Gopher Basketball
Lawrence had a very solid sophomore season at Oklahoma in 2004-05. He averaged 22 minutes per game, scored 9.5 points, and made a blistering 43.5% of his 170 three-point attempts (good for 2nd place in the Big Twelve). Lawrence lost his starting position towards the end of the season, and although his minutes stayed steady, he decided it was time for a fresh start in front of his friends and family.
McKenzie becomes the fourth high-profile hometown recruit in as many years to decide to come back home, following in the footsteps of current Gophers Adam Boone and Dan Coleman and former Gopher Kris Humphries. Several less-heralded players have done the same, and Rick Rickert‘s decommitment from Arizona also fits the pattern. Basically, a chance to play at home is tough to pass up. That fact sometimes gets missed in the recruiting hype, but it eventually seems to sink in.
Had former Minneapolis North center James Davis still been a member of the recruiting class, the Gophers would now remarkably have landed the top four players in GopherHole.com’s Minnesota High School Class of 2003 rankings. I say “remarkably”, because each of the four initially headed elsewhere. We had Humphries #1, McKenzie #2, Davis #3, and Coleman #4. Anybody see this coming two years ago?
Lawrence will have to sit out the 2005-06 season as a transfer and then will have two years of eligibility remaining. That will put him in the same class as Rico Tucker, and the similarities don’t end there. Both are excellent athletes with good quickness and hops and a chance to be excellent defenders. Both also have had plenty of people question whether they’re true point guards.
Oklahoma had made their decision and was using Lawrence exclusively as a shooting guard. I’m not sure if it was the result or the cause, but that decision coincided with Lawrence become a spot-up shooter rather than the penetrator and transition player we saw at Henry. There’s nothing wrong with spotting up when you shoot the three like Lawrence does, but I know he can do more than that. That’s a big part of the reason why he’s coming back home.
Some now see Rico and Lawrence in competition for the point guard, but I see them as being two complementary combo guards who have a chance to be very effective together. College basketball has become a game of quickness and athleticism, and these two will be able to compete with any backcourt in that regard.
As a junior in high school, Lawrence was a big-time playmaker. He was also an excellent defender. He moved into more of a scorer’s roll as a senior after the graduation of Terry Pettis and others, and he’s never really gotten back to what he used to do. His stats from this season make that apparent: just 1.2 assists and 1.2 steals per game. Even more striking to me: Lawrence attempted just 26 free throws all season. In high school, Lawrence could get to the basket at will and was at the line on a regular basis. Again, it’s hard to say whether that was the cause or the result of high he was used at Oklahoma, but I do know that he has it in him.
Whether the Gophers are “just” getting a deadly spot-up shooter or a dynamic all-around player who can also run the point and create havoc on defense won’t be known for about 18 months, but either way, adding a 10 ppg scorer from arguably the top conference in the country the past few years sounds like a good addition to me. You don’t score 18 points against UConn and 16 against Texas and Texas Tech (as a sophomore no less) without having some talent.
Now if only these guys would just sign with Minnesota in the first place instead of making things so difficult….
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