Reusse: Washington attempting to catch up to Wright, Davison in sophomore season

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per Pat:

The Gophers cannot be criticized for making loud noise over the signing of point guard Isaiah Washington on the second day of the early signing period in November 2016. He was the player of the year in the state of New York, and also came with an internet full of highlights as the “Jelly’’ in the JellyFam (family) of dynamic shot-makers.

There were two notable senior point guards in the Twin Cities that winter: McKinley Wright at Champlin Park and Brad Davison at Maple Grove. Davison was locked in for Wisconsin and Wright signed with the Dayton Flyers.

Wright became Minnesota’s Mr. Basketball. When Archie Miller left Dayton for Indiana in April 2017, Wright was let out of his commitment and signed with Colorado.

Pitino said that Washington’s overall play definitely is trending upward. Obviously, the coaches also are trying to convince Washington of that, as he also said Tuesday that his play was going in the right direction.

Clearly, you have to be a coach with expertise in studying video to see this upward trend with Washington. The rest of us wonder how it has taken this long for the best player in the city – and the state – of New York to make an impact in the college game.

For now, the prize recruit from New York has been left behind by the Twin Cities point guards in the Class of 2017.

http://www.startribune.com/washingt...wright-davison-in-sophomore-season/502059412/

Go Gophers!!
 

Washington played much more under control. Made a couple lay-ups, moved the ball, didnt force. Big improvement.
 

Not a fan of crapping on a college athlete like this. Also Davison is not a true point guard.
 

Davison is over rated... not super impressed. High energy, but that's it.

IW played good minutes in his last game. He seems to be getting back in the grove where he left off last season.

Have not seen Wright play
 

Davidson played better last season with a busted shoulder
 


ltf said:
Washington played much more under control. Made a couple lay-ups, moved the ball, didnt force. Big improvement.
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Great improvement is needed on the defensive end. He can't do anything about being undersized, but his effort and desire to stay in front of the offensive players he's guarding has to improve. Right now he's playing swinging gate defense and creating problems for his teammates having to cover up for him. Hard nosed defense on point guards will be needed for him to gain more playing time in conference play.
 

big10guy said:
Great improvement is needed on the defensive end. He can't do anything about being undersized, but his effort and desire to stay in front of the offensive players he's guarding has to improve. Right now he's playing swinging gate defense and creating problems for his teammates having to cover up for him. Hard nosed defense on point guards will be needed for him to gain more playing time in conference play.
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Guess I didnt think his defense wss awful last game, but can no doubt improve. Watson so quick, tough for anyone to stay in front of him.
 

Wright, yes. He is very good and its a shame we could not successfully recruit him.

Davidson? Not sure what I am missing other than the fact he is a much better 3-pt shooter.
 

Block M said:
Davidson? Not sure what I am missing other than the fact he is a much better 3-pt shooter.
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Have you seen his defense, his ball security, and the spelling of his name on the back of his jersey?
 



Block M said:
Wright, yes. He is very good and its a shame we could not successfully recruit him.

Davidson? Not sure what I am missing other than the fact he is a much better 3-pt shooter.
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We recruited Wright hard and were right there. Washington took the spot before Wright. Wright didn't want to commit with another pt guard. Wright also was given unlimited freedom at Colorado last year which also helps. He still turned it over 3 times a game and is a high volume scorer. Wright wouldn't have been given that here with Mason, Coffey, and Murphy. Davison was a big miss for us, but we chose to recruit Wright over him figuring Davison wanted to play Point in college. Davison would've brought some fire to a team that needs it, but it happens and he's a very good fit at Wiskey too.
 

Pretty easy to see most of this programs recruiting focus should be right in state here. The basketball here has become so much better. If you can keep the top 2-3 players home each year, you are virtually guaranteed to be successful.

Heck, had Pitino been able to keep the top guys home the last 3-4 years, this team would have probably been in a final four by now. Close the borders and when a stud top 10 overall comes around, KEEP HIM HERE.
 

People don't understand that rarely do top recruits stay home across the country in basketball. If i have to I can break out the stats again on this but I believe its something like only 30 % of top recruits stay in their home state for college.


Edit: The last time i rant the numbers on it i only looked at the top 25 players in each year for a 4 year stretch. I have to believe that all top 100 players are probably not too different.
 

Go Gophs said:
Pretty easy to see most of this programs recruiting focus should be right in state here. The basketball here has become so much better. If you can keep the top 2-3 players home each year, you are virtually guaranteed to be successful.

Heck, had Pitino been able to keep the top guys home the last 3-4 years, this team would have probably been in a final four by now. Close the borders and when a stud top 10 overall comes around, KEEP HIM HERE.
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It is. We currently start 3 MN kids and have 3 more on the bench. Sometimes kids say no. Indiana would be in final fours if they kept their kids too. We've offered the next 5 kids 2020 class already and have offered at least the next 3 in the 2021 class as well, plus the top kid in the 2022. One thing I think the U could do is make it more enviable to be here. Lower prices so that all state tournament games are at Williams and Mariucci instead of the Target Center. Currently it's cheaper for the MSHSL to be at the Target Center than Williams. Otherwise hopefully the new staff can continue to bring kids in like they have and have a couple better seasons, and we will be more enviable. We also need to put a kid in the NBA. Those 3 things would allow us to hopefully keep a few more, but we will never get them all and will always go a year or two without one probably.
 



Go Gophs said:
Pretty easy to see most of this programs recruiting focus should be right in state here. The basketball here has become so much better. If you can keep the top 2-3 players home each year, you are virtually guaranteed to be successful.

Heck, had Pitino been able to keep the top guys home the last 3-4 years, this team would have probably been in a final four by now. Close the borders and when a stud top 10 overall comes around, KEEP HIM HERE.
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This is just not true and doesn't represent the landscape of college basketball today. The top 25-30 ranked players don't stay home as Tim indicated. Top 50-60 type players like Oturu and Coffey stay home sometimes. If we had a team full of MN players ranked in the 150-250 range, we wouldn't be a final four team. That's just absurd. In fact, most of the best players of the last 20 years that played on the Gophers basketball team weren't from here. Why do we hold on this fantasy like we did for college hockey for so many years?
 

Bad Gopher said:
Have you seen his defense, his ball security, and the spelling of his name on the back of his jersey?
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Looks like .36 FG%; 31% 3-pt FG%; 1.4 APG/1.2 TOPG. These numbers are not very good but I have not watched him play this year, and the stat sheet does not include defensive flops, so maybe he is better on the court than on the stat sheet.
 

Block M said:
Looks like .36 FG%; 31% 3-pt FG%; 1.4 APG/1.2 TOPG. These numbers are not very good but I have not watched him play this year, and the stat sheet does not include defensive flops, so maybe he is better on the court than on the stat sheet.
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Tremendous teammate and defender but not sure what the problem is. Davison wrote a paper on how badly he wanted UW. Wright waited too long and we got IW. Hate his body language but he is barely into his sophomore year.
 

builtbadgers said:
Tremendous teammate and defender but not sure what the problem is. Davison wrote a paper on how badly he wanted UW. Wright waited too long and we got IW. Hate his body language but he is barely into his sophomore year.
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Agreed. I wish IW would be allowed to play to the point of physical fatigue. He is so wound up and antsy on the court that it negatively affects his play, I believe.

Ship sailed on Davison and Wright; they both seem pretty happy in their current environs
 

Davison would be a great addition to the team but he wouldn't solve the PG issue because he isn't really a true PG. He's more of a 2.
 

This is a complete troll job by Reusse.


I'll be waiting for the follow-up article that Alex Ilikainen never reached the level of Jordan Murphy...
 

I have to admit I would rather have Wright at this point, but hindsight is 20-20. At the time, it sure looked like Washington had more upside. Could still turn out that way. Maybe Wright considers transferring home? I know, wishful thinking.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

John Galt said:
This is a complete troll job by Reusse.


I'll be waiting for the follow-up article that Alex Ilikainen never reached the level of Jordan Murphy...
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You'll be a waitin...
 

Time to get over it! We got who we got and I like who we got.
 

Even with a lot of growing pains for the rest of this year, he'll still have two years left.

If he can learn as he goes, he could be very effective. Good news is we are seeing some progress from last year to this year, though not at the rate we'd like to see.
 


I thought Wright should have been the top target in that class from Minnesota, Wright is way more athletic than Washington but was always an average shooter, he wanted to go away to school it always seemed
 

jovs said:
I thought Wright should have been the top target in that class from Minnesota, Wright is way more athletic than Washington but was always an average shooter, he wanted to go away to school it always seemed
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I always liked Wright for the same reason i've always been high on Gabe: they do a lot of things well and have high-major bodies. I think we should ALWAYS look to bring in 3-star locals like them whenever we can. Obviously they both had high growth potential in their games and took it to the next level in their freshman years, presumably by working their asses off in the off season.

I trust Pitino wanted Wright and that it just didn't work out. I believe what i hear, however, that Richard had to be pushed by Ben Johnson into taking a more aggressive approach recruiting Kalscheur. I just don't think Gabe is Pitino's typical type of target. Richard has much more ambitions (delusuons?) of grandeur when it comes to shopping for guards, I think.
 

Wright placed a premium on starting right off the bat
 

John Galt said:
This is a complete troll job by Reusse.


I'll be waiting for the follow-up article that Alex Ilikainen never reached the level of Jordan Murphy...
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So True.

I am surprised that people still follow him. Minnesota should have kicked him to the curb along time ago...
 

ltf said:
Guess I didnt think his defense wss awful last game, but can no doubt improve. Watson so quick, tough for anyone to stay in front of him.
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I would call myself a Washington supporter but even I thought his defense was pretty bad in the last game. I made a remark during the game thread that "at least we don't have to worry about Washington fouling out."
 

CPTMidnight said:
I am surprised that people still follow him.
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I don't follow him but what surprises me most is how many people on this site get so bent out of shape about him. There are always some negative sports (or politics, or entertainment, etc.) writers. Also, I know this is a foreign concept to many of you, but it's actually a good thing to have a few people who are perennial critics, who are not sucked into a fascist consensus of mindless cheerleading (in some cases just because they can't tolerate the risk of being socially unacceptable), and who are always willing to say that "the emperor has no clothes."
 

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