Impressions of Carlos Morris

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On the surface, this looks like a great signing by Pitino. I mean, Carlos Morris was a 4 star, top 100 prospect coming out of high school before he was deemed academically ineligible to play at South Carolina. He's since gone to NJCAA D-I Chipola and performed with mixed results. I saw his mix tape and he doesn't appear to have great athleticism, which is a little frustrating considering fellow 2014 signee Josh Martin doesn't exactly make Rodney Williams blush either. I enjoyed his court vision and think he has decent size. HOWEVER, his dreadful shooting percentage from deep is quite disturbing. As of Jan. 24, he's shooting 26% from deep on 80 attempts. STOP SHOOTING!!! This doesn't excite me one bit. If any of you can get me to embrace this guy again, I'm all ears.
 

BigGopherFan said:
On the surface, this looks like a great signing by Pitino. I mean, Carlos Morris was a 4 star, top 100 prospect coming out of high school before he was deemed academically ineligible to play at South Carolina. He's since gone to NJCAA D-I Chipola and performed with mixed results. I saw his mix tape and he doesn't appear to have great athleticism, which is a little frustrating considering fellow 2014 signee Josh Martin doesn't exactly make Rodney Williams blush either. I enjoyed his court vision and think he has decent size. HOWEVER, his dreadful shooting percentage from deep is quite disturbing. As of Jan. 24, he's shooting 26% from deep on 80 attempts. STOP SHOOTING!!! This doesn't excite me one bit. If any of you can get me to embrace this guy again, I'm all ears.
Click to expand...
may be a great get but not based on prep rep. Not a 4 star! 3 star rivals 2 star ESPN,
 


BigGopherFan said:
On the surface, this looks like a great signing by Pitino. I mean, Carlos Morris was a 4 star, top 100 prospect coming out of high school before he was deemed academically ineligible to play at South Carolina. He's since gone to NJCAA D-I Chipola and performed with mixed results. I saw his mix tape and he doesn't appear to have great athleticism, which is a little frustrating considering fellow 2014 signee Josh Martin doesn't exactly make Rodney Williams blush either. I enjoyed his court vision and think he has decent size. HOWEVER, his dreadful shooting percentage from deep is quite disturbing. As of Jan. 24, he's shooting 26% from deep on 80 attempts. STOP SHOOTING!!! This doesn't excite me one bit. If any of you can get me to embrace this guy again, I'm all ears.
Click to expand...

Dre Mathieu shot 29% from deep last year and although he doesn't shoot many 3's, he's up to 48% this year. It's a small sample size but early returns suggest Pitino and his staff are excellent in player development. Considering his ranking out of high school I have to believe he's pretty talented.
 

Here is why you should embrace him - players Pitino has gotten to come with him:
- Dre Mathieu
- Malik Smith
- Rakeem Buckles (attempted)

So nobody accuses me of cherry picking:
- Joey King, whom the jury is still out on, but is a true sophomore and will be a fine role player at a position that was of GREAT need this year post-Buckles debacle
 


BigGopherFan said:
On the surface, this looks like a great signing by Pitino. I mean, Carlos Morris was a 4 star, top 100 prospect coming out of high school before he was deemed academically ineligible to play at South Carolina. He's since gone to NJCAA D-I Chipola and performed with mixed results. I saw his mix tape and he doesn't appear to have great athleticism, which is a little frustrating considering fellow 2014 signee Josh Martin doesn't exactly make Rodney Williams blush either. I enjoyed his court vision and think he has decent size. HOWEVER, his dreadful shooting percentage from deep is quite disturbing. As of Jan. 24, he's shooting 26% from deep on 80 attempts. STOP SHOOTING!!! This doesn't excite me one bit. If any of you can get me to embrace this guy again, I'm all ears.
Click to expand...

Since Rodney Williams is apparently your athletic gold standard, and since Rodney is NOT a particularly good athlete, I am feeling better about Morris and Martin already.
 

BigGopherFan said:
On the surface, this looks like a great signing by Pitino. I mean, Carlos Morris was a 4 star, top 100 prospect coming out of high school before he was deemed academically ineligible to play at South Carolina. He's since gone to NJCAA D-I Chipola and performed with mixed results. I saw his mix tape and he doesn't appear to have great athleticism, which is a little frustrating considering fellow 2014 signee Josh Martin doesn't exactly make Rodney Williams blush either. I enjoyed his court vision and think he has decent size. HOWEVER, his dreadful shooting percentage from deep is quite disturbing. As of Jan. 24, he's shooting 26% from deep on 80 attempts. STOP SHOOTING!!! This doesn't excite me one bit. If any of you can get me to embrace this guy again, I'm all ears.
Click to expand...

From the ONE video out there of Carlos in his freshman season, He is a solid enough athlete that just needs to put on some muscle. His shooting form looked fine and he shot 35% from 3 last season. I also noticed that his handles look wayyy better than Austin's. However, there is one video on youtube for Carlos so it's hard to know exactly what type of player he is.

In regards to Josh Martin's athleticism, you must be smoking something if you don't think the kid has hops and quickness for his size. I saw a picture of him blocking a shot and his head was almost level with the rim. His athleticism is not a question mark.
 

With Carlos Morris blind faith is very important. Actually if we get a Piper type we should be okay. Getting them in reverse order makes more sense, but all's well that ends well.
 

Chipola's conference games are broadcast on the internet. Here's some links to their last 5 games(hopefully it works...you may have to download "Silverlight" to be able to watch)...WARNING: Chipola has terrible uniforms...very hard to read the numbers...especially their home whites... Carlos Morris is #11, plays mostly as a wing...moves over to the top of the key also.

Chipola 61 Pensacola St 52 ... Morris with 10 pts 5 reb, 5 asst
http://panhandle.ezstream.com/play/index.cfm?fuseaction=embstay&id=401F4497F3

Chipola 86 NW Fla St 78...Morris with 16 points, 5 reb, 4 asst.
http://panhandle.ezstream.com/play/index.cfm?fuseaction=embstay&id=4014C99764

Tallahassee CC 80 Chipola 59... Morris with 4pts, 2 reb, 1 asst
http://panhandle.ezstream.com/play/index.cfm?fuseaction=embstay&id=40228C96FC

Chipola 69 Gulf Coast 65...Morris with 14 pts, 7 reb, 2 asst
http://panhandle.ezstream.com/play/index.cfm?fuseaction=embstay&id=40165A9694

Chipola 77 Pensacola 76...Morris with 20 pts, 3 reb, 3 asst
http://panhandle.ezstream.com/play/index.cfm?fuseaction=embstay&id=401BF195B7

complete list of archived Panhandle Conference games
http://panhandle.ezstream.com/broadcasts/index.cfm?fuseaction=archives&org=panhandle
 





Also, I'd take a good athlete, that has great handles and ability to get to the rim over a great athlete that can't do anything but catch oops, every single time. I'm not sure why the OP insists on comparing our recruits to Rodney Williams. Rodney Williams was not a great player for us. I'd argue Dre Mathieu is already a better recruit for us than Rodney was. I'm not going to stress over a Pitino recruit until A) Pitino misses on a kid and B) we actually see the recruit on the court.
 




jaymil said:
Dre Mathieu shot 29% from deep last year and although he doesn't shoot many 3's, he's up to 48% this year. It's a small sample size but early returns suggest Pitino and his staff are excellent in player development. Considering his ranking out of high school I have to believe he's pretty talented.
Click to expand...

If anyone is interested in seeing pre-Gopher Dre, his team (Central Arizona College) played 2 games in the 2013 NJCAA Division 1 National Tourney. Here are the links to those games.

Central Arizona 87 Salt Lake 82...Mathieu with 20 points, 2 reb, 5 asst...Dre fouled out with 5:21 left in the game, his team with a 2 point lead.
http://www.ihigh.com/njcaatv/broadcast_283664.html?silverlight=1

(Eventual National Champion) Central Florida 81 Central Arizona 68...Mathieu with 13 points, 3 rebounds, 9 assists
http://www.ihigh.com/njcaatv/broadcast_283669.html?silverlight=1
 

fryguy22 said:
Here is why you should embrace him - players Pitino has gotten to come with him:
- Dre Mathieu
- Malik Smith
- Rakeem Buckles (attempted)

So nobody accuses me of cherry picking:
- Joey King, whom the jury is still out on, but is a true sophomore and will be a fine role player at a position that was of GREAT need this year post-Buckles debacle
Click to expand...

Joey King does log a fair amount of minutes. He may not be all-conference but he is the #1 back-up at the four and part of the 8-man rotation. We would be worse off without him. It's not like coach had a whole lot to chose from on short notice.

Did anyone else notice last game he made a couple of Dusty Rychart type shots? Put the shot up quickly under the basket without jumping at all.......both went in.
 

I lived in the panhandle of FL and went to many games, including the state tournament (FL JUCO). I can tell you that that is probably the best JUCO basketball in the country. Not just my opinion. While I was there the hometown team had 7 d-1 signees in two years, plus one who went directly to the NBA ( Kedrick Brown). The drop off from D-1 to what Carlos is playing against isn't significant.
 

doctor j said:
Since Rodney Williams is apparently your athletic gold standard, and since Rodney is NOT a particularly good athlete, I am feeling better about Morris and Martin already.
Click to expand...

Rodney is a ridiculous athlete. We need basketball players (see Doug McD).
 

doctor j said:
Since Rodney Williams is apparently your athletic gold standard, and since Rodney is NOT a particularly good athlete, I am feeling better about Morris and Martin already.
Click to expand...

I'm curious what you think being "athletic" means.
 

gopherlaney said:
Rodney is a ridiculous athlete. We need basketball players (see Doug McD).
Click to expand...

Let give you a quick primer on athleticism. Athleticism is some combination of quickness, speed, strength, coordination, body control, AND jumping ability. A great athlete will be in the 98th/99.5 percentile in most if not all of these categories. Lebron is the gold standard for athleticism--99.5% in all categories. Rodney was not quick, not fast, not strong, and not particularly coordinated. By division 1 standards he would not reach the 70th percentile in any of these categories with the exception of his jumping which which I'll admit was in the 99th/up percentile range. Even here, he was not a quick jumper. Now in regards to his basketball skills--obviously lacking, yet I've been reading comments on this board for years implying he was some type of lottery pick. He was never HONORABLE MENTION in the Big 10.
 


Carlos will be fine. Somewhere south of Vincent Grier and North of Joe Coleman is where I see him. I'm ultra-confident that our coach will identify his skills/role and teach it to him to make him as as efficient as possible.
 

Here is what I have to go by on Josh Martin, who is a decent, mid-level, 3-star recruit. If he was some super athlete, he would be in the top 100.
Scout.com:
"He doesn't possess the more modern complement of ball skills and shooting talents of his elite contemporaries, but he largely overcomes his 6-7 height with tenacity, strength and a zealous penchant for rebounding..."

The bolded part doesn't suggest that he can jump out of the gym or take anyone off the dribble. I love the fact that he's tenacious and possesses of "zealous penchant" for rebounding. But he's not a super athlete. Maybe an OK athlete, but compared to his fellow Division I peers, he's not a crazy athlete.
 

BigGopherFan said:
Here is what I have to go by on Josh Martin, who is a decent, mid-level, 3-star recruit. If he was some super athlete, he would be in the top 100.
Scout.com:
"He doesn't possess the more modern complement of ball skills and shooting talents of his elite contemporaries, but he largely overcomes his 6-7 height with tenacity, strength and a zealous penchant for rebounding..."

The bolded part doesn't suggest that he can jump out of the gym or take anyone off the dribble. I love the fact that he's tenacious and possesses of "zealous penchant" for rebounding. But he's not a super athlete. Maybe an OK athlete, but compared to his fellow Division I peers, he's not a crazy athlete.
Click to expand...

Wait, so you bolded a random part of a sentence, and since that arbitrarily selected fraction of a sentence says nothing about him being a great athlete, you just assume that he isn't? Hahahahaha you can't make this stuff up. What planet are you from?

EDIT: Here is part of his ESPN evaluation. You'll have to forgive me as I did not find a completely random sentence to bold and draw conclusions from like you did. Instead, I decided to read it and see if it actually said anything about his athleticism (weird concept, I know). Here's what I found: "Martin possesses a terrific frame with long arms and he's an outstanding athlete. He runs very well and can finish with a thunderous dunk at the other end. He can step out and knock down the 18-foot jump shot with regularity and he gets good lift on it."
 

From the Seattle Times regarding Martin:

Josh Martin (Sr.)- Bothell, F, 6-7: Martin is the most electric player in the state. Blessed with freakish athleticism, Martin can finish around the rim with a variety of dunks. Martin also has range that extends to the three-point line.

I think we can put this "athleticism" debate to bed.

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/take2...-basketball-washingtons-top-25-boys-recruits/
 

GophersOnTheRise said:
Wait, so you bolded a random part of a sentence, and since that arbitrarily selected fraction of a sentence says nothing about him being a great athlete, you just assume that he isn't? Hahahahaha you can't make this stuff up. What planet are you from?

EDIT: Here is part of his ESPN evaluation. You'll have to forgive me as I did not find a completely random sentence to bold and draw conclusions from like you did. Instead, I decided to read it and see if it actually said anything about his athleticism (weird concept, I know). Here's what I found: "Martin possesses a terrific frame with long arms and he's an outstanding athlete. He runs very well and can finish with a thunderous dunk at the other end. He can step out and knock down the 18-foot jump shot with regularity and he gets good lift on it."
Click to expand...

Oh snap!
 

I don't have real high expectations for Morris, but Big Gopher Fan has a hilariously awful track record with almost everything Gopher prediction related. This kid is guaranteed to be a stud now and prove me wrong.

And Rodney Williams isn't an athlete?? This thread is great.
 

doctor j said:
Let give you a quick primer on athleticism. Athleticism is some combination of quickness, speed, strength, coordination, body control, AND jumping ability. A great athlete will be in the 98th/99.5 percentile in most if not all of these categories. Lebron is the gold standard for athleticism--99.5% in all categories. Rodney was not quick, not fast, not strong, and not particularly coordinated. By division 1 standards he would not reach the 70th percentile in any of these categories with the exception of his jumping which which I'll admit was in the 99th/up percentile range. Even here, he was not a quick jumper. Now in regards to his basketball skills--obviously lacking, yet I've been reading comments on this board for years implying he was some type of lottery pick. He was never HONORABLE MENTION in the Big 10.
Click to expand...

You are a moron.
 


scher215 said:
What part? All if those things make up athleticism. I'm not going to rank Rodney in them, but those are all definitely aspects of athleticism.
Click to expand...

To say he wasn't a quick leaper is ridiculous. That's exactly what made him so freakishly good at dunking. He also had the 4th fastest sprint in the draft, top 15 in agility. Combined with his size, that's impressive. All of the draft projection sites talked about his quickness and speed and ability to defend.
 

BGF,
I'm long past worrying about you embracing anything regarding the Gopher program. A bit of your history:

January 2, 2014
Following the Michigan loss:
This is a really really bad loss. You have to win these games at home. Not Devastating, but close. I was unimpressed with crunch time execution. We simply don't have enough good players to be competitive in this league.

September 28, 2013
Following the Iowa loss (football):
It's meltdown time for the Gophers program. Another embarrassing performance on national TV in a pivotal game. How does this staff expect to keep its commitments for 2014 and beyond playing dreadful like this? It honestly befuddles how bad this program really is. 17-0? Really? At home, to IOWA!? I am a passionate fan and will stick behind them, but I also see things as they are. We are just reaching news lows with every new coach.

May 15, 2013
Regarding the Malik Smith signing:
Nevermind, I retract my amended statement. He did shoot 36% overall, which is terrible. He's going to have to make some major adjustments as a Gopher because he won't have the automatic green light. But, he should get more open looks. We will see. Don't love the signing, but it was either him or Coleman and both are very flawed players.

May 7, 2013
This is going to be a tiny team, no doubt. Mo Walker isn't going to play any minutes, so EE better come to camp in shape.

And from January 28, 2012, the all-time classic from BGF, which epitomizes his rational approach to the Gophers:
Why does this always seem to happen? Missed free throws. Stupid turnovers. Bricked shots. Botched rebounds. Click, the opposition is right back in the game, and then...boom, Minnesota is losing. This has been a discouraging trend of Tubby Smith's teams at Minnesota. Instead of getting all pissed and saying this team sucks and I quit watching, I'm going to ask a civil question: Why does this happen? Is it the players? The coaches? Or a combination of both? It's bizarre. Tonight's loss is a complete dagger in the heart of Gopher fans and more profoundly, the team. Essentially zero chance at an NCAA Tournament berth and another disgusting and sour losing season. I will continue to watch and support the team, but with the Timberwolves playing an exciting brand of ball (and winning a little) my attention may begin to sway toward the basketball team in Minneapolis that actually has a chance to beat really good team.

The Gophers actually won this game, 77-72, in overtime, but BGF couldn't resist jumping in before the final result with his edgy commentary.

We all have said ridiculous statements on this board from time to time, but few are so consistently negative and reactionary as BGF. I can't help but wonder if he is a pre-teen, as the dual obsession with a) dismissing recruits who aren't 4 or 5 stars; and b) judging entire seasons on the basis of one game recall how 10 year old Cool Hand Gopher would react.
 

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