) but I was a little too young to recall much about him.

Rosie Bouie was a tremendous defender and shot blocker, and an efficient scorer who was consistently good for four years.

 

[shandeezy7]

I think Bacot is great. A monster on the glass. He also effectively has two years of experience on Jesse, despite being the same class year. He started 60 games his freshman and sophomore years and played over 1,400 minutes. Jesse started 0 games and played a total of 305 minutes his first two years. He finally came into his own last season and it feels like his confidence level this year will be through the roof.

I think 18 points, 9 boards and 3-4 blocks per game is a totally reasonable expectation if Jesse can stay healthy and out of foul trouble. That would absolutely put him in the conversation of best big in the ACC.

So I went a little crazy on the PPG (although I did revise it down to 15-16 ppg later in the thread), but 14.5 ppg, 10.3 rpg and 2.7 bpg is a pretty solid year for Mr. Edwards. If he could've played all year with the fire that he played with Saturday night, perhaps he could've hit all of the lofty goals I had for him.

 

[MDCuse]

So I went a little crazy on the PPG (although I did revise it down to 15-16 ppg later in the thread), but 14.5 ppg, 10.3 rpg and 2.7 bpg is a pretty solid year for Mr. Edwards. If he could've played all year with the fire that he played with Saturday night, perhaps he could've hit all of the lofty goals I had for him.

I had him at 15/8/2 in this thread and I thought that was pretty fair. He became a much better rebounder than I had anticipated.