The Upside and the Downside of Trevor Cooney

[br801]

I think many people are disappointed with Cooney's career because, while unrealistic, we expected him to be Grayson Allen before we knew who Grayson Allen was.

Wouldn't this require a time machine?

 

[manleyzoo]

Allen was a 5 star ranked 21st in his class and 6th by position. Cooney was a 4 star ranked 65th in his class and 17th by position. Allen is the type of player Duke and UK recruit. I don't feel it's fair to compare the two but sometimes incoming recruits at SU tend to be over hyped.

Four stars, 65th in the class and 17th by position is a pretty high ranking. That doesn't sound like SU hype to me for fans to have higher expectations of him.

 

[Ghost]

Except I don't remember people saying they couldn't wait for Rak to graduate or used words like sucks and POS or worse center in 30 years and many others. And there was no way no how the sheer number of threads or posts. The only 2 to even come close were Triche and Forth.

The Scoop threads were endless, and far, far, far worse than anything with Cooney. They would sit on the board without being removed. Some of the anti-Scoop people are the ones that think each Cooney thread is unnecessary - which is odd.

People were quite excited about Rak leaving after his Frosh and Sophomore years (we used to get those "inside info" rumor threads that he was going because he was a McD) - and joked about it with the whole, "where is he going," thing, and that we would be better off because of DC's arrival, etc...

I'm not sure if we're all referring to what I said (I know somebody else called him the worst at some point) - I said he's probably amongst the worst all-around player to ever start 40+ games for us. It's not his fault though - we haven't had much int he way of options at 2G over the years. If someone says that about Joseph though, nobody cares. It's not mean. Everyone tries to think of who is worse. You argue that for a bit, people move on. With TC it's taken VERY personally.

I will say, maybe the board is just better now about filtering out negative posts then during Scoop's tenure and I don't see the craziness. It sounds like the case from what you're saying. If people are saying that crap about TC, calling him a POS, etc...well, that really sucks. Kid's done nothing but give 100% his whole time in Orange, and done everything that was asked of him. And probably more - he probably turns the lights off at the Dome after games.

 

[rstone7727]

Read my first sentence again. Notice the word "unrealistic".

Noted Eastcoast but the gist of your post was comparing the two players no?

 

[Alsacs]

I have stayed out of this thread. I hope Cooney has a nice Senior Day but he is an average player who has been betrayed by his coaching staff. He is an ACC caliber player but he shouldn't be a 35 MPG player 3 years in a row.

The fact we haven't been able to recruit enough quality players to eat into his minutes. This thread shows the extremes of both sides of Cooney argument. I will say his slump in 2014 really hurt a season where we could have done serious damage.

The guy should get a nice ovation on his Senior Day but he isn't an alltimer for me.

 

[Ghost]

I think many people are disappointed with Cooney's career because, while unrealistic, we expected him to be Grayson Allen before we knew who Grayson Allen was. Cooney wasn't a McD AA, but he was highly recruited by many major programs:

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/67031/trevor-cooney

He was supposed to be a better shooter than Rautins, able to get to the rim like Devo, and be noticeably stronger and more athletic than both. We all saw his highlight films from AAU and high school of him driving down the lane and dunking with two hands, catching alley-oops on fast breaks, tip-slams, and swishing from 27 feet out. This is what Grayson Allen does right now for Duke.

A lot of us are disappointed because Grayson Allen was better as a freshman than Cooney is as a 5th year senior.

I'm not sure anyone thought we were getting Devo like driving ability out of TC. That's pretty high expectations - at least when it comes to finishing. Devo could finish with the left and right hand like nobody's business. He was unusually adept with his left - even as a Frosh his left hand was crazy.

I think the expectations were more that he would be a great shooter. Someone that could come off curls like Andy, and be more consistent over time as a spot-up guy. The roster did him no favors at time though, and he's been forced into a larger role. I think the surprise was that there was no secondary skill set that developed. People have mentioned Rautins a few times, but if you took the shot away from Rautins, he was a great passer, good vision, by his fourth year was good off the bounce. We never saw a similar development with TC. I'm still not sure if you overplay him how he can hurt you. He just runs in circles drawing his defender around with him - but we can't exploit that overplay. Most guards we have had have found other ways to contribute offensively.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Which club did I put him in? I've never even mentioned another play so you must have me confused with someone else.

No, but you have said he's one of your favorites of all time in another thread, so that kind of gives away your bias, and the reason you so vehemently defend the kid.

 

[EastCoast2]

Noted Eastcoast but the gist of your post was comparing the two players no?

That was a secondary point, with the main point being, Cooney was supposed to be a better player for us than he has been these past 4 seasons.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

I'm not sure anyone thought we were getting Devo like driving ability out of TC. That's pretty high expectations - at least when it comes to finishing. Devo could finish with the left and right hand like nobody's business. He was unusually adept with his left - even as a Frosh his left hand was crazy.

I think the expectations were more that he would be a great shooter. Someone that could come off curls like Andy, and be more consistent over time as a spot-up guy. The roster did him no favors at time though, and he's been forced into a larger role. I think the surprise was that there was no secondary skill set that developed. People have mentioned Rautins a few times, but if you took the shot away from Rautins, he was a great passer, good vision, by his fourth year was good off the bounce. We never saw a similar development with TC. I'm still not sure if you overplay him how he can hurt you. He just runs in circles drawing his defender around with him - but we can't exploit that overplay. Most guards we have had have found other ways to contribute offensively.

I think the offense has betrayed him as well. Or maybe it's just the way he played it. His curls put him into bad positions where he had no chance to get his feet set. It took him a long time to slow that part down. It also never put him into a position to do anything else with the ball besides return it to the guard who passed it to him. This hasn't really changed, and that's very frustrating.

 

[orange2win]

I'm not sure anyone thought we were getting Devo like driving ability out of TC. That's pretty high expectations - at least when it comes to finishing. Devo could finish with the left and right hand like nobody's business. He was unusually adept with his left - even as a Frosh his left hand was crazy.

I think the expectations were more that he would be a great shooter. Someone that could come off curls like Andy, and be more consistent over time as a spot-up guy. The roster did him no favors at time though, and he's been forced into a larger role. I think the surprise was that there was no secondary skill set that developed. People have mentioned Rautins a few times, but if you took the shot away from Rautins, he was a great passer, good vision, by his fourth year was good off the bounce. We never saw a similar development with TC. I'm still not sure if you overplay him how he can hurt you. He just runs in circles drawing his defender around with him - but we can't exploit that overplay. Most guards we have had have found other ways to contribute offensively.

Andy came in rated a 1 Star prospect by one service and a 0 Star by the other. He finished by being taken by the NY Knicks. Yes I know ... but an incredible achievement.

I think what has hurt Trevor's status here is that his numbers have not improved between his So. and Sr. years. In fact as I noted earlier, they have actually gone down this year. I think his numbers would have been better had JB given him regular rest periods. I don't agree there were no other options. Not Andy's fault.

He's a super kid. Has been a credit to the school and has given us his best. He deserves our very best send-off. Not all recruits evolve into NBA talent.

 

[rrlbees]

No, but you have said he's one of your favorites of all time in another thread, so that kind of gives away your bias, and the reason you so vehemently defend the kid.

No I didn't say that. I said Pearl was my favorite of all time. And if I had listed more than just Pearl it would have included Smith, Kohls, Duval, Sherm, DC, Wallace, Melo, Gmac, Triche.

 

[patcuse]

No, but you have said he's one of your favorites of all time in another thread, so that kind of gives away your bias, and the reason you so vehemently defend the kid.

Why would he not defend a player on a team he loves. I feel the exact same way. How you guys call yourself a fan is beyond me.

 

[SWC75]

Thanks for compiling this. Of course, this assumes that your Net Points metric is the "be all, end all" metric for evaluating and ranking players. I would suggest it is not, as it likely doesn't adequately account for defensive performance. You are also comparing players across different eras on this metric, and since the game has evolved in terms of how it is played over the years, I'd also view these comparisons with a grain of salt.

I make no such assumption about "net points". It's just a way of looking at it and it's just a summary of the numbers in the box score. But the most statistically productive players are usually also those who contribute the most outside of the numbers and the right names seem to appear at the top. So I assume the right names are at the bottom, too.

 

[maxxyz]

I know people say that they aren't singling out Cooney, but what other player has had their own 'upside & downside' thread?

Even if started with good intentions there was no way this was going to be anything other than a bloodbath.

 

[Ghost]

It's not an unusual type thread for SWC at all. He does these, "I heard this debate on the radio..." type posts all the time.

 

[OttoMets]

Except I don't remember people saying they couldn't wait for Rak to graduate or used words like sucks and POS or worse center in 30 years and many others. And there was no way no how the sheer number of threads or posts. The only 2 to even come close were Triche and Forth.

What about Scoop? Those threads were huge in number, filled with vitriol, and totally off-base.

 

[NineOneSeven]

People probably think I am one of the anti-Cooney members here, but outside of this forum, I am actually a defender of him relative to what some of my friends/others say about him.

 

[OttoMets]

But Coach Boeheim has had quotes! So have a few other coaches!

Nice post. I think statistically speaking, it's pretty clear who the lower echelon players on the list are. And that jives with what I would expect from the eye test, too.

Except for Z...my eye test would have him closer to the top. Won't argue with the numbers, though. Nice work by SWC.

 

[Cusefan0307]

I did this awhile ago, not sure if I posted it. Among starters this century, you'd have him above Wright, Joseph, and Thues, no one else


What about Scoop? Those threads were huge in number, filled with vitriol, and totally off-base.

You thought Louie McCroskey was good?

 

[OttoMets]

... Not all recruits evolve into NBA talent.

Good point.

 

[OttoMets]

You thought Louie McCroskey was good?

Oops, started that post yesterday, then stopped and meant to delete it because I didn't want to contribute to the "who's worse than whom" game. Guess it bled through and stuck to the other post this morning.

(And to answer the question, I kind of forgot that Louie started for us.)

 

[tbonezone]

well when gauging any of our guards you also have to take into account minutes played. several of these guys barely saw the court until their senior campaigns. guys like Laz and thues, griffin and mccroskey rarely ever saw the floor before being thrust into service. others like hart and gerry and flynn (and even cooney) probably played too much to the point to where it actually wore them down by seasons end.
just one of the reasons i'm such a strong advocate for developing the bench rather than just riding the stars.

 

[Alsacs]

Jim Boeheim's rotation and recruiting guards since 2013 has hurt Trevor Cooney more than anything. Cooney should not have been a 3 year starter with these high MPG.


It is that simple. I defended the crap out of him 4 years ago in 2013 by saying he would only get better and by his Senior year would be huge. I was wrong he was a finished product his Sophomore year. That is the biggest problem for the kid. I won't lie the slump in 2014 when we had a shot for MSG and a NC really hurt his career. That slump really hurt the team on offense and JB did not give Gbinije enough minutes to fill those minutes. Cooney kept playing when he was in a deep slump.

This year he has matured and is not taking as many shots. With that said our "2 guard" should be contributing more. Malachi Richardson is a better a "2 guard" option but we have our Small Forward playing point guard because Joseph has regressed and Howard can't score.
I would love to see this lineup a little more 3 MPG
PG-Howard
SG/SF- Gbinije/Richardson
PF- Roberson
C-Lydon/Coleman
but JB plays Cooney 35-37 MPG and it makes no sense. He is fine defender but not elite and his side is attacked more than the other guards up top.

He has been a role player who has played the minutes of a Superstar. Sorry it is just that simple. He scored over 1000 points for his career so his career was an undisputed decent career.

 

[MikeSU02]

TC needed to play 1) with a real PG that could push tempo and 2) at least one other real 3 pt threat on the floor at all times.

Instead, we ran him around like he was Ray Allen and expected him to hit threes off of curls instead of catch and shoots.

Honestly, I think he could have scored more points if he had a team structure that allowed him to play 32 minutes per game, but got him better looks.

His usage rate is way to high for the things asked of him.

With all of that said, kudos to the kid. Works hard. Has been an upstanding student. Brought us some great memories. I really, really hope he gets one more shot in the tourney.

Whether he goes and plays pro ball, coaches or does something else, I hope nothing but success for him and many warm ovations when he returns to Cuse after his time here is complete.

 

[CorduroyG]

All it takes is for him to get hot for a couple weeks in march and he can completely change how he'll be remembered.