Brandon Johnson Commits

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Holy Man said:
Offering a scholarship after a guy has committed somewhere else is an effective recruiting strategy. Bobby Bowden used to do that in football, and Lute Olson was notorious for it.:)
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Excellent point. LOL
 








If Robbins gets eligibility, is the combination of Johnson and Robbins comparable to Demir & Oturo?

Oturo + Demir Avg. 27.2 PPG, 16.3 RPG, 2.9 BPG

Robbins + Johnson Avg. 29.5 PPG, 15.2 RPG, 3.9 bpg (obviously both at lover levels)

My opinion based off of very limited highlight videos:
  1. Definite upgrade defensively.
  2. Id think/hope total offensive production would be about the same. One almost for sure downgrade is that I am not sure how good of isolation players either is. Will be hard to replace oturos ability to bail out the offense when it stalls.
Hopefully they can add walton as another long defender and he can provide similar numbers than Willis offensively w/ a slight uptick in shooting with more length on defense.
 

Really good get. Caution lies in two things, i follow closely what the competition returns and adds and will we be a top 3 conference team defensively.
 



builtbadgers said:
Really good get. Caution lies in two things, i follow closely what the competition returns and adds and will we be a top 3 conference team defensively.
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We will be if we are. Who knows? This might be the best depth of talent he has gathered for a defensive team. More depth and more length. Let's see if he is able to make it work.
 

builtbadgers said:
Really good get. Caution lies in two things, i follow closely what the competition returns and adds and will we be a top 3 conference team defensively.
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From the looks of it, Johnson has the ability to be a good defender. Does anyone know if he actually is? I really am starting to like this roster again as far as defensive potential, but so far this staff hasn't proven it can do it yet.
 

manderson1984 said:
From the looks of it, Johnson has the ability to be a good defender. Does anyone know if he actually is? I really am starting to like this roster again as far as defensive potential, but so far this staff hasn't proven it can do it yet.
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There is just no way that having good depth and more length won't help defensively. I know you saw that over the course of the year, Ihnen improved dramatically on defense from early in the year. I think they will be improved on D. There's no way we can replace Oturu with one guy but as a team we can better defensively and maybe even on offense as well.
 

bga1 said:
There is just no way that having good depth and more length won't help defensively. I know you saw that over the course of the year, Ihnen improved dramatically on defense from early in the year. I think they will be improved on D. There's no way we can replace Oturu with one guy but as a team we can better defensively and maybe even on offense as well.
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Certainly possible and we have to be better as staying the same is getting worse.
 




bga1 said:
There is just no way that having good depth and more length won't help defensively. I know you saw that over the course of the year, Ihnen improved dramatically on defense from early in the year. I think they will be improved on D. There's no way we can replace Oturu with one guy but as a team we can better defensively and maybe even on offense as well.
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I think our defense at the end of the year was better than at the start and that was with a shorter bench. I think our poor defense was guys not working together as a unit which happens a lot at the start of the year. We were better last year than the year before and hopefully this year we continue to get better, but we need someone on staff to teach it then. Ihnen's growth defensively through the year was very good to watch as was Oturo's from a freshman to a sophomore (although he was still average to above average).
 

Awesome news! I watched a bit of his tape and he looks like he has the athletic profile of a Big 10 basketball player. I think he will help us next year.

As to the talk about Ihnen at the 3 - - I just really don't like it. For me, I guess I would play Williams there now. I think moving Ihnen to the 3 takes away a lot of his advantages. To me, he is a strong rebounder and a solid low post defender. He can defend the 4's while I'll also making them defend him on the wings.

I think playing him at the three forces HIM to leave his comfort zone. He now is going to be chasing around SFs and likely posting them up on the block. That is not his comfort zone (to the best of my knowledge).

It is the kind of move that really flies in the face of modern basketball. The effectiveness of the stretch 4 is what I described above. You can force post players to play outside of their comfort zones on the perimeter.

Because of the roster breakdown, I fully expect to see him playing quite a bit at the 3, but I think it would be a poor roster/rotation decision.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Awesome news! I watched a bit of his tape and he looks like he has the athletic profile of a Big 10 basketball player. I think he will help us next year.

As to the talk about Ihnen at the 3 - - I just really don't like it. For me, I guess I would play Williams there now. I think moving Ihnen to the 3 takes away a lot of his advantages. To me, he is a strong rebounder and a solid low post defender. He can defend the 4's while I'll also making them defend him on the wings.

I think playing him at the three forces HIM to leave his comfort zone. He now is going to be chasing around SFs and likely posting them up on the block. That is not his comfort zone (to the best of my knowledge).

It is the kind of move that really flies in the face of modern basketball. The effectiveness of the stretch 4 is what I described above. You can force post players to play outside of their comfort zones on the perimeter.

Because of the roster breakdown, I fully expect to see him playing quite a bit at the 3, but I think it would be a poor roster/rotation decision.
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I like him at the 4 as well, especially if he gets stronger this offseason, but I think the thing he is most comfortable doing offensively is catching and shooting, which he will obviously still be able to do at the 3. He moves extremely well, so I'm not real concerned about him chasing other teams' 3s around. We could be a really good rebounding team with him playing there.
 

Keyser Söze said:
I like him at the 4 as well, especially if he gets stronger this offseason, but I think the thing he is most comfortable doing offensively is catching and shooting, which he will obviously still be able to do at the 3. He moves extremely well, so I'm not real concerned about him chasing other teams' 3s around. We could be a really good rebounding team with him playing there.
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But I think if he does it at the 3, it doesn't take the opposition out of their comfort zone. SFs are used to defending the perimeter.

If Ihnen went back to the 3, I would be pretty worried about awful spacing again. To me, that would really hurt Carr's game.
 


Bob_Loblaw said:
But I think if he does it at the 3, it doesn't take the opposition out of their comfort zone. SFs are used to defending the perimeter.

If Ihnen went back to the 3, I would be pretty worried about awful spacing again. To me, that would really hurt Carr's game.
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Why would that hurt spacing? Ihnen was our best 3 point shooter last season and that's pretty much all he did on offense besides crash the boards. It's not like he's suddenly going to clog the paint just because he has a smaller guy defending him. I'm sure he'd continue to roam the perimeter like he did last year and spacing would be fine.

Or are you saying because Johnson won't be playing from outside? He appears to be a decent 3 point shooter too, so might not be a problem.

EDIT:
If these are the types of shots Johnson normally takes, then I think our spacing will be just fine if he plays the 4 and Ihnen plays the 3:
 
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Really nice day for Pitino. I would have put the chances of him doing well enough to keep his job (bare minimum over .500 in B1G and in the NCAA) at somewhere around 5% before the Spring additions. Assuming Robbins is allowed to play and adding Johnson today pushed that number up to somewhere around 40% in my head with time left to add another piece or two this Spring and further increase my optimism.

One of the things I like about Johnson is that he was a 3 year starter for WMU. He took on a much bigger scoring role as a Junior coming off his injury and started shooting significantly more 3's (not great from there but took over 2 a game after averaging less than 1 as a soph and .5 as a frosh). His free throw shooting has improved from 58% as a frosh to almost 74% as a junior so that's a good sign for his continued improvement as a shooter. There is almost nothing on him on YouTube so it's tough to get a great feel for whether he can play the 3 or really needs to stick to the 4. If either he or Ihnen can play the 3, that would give us some impressive length up front with Robbins at center. Throw in a plus defender in Gabe at the 2 and Built's well stated desires for a very good to elite defense look realistic.
 

EG#9 said:
Really nice day for Pitino. I would have put the chances of him doing well enough to keep his job (bare minimum over .500 in B1G and in the NCAA) at somewhere around 5% before the Spring additions. Assuming Robbins is allowed to play and adding Johnson today pushed that number up to somewhere around 40% in my head with time left to add another piece or two this Spring and further increase my optimism.

One of the things I like about Johnson is that he was a 3 year starter for WMU. He took on a much bigger scoring role as a Junior coming off his injury and started shooting significantly more 3's (not great from there but took over 2 a game after averaging less than 1 as a soph and .5 as a frosh). His free throw shooting has improved from 58% as a frosh to almost 74% as a junior so that's a good sign for his continued improvement as a shooter. There is almost nothing on him on YouTube so it's tough to get a great feel for whether he can play the 3 or really needs to stick to the 4. If either he or Ihnen can play the 3, that would give us some impressive length up front with Robbins at center. Throw in a plus defender in Gabe at the 2 and Built's well stated desires for a very good to elite defense look realistic.
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Hard to say for sure given the lack of video like you mentioned, but my assumption is that Ihnen is more likely to play the 3 than Johnson. Ihnen was our most efficient 3 point shooter last year and he moves incredibly well for his size, plus, it seems like Johnson is stronger, so him playing the 4 just makes more sense to me.
 

Keyser Söze said:
Hard to say for sure given the lack of video like you mentioned, but my assumption is that Ihnen is more likely to play the 3 than Johnson. Ihnen was our most efficient 3 point shooter last year and he moves incredibly well for his size, plus, it seems like Johnson is stronger, so him playing the 4 just makes more sense to me.
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I'm supporting Ihnen at the 4 as well. He really can be the utility guy for us though. Johnson could run the 5 when Ihnen runs the 4. It's really all dependent on the matchups you're looking at over the numbers. Where can you create advantages for yourself.
 

Pitino was able to land some guys who can play right away with the two transfers. Other than that nothing much changed. Still looks like a bottom half of the conference team.
 


Keyser Söze said:
Why would that hurt spacing? Ihnen was our best 3 point shooter last season and that's pretty much all he did on offense besides crash the boards. It's not like he's suddenly going to clog the paint just because he has a smaller guy defending him. I'm sure he'd continue to roam the perimeter like he did last year and spacing would be fine.

Or are you saying because Johnson won't be playing from outside? He appears to be a decent 3 point shooter too, so might not be a problem.

EDIT:
If these are the types of shots Johnson normally takes, then I think our spacing will be just fine if he plays the 4 and Ihnen plays the 3:
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Thanks for posting that. Obviously highlights but Johnson looks pretty good off the dribble. It might not matter who plays the 3 or 4 between him and Ihnen. That pair is the most athletic 3/4 combo we will have had in a while.
 

bga1 said:
Thanks for posting that. Obviously highlights but Johnson looks pretty good off the dribble. It might not matter who plays the 3 or 4 between him and Ihnen. That pair is the most athletic 3/4 combo we will have had in a while.
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Agreed, what I should have said was I don't think spacing will be a problem if they are on the floor at the same time along with Robbins or someone else at the 5.
 

I am very excited about the Brandon Johnson pick-up. I am not as optimistic as some that he will be able to play the 5 in the B10. He looks pretty skinny. I hope Robbins is eligible.

I love that he is able to knock down those 19 footers, and can put the ball on the floor drive. And the athleticism. He will be an upgrade over Demir or Omersa.
 
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I really think transfers are all gonna get a one-time waiver this year due to corona, weakened economy. I think waiver generates more excitement, more money for universities and college basketball. At least that's what I think the NCAA will say this year. Or Could be wrong but that's my prediction on it.
 

chri1673 said:
If Robbins gets eligibility, is the combination of Johnson and Robbins comparable to Demir & Oturo?

Oturo + Demir Avg. 27.2 PPG, 16.3 RPG, 2.9 BPG

Robbins + Johnson Avg. 29.5 PPG, 15.2 RPG, 3.9 bpg (obviously both at lover levels)

My opinion based off of very limited highlight videos:
  1. Definite upgrade defensively.
  2. Id think/hope total offensive production would be about the same. One almost for sure downgrade is that I am not sure how good of isolation players either is. Will be hard to replace oturos ability to bail out the offense when it stalls.
Hopefully they can add walton as another long defender and he can provide similar numbers than Willis offensively w/ a slight uptick in shooting with more length on defense.
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Lover levels?
Is that why they transferred in?
 

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