TA'LON COOPER

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Ghos345

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Anyone watched any of South Carolina? Wondering how Cooper is looking?
 






Glad he's gone. He looked like a 52-yr old bringing the ball up the court, and couldn't defend at all. His only hope was to follow his opponent to the basket and try to block shots from behind the play. The transfer that really hurt us in the last few years was Liam Robbins going to Vandy w/uncle.
 

jamiche said:
I don't know why he left. I'd guess money and weather. I think he said something early last season about having a hard time with winter.
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He’s originally from Detroit. Winter isn’t foreign to him. Lots of us don’t like it but also don’t move because of it. Had to be other reasons.
 

SplitDecision said:
Glad he's gone. He looked like a 52-yr old bringing the ball up the court, and couldn't defend at all. His only hope was to follow his opponent to the basket and try to block shots from behind the play. The transfer that really hurt us in the last few years was Liam Robbins going to Vandy w/uncle.
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He was pretty slow of foot to be an effective defensive point guard in the B1G. He was a good passer and a decent shooter. Again, I think he would have helped this year.
 

Holy Man said:
He was pretty slow of foot to be an effective defensive point guard in the B1G. He was a good passer and a decent shooter. Again, I think he would have helped this year.
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agree--better than what we have. But bottom line is either Ben is missing on guards and or he isn't developing//coaching them
 




TD12 said:
agree--better than what we have. But bottom line is either Ben is missing on guards and or he isn't developing//coaching them
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He’s missing. He hasn’t had any around long enough to determine if he can develop or not. Let’s see how Christie grows this season. That would be a good data point.
 

FWIW, the coach at SoCar is from the Bo Ryan/Greg Gard coaching tree, in his 2nd year in Columbia. They're off to a nice 7-0 start, but they aren't expected to be upper half of the SEC. Mizzou-level or so. Rivalry game with Clemson coming next. Haven't seen them play, but Cooper is playing 32 mpg, so he's obviously an important cog.
 

Holy Man said:
He’s originally from Detroit. Winter isn’t foreign to him. Lots of us don’t like it but also don’t move because of it. Had to be other reasons.
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Maybe he was born there but he went to high school in South Carolina and that appears to be where his family lives.
 



Holy Man said:
He’s originally from Detroit. Winter isn’t foreign to him. Lots of us don’t like it but also don’t move because of it. Had to be other reasons.
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Don't think he left because of the winter but he did have a pretty funny tweet about the weather last year!

 

jamiche said:
I don't know why he left. I'd guess money and weather. I think he said something early last season about having a hard time with winter.
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He's actually from South Carolina so I'd imagine he wanted to be close to home. The Gamecocks are undefeated so far and he seems to putting up the same type of numbers there as he did here.
 


Cooper was a crafty off player with very limited quickness. He couldn't beat people off the dribble to set up others and he is very slow laterally. Had we two quick perimeter players, maybe he could have guarded the slowest, but we didn't. Maybe S Carolina does?
 


march madness said:
Cooper was a crafty off player with very limited quickness. He couldn't beat people off the dribble to set up others and he is very slow laterally. Had we two quick perimeter players, maybe he could have guarded the slowest, but we didn't. Maybe S Carolina does?
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He would be a great guy to play with on your rec league team
 

march madness said:
Cooper was a crafty off player with very limited quickness. He couldn't beat people off the dribble to set up others and he is very slow laterally. Had we two quick perimeter players, maybe he could have guarded the slowest, but we didn't. Maybe S Carolina does?
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SoCar has improved their defensive efficiency by over 200 ranks so far this season. A coach that knows how to teach team defense can figure out how to use a guy like Cooper in concert with the other 4 on the floor effectively.
 

Holy Man said:
He was pretty slow of foot to be an effective defensive point guard in the B1G. He was a good passer and a decent shooter. Again, I think he would have helped this year.
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I am sure Ben would have loved to have Cooper stick around and he definitely would have helped this year. He had his limitations and he shot really poorly from the line but he would have been a solid backcourt piece and would have been surrounded by a much better supporting cast this year had he stayed.

I feel like there was a lot of negativity towards Cooper last year even though he wasn't the main issue with the roster by a longshot.
 

formerlybis said:
SoCar has improved their defensive efficiency by over 200 ranks so far this season. A coach that knows how to teach team defense can figure out how to use a guy like Cooper in concert with the other 4 on the floor effectively.
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Over the years, I've seen several examples of a player who is a fairly poor 1 on 1 defender, but can be a pretty good team defensive player because of their ability to, if not stay in front of a guy, be able to funnel that player into spots on the floor where the team defensive concepts can take over and neutralize the offensive players' 1 on 1 advantage. Of course, great team defense requires that everybody on the floor buying in and executing.
 

I wish he would have stayed. He ha flaws, but he would still be starting.
 
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