Reply To: Jesse Chuku

Forum Forum Lehigh Sports Lehigh Men’s Basketball Jesse Chuku Reply To: Jesse Chuku

#8950

LUHoops00
Participant

Going to draw some ridiculous comparisons and parallels here, so you can choose to just toss them away if you like, but figure worth connecting these dots for anyone that cares!

Obviously JC is sitting out and last time he was in a game situation was this summer at the Fiba Championships for Under 20, where he repped Great Britain. I think some of you will recall that the leading scorer on JC GB team was a kid who plays for Maine, named Ali Fraser. Fraser like JC stands 6’7 tall, and he is having another really good year for the Black Bears. Maine is 7-10 on the year, KenPom ranked 281, and are 2-2 in their American East conference play. Fraser averaged 12.9 ppg and 7.8 rpg last year, and he has upped that production this year, averaging 13.8 ppg and a pretty solid 8.8 rpg. Now, the reason I mention this isn’t for the ppg reference, because Ali lead Great Britain team this summer in scoring, way outproducing JC in the points category. However, JC averaged 8.4 rpg in that tourney to Ali’s 7.9. So JC outrebounded his teammate who has been a stout rebounder at the D-I US Men’s Basketball level for the past two years. Looking at Ali’s game log this year, to put it into perspective with some LU “like” opponents, check this out: He put up 21 points and 15 boards in a loss to Holy Cross. Perhaps more impressive, and 65 will certainly appreciate this because we sat together at the Quinnipiac game and that front court was a monster, Ali went for 14 points and 11 boards in a win against Quinnipiac. Perhaps we can draw some conclusion, not sure how accurate or ridiculous it is, that JC should/could be an impact on the glass from day 1 next year. How is offense plays out, still TBD in my opinion.

Interestingly, Murphy Burnatowski, who is leading Colgate in scoring and second in rebounding, is a transfer from Maine who probably transferred because he saw Ali eating into his playing time and could see what Ali was going to be in the future. Burnatowski didn’t put up big numbers at Maine, but sitting out a year and working on his game has helped, cause he is way outproducing what he was when he was a Black Bear.

 

Anyway, just a ridiculous 7 degress of Bacon type analysis, but figured worthy of putting pen to paper.