Forum › Forum › Lehigh Sports › Lehigh Men’s Basketball › Full articly on LU by Andy Katz with lots of interesting info › Reply To: Full articly on LU by Andy Katz with lots of interesting info
TMH – couldn’t agree more, getting Baylor and Pitt when we see them is going to be to our advantage, no question about that.
Couple responses bud to your comments and questions.
1.) On gabe gaining 15/20 lbs, would love to see that happen, but Gabe is wirey strong just not a big body, not sure he can add 15/20 in one offseason…I dont think he has added that in his 1st 3 years combined? Gabe is the man, love him, but we know he is a 4 playing the 5 because KM injury/retirement and inability to bring in 5’s to bethlehem.
2.) Regarding JC, you are certainly correct in that the videos did show a ton of JC on perimeter on offensive end of the floor. We saw him score points in the videos I posted in two different fashions – 3 point shots and fast break dunks/put backs/oops. Videos, by their nature, are highlights, so his 3 pt shot or slam dunk on a break or put back off missed shot will get on a 3 minute video recap more then a post-up basket. With that said, I do believe his offensive game can be similar to HG,in that you can use JC as the pop in the pick and pop. I also think he’ll be able to keep up with our guards on the break and get easy transition buckets above the rim, which is cool to think about. We don’t know much about whether he has post moves on offense, but that wasn’t or isn’t my real concern.
My ZC hope in JC is on the rebounding end of things ,in particular because there is the great need for another helping hand without JA and JM on the defensive boards. My point being we can’t tell based off videos that showed him on perimeter on offense that he can’t rebound. I faintly remember him averaging like 13/6 last year at Kimball Union Academy, not sure how that translates obviously. His body type is like ZC, strong athletic wirey and probably a 1/2 or 1 inch taller then ZC, so similar height. I think he’ll be a plus athlete in the PL from day one, like ZC was, and let’s not forget, he did an extra year at Kimball Union Academy due to the illness he contracted that prevented him from playing in his 1st year at KUA, so he is a legit 19 and a half years old upon arriving to bethlehem, not a late 17 yr old or early 18 year old, and he is strong. With that, I think he can hit the defensive boards and help out Gabe well down there.
Today, his GB U20 team beat Portugal in game one of round play in fiba euro u20 championships, and he played 22 minutes and went 5/10/3, so he hit the boards really hard and had some nice blocked shots. By comparison, his teammate Ali Frasier who with JC has been GB leading scorer in exhibition games, had 11 boards in 32 minutes. Ali is 6’7 power forward for UMaine, so another DI american college kid on the GB U20 team, and Ali had a great season last year as a sophomore at maine, averaging 13/8.
3.) Gabe obviously huge part of the team, but we know what we have there. We said it all preseason last year that the key/critical pieces of the 11-12 LU team were JA and JM, could they help out on the boards, and they did…they were huge for us down the stretch…this year, the critical component of 12-13 team is CB, JC, and JG. We have 5 guys on team over 6’6, and these are the 3 of them outside GK and HG. If two of the three can step up and be huge on boards, we’ll be in really good shape.