josh087
Sharing Common Sense & Reality
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Forgot to post this over the weekend - but I had a chance to see Tyus Jones in person when I called the Kennedy/Apple Valley game on Friday night.
Overall, I was impressed with what I saw. Here are some of my observations:
- Good speed.
- listed at 6'0" - probably 5'10" or 5'11" - hopefully there is one more growth spurt.
- Excellent ball handler, particularly for an 8th grader. Apple Valley basically put the ball in his hands with the lead in the 2nd half and he made no mistakes.
- Very good FT shooter - 80% so far this season.
- Didn't force the offense. Basically slashed and passed to the bigs down low or passed to one of their guards who hit 5 threes in the game.
- Showed ability to be able to beat people off the dribble - but again didn't force things too much. AV had a huge height advantage against undermanned Kennedy and went to the bigs most of the game.
I think the thing he has to work on most over the next four years is outside shooting. I don't think he took a shot outside of 7 or 8 feet in the game. Looking at the stats for the season he's only attempted 40 three pointers on the season, hitting only 9 of those. So obviously not much confidence yet in the outside shot. And considering AV has two guys at 6'7" - one who averages 26ppg and draws a lot of attention - you would think he would have more attempts than he does.
Overall - like I said I was impressed. Kennedy is not a very good team, but I think what is encouraging is that he has already a good grasp of ball handling and running an offense (most young players work on shooting so much that this is the last part of the game they learn).
One other side note - former Hawkeye Duez Henderson is an assistant coach on the team, so hopefully he doesn't get too much into Tyus' ear about going to Iowa city!
Overall, I was impressed with what I saw. Here are some of my observations:
- Good speed.
- listed at 6'0" - probably 5'10" or 5'11" - hopefully there is one more growth spurt.
- Excellent ball handler, particularly for an 8th grader. Apple Valley basically put the ball in his hands with the lead in the 2nd half and he made no mistakes.
- Very good FT shooter - 80% so far this season.
- Didn't force the offense. Basically slashed and passed to the bigs down low or passed to one of their guards who hit 5 threes in the game.
- Showed ability to be able to beat people off the dribble - but again didn't force things too much. AV had a huge height advantage against undermanned Kennedy and went to the bigs most of the game.
I think the thing he has to work on most over the next four years is outside shooting. I don't think he took a shot outside of 7 or 8 feet in the game. Looking at the stats for the season he's only attempted 40 three pointers on the season, hitting only 9 of those. So obviously not much confidence yet in the outside shot. And considering AV has two guys at 6'7" - one who averages 26ppg and draws a lot of attention - you would think he would have more attempts than he does.
Overall - like I said I was impressed. Kennedy is not a very good team, but I think what is encouraging is that he has already a good grasp of ball handling and running an offense (most young players work on shooting so much that this is the last part of the game they learn).
One other side note - former Hawkeye Duez Henderson is an assistant coach on the team, so hopefully he doesn't get too much into Tyus' ear about going to Iowa city!